animalgirl771:
You can find many animals, such as guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, ferrets, rats, birds, etc. from local shelters or rescue groups. You can also check out Craigslist if you are looking for an animal you cannot find anywhere else. Try Petfinder.com.

Even if there is not an overpopulation of an animal, they may be mistreated by the store and/or the supplier. Most pet stores get their animals from breeders/mills with unsavory ways of caring for their animals. The animal might be sick with mites, fleas, upper resp. infection, etc., and you won’t even know it until the animal comes home.

@FAR
No, I’ve witnessed animals myself that were sick or otherwise mistreated. Some were losing their hair, while others had obvious symptoms of upper respiratory infection. I’ve also seen a hermit crab molting that was not separated from the other hermit crabs. The reason to separate them is that the other hermit crabs will see it as vulnerable and attack it. You can read about this molting thing on any hermit crab care site on the Internet.

A lot of animals also do not receive correct care, especially reptiles, hermit crabs, fish, etc. I’ve seen dead animals, such as fish and hermit crabs, left in the tanks. I’ve also seen a tank of guinea pigs that was caked with feces/urine at my local Petsmart.

I always at least contact the pet store if I witness this. I’ve also had to contact the local Humane Society, which at one time made a pet store take their animals to the vet and not sell them.

So yes, even inside the pet stores, cruelty and neglect occur.

There are two stories of other people who have seen sick animals at pet stores at the bottom of the page:
http://www.cavyspirit.com/petstores.htm

animal shelters are best in my opinion because your helping the animal you should not get animals from a pet store because they ussually come from puppy mills which ussually dont have good conditions for their animals and the mothers of the puppys are probably abused and or neglected and all your doing by geting dogs fromm a pet store is supporting puppy mills………….idk if you even wanted a dog thats just what i know aboiut

@chinny:

By purchasing the animals from bad breeders and pet stores to get them out of there, we increase the supply and demand for the sick animals, which means that more sick animals will be sold. Of course, we must act if we see animals that are not be treated well. We need to contact local animal control authorities, send letters/calls/emails to the people selling the animals, petition them, protest them, create sites/blogs to raise awareness, etc.

Animal shelters are great, and you can easily find an animal that is trained and that is compatible with your current animals. The staff at the shelter will usually know a lot about the animal they are trying to adopt out, too. There are also all kinds of animals in need of homes, such as guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, ratties, and more.

Before we start buying from breeders or pet stores, no matter how healthy the animals are, we need to find homes for the major surplus of animals already in shelters. Pet stores also always sell animals from very questionable and usually cruel suppliers. They are often sold sick. I’ve witnessed many animals myself that were sick and not given vet care. Sometimes, pet stores also mix sexes, and the pets breed, which can lead to terrible pregnancy complications for species such as guinea pigs.
Some species are also often not given the correct care, such as hermit crabs, fish, guinea pigs, and even puppies and kittens. I’ve seen this too many times myself.

There are also less-than-savory breeders that do not care how they breed their animals and/or sell sick animals. A guinea pig my mother bought had bumblefoot, and he didn’t even live long to be taken to the vet, which means he probably also had an upper respiratory infection .

I know all you have a problem with saying “buying” or “purchasing” animals but in today’s society even if you “adopt” from a shelter you are still normally “paying cash” for the animal to “own” the animal. So you can calm down just a bit about word choices here before you scare people away. Just like how we say companion animal instead of pet but generally they mean the same thing as most people treat their pet as a part of the family or a “companion animal”.

Shelters! Breeders are awful, there are millions of animals without homes and they still breed more. Try petfinder.com no matter where you live, they will prob have your area! It lets you search animals and searches through all of your nearby shelters!

Don’t “buy” animals. Animals aren’t products. You don’t own animals, you take care of them. They aren’t non-sentient items, they are sentient beings.
ALWAYS adopt.

If you buy animals from a store thinking that you’re “saving them” from their tiny store cages, realize that every animal you “purchase” is just paying for 5 or 10 more to be put through the exact same treatment. I know you might feel like it’s doing good to “save” an animal by buying it, but you’ll end up hurting a lot more, you have to make the conscious decision to save an animal that won’t cause more suffering – from a shelter.

You don’t BUY animals. You RESCUE them.
Go to a shelter. Adopt one. It’s not that hard to figure out, is it?

Pet stores exploit animals and the shipping of animals is both stressful and dangerous for the animals and cause so many unnecessary deaths. Also, they live in bad conditions although it may not always seem like it. Breeders are complicated. Buying a pet from a breeder means one dog, cat, etc. who won’t be saved from a shelter. If you do buy from a breeder though try to find one with a good reputation because some use puppy mills.

Sorry, that last part sounded inane.

One exception, however. Many of the local pet stores where I’m from do not sell cats, but instead have cats from local shelters that are ready for adoption. Hundreds of animals are adopted directly from the store, so that is good.

I adopted both of my cats from The Petco Foundation.

animalgirl711 you can generally find most animals at different types of local shelters and rescues. The only types of animals you can’t really find in rescues are ones that are illegal for pet stores to sell generally. I could maybe see more of a problem trying to get reptiles or amphibians from those types of places as when people give those up they give them to rescues where they stay for the rest of their lives. You could always keep an eye out for someone who is going to get rid of one though I guess.

I mean I live in the country in ohio and just by using petfinder.com I can find litterally about any animal someone would want to own as a typical pet within an hour or less from here.

kitten, cat, puppy, dog, horse, donkey, pig, goat, mouse, rat, hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, rabbit, chinchilla, ferret, birds, any type of snake, lizard, turtle, fish, other reptiles and amphibians, alpaca, llama, cow etc.

Some of the ones that do appear to be the farthest away from me are fish, the different types of reptiles or amphibians, and some of the barnyard animals.