Pets at Home

lilac_lady

If only other shops had the same staff training as Pets at Home, we'd be happier customers.

pug_in_a_bed

The pet items are reasonably priced but I would never purchase a pet from there. I have adpoted from a lcoal rescue which advertised through PAH, but thats it.

I recently intervened at pah when a member of staff wrongly sexed a guinea pig a couple were buying to keep their female company, which would have resulted in them having a lot more pigs very soon!

Mara69

I find Pets at Home expensive; Jolleys is much cheaper. We've also been overcharged every single time we've shopped in there.

dibuzz

They are expensive but the help and advice I've had makes it worthwhile.
Thanks to a lovely man's advice our dog is a lot calmer and it no longer takes 3 of us to walk her.

clhs

I have used petsathome.com for about 18 months now and have found them really good. I am quite impatient so I wish they delivered a little quicker (they're normally about five days which, admittedly, isn't actually bad).

I've been to their Waddon (Croydon, basically) store quite recently and found the staff absolutely charming. I really like the store.

kiss_me_now9

I worked at Pets at Home for two weeks when I was 16... got shouted at by some old man who wanted a hamster and some woman who wanted a rabbit when I'd had no handling training and didn't even have keys for the cages. I had to give some guy advice on what dog toy to get his puppy and I hadn't got a clue. Possible their training standards have changed slightly over the last 5 years though!

elfen

I quite like PAH, I got my ratties from there and they're so well behaved its amazing

trumpton

Thanks for the replies. I was a bit worried that the unsold pets were returned to breeders and euthanised.

krlyr

trumpton wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I was a bit worried that the unsold pets were returned to breeders and euthanised.

PAH used to return them but a few years ago started the adoption centre to get rid of "stock" to replace with younger more sellable ones without looking bad - sorry, I mean, rehome genuine homeless animals Sorry to be cynical but I knew several people who worked in PAH who confirmed that their older pets get moved to the adoption centre, sometimes with fake stories about being returned from homes. Yes, they take handed pets too but if they took a bit more care with who they sold pets to and didn't allow pets to be bought on a whim, I imagine less would find themselves being handed back a month or so later too!

Personally I choose not to support petshops that use animals as products as I don't like to support the practice. Have worked in petshops as a teen and seen the state that the animals come in from the rodent farms used to stock most petshops and it's not pretty. I would much rather buy from petshops that deal solely in pet products and they're not too hard to find, loads of good shops online with competitive prices, and there's a few petshops local to me that don't sell animals too.

bazzaboo

trumpton wrote: »

Anyone know what happens to the animals that Pets at Home can't sell -the rabbits, guinea pigs, degus etc? Are they sent back to the breeder? What do they do with them? I must admit I always want to take the animals from the Adoption section home.

I think if I was getting a rabbit or guinea pig now I would look at rescues first, as there are so many unwanted litters, plus they are often already neutered.

I used to work at PAH back in 1999 and we always kept the animals until they were sold. Most of them sold really quickly and the ones that didnt sell that quick got tamer because of us handling them. Which in turn was a selling point. Who cant resist a cute bunny running up to you wanting to be petted.