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WHY
IS PET STUPID!
They Plan To Sell Dwarf Rabbits From an Infamous Rabbit Mill Across the
USA.
PETA's PROTEST DECRYING PETSMART'S DECISION
TO SELL RABBITS!
On
Thursday, August 30, 12 Noon to 1 PM, protesters gathered
at PetSmart
Corporate Headquarters, 19601 N. 27th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ
85027
WE MADE THE TV NEWS!
SEE THE NEWS COVERAGE AND PHOTOS OF THE WORK TO
SAVE OUR BUNNIEs!
Add your voice by sending an e-mail to PetSmart from their site.
GOOD NEWS BUT WE'RE NOT DONE!
Petsmart has decided not to roll out the second set of 20 test stores
in their attempt to market and
sell dwarf rabbits. Their original
goal was to test market 40 stores nationwide. Our letters to PetSmart expressing
our disapproval has paid off.
THE FIGHT I S NOT OVER YET!
Our goal is to stop PetSmart from selling rabbits at all. Please write them and let them know
that although they are moving in the right direction, they need to stop the sale of rabbits in all of their retail
locations.
Here is their snail mail address:
Robert F. Moran
President and Chief Operating Officer
PetSmart,
Inc.
19601 North 27th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85027
AND the Customer Service Department at
Email: customer
service
Phone: (800) 738-1385
Fax: (623) 580-6502
Radio Interview on Morning Edition,
Sounds like they either conveniently can't rember what they promised in the past or are lying about it.
Save Our Bunnies!
MARSHALL "FARMS," a rabbit and
other animal mill operator who breeds and sells animals for the pet trade and for laboratory experiemntation. Find out the
truth. Who is MARSHALL "FARMS"?
Have compassion for a bunny not
passion for the money. Say NO to PetSmart!
ATTACK RABBIT EXPLOITATION!
SIGN THE PETITIONS AT
This
is the canned response that anyone who complained to PetSmart's Customer Services Department has received:
Dear Customer,
Thank you for sharing
your concerns with us regarding the sale of
dwarf rabbits in our stores.
We began testing this concept in 40
stores across the country this
month. There appears to be some
confusion and misinformation circulating
about this test, so we
appreciate the opportunity to provide some clarification.
It's important for you to know that, as with any pet we sell in our
stores, we began this test only after many months of careful
evaluation by a team that included pet care experts and
veterinarians.
We selected a dwarf variety that we believe will
make a great family
pet and will create a lifelong bond with its
family. As part of this
test, we'll conduct follow-up, random
surveys of customers to see how
these pets are adjusting.
We are sensitive to the issue of pet populations
and animal welfare
and took that into consideration when making our
decision to sell
dwarf rabbits. All rabbits sold through PetSmart will
be spayed or
neutered before they arrive at the stores. And the retail
price of
$99.99, we believe, will deter customers from buying this
pet on
impulse, a practice we strongly discourage.
In addition, we will continue to promote rabbit adoptions in our
stores.
We partner currently with more than 50 animal welfare
organizations
that are specifically devoted to rabbits and that
conduct adoptions
at our stores. We will continue these
partnerships as well as continue
to add qualified adoption partners.
We take our responsibility seriously
when it comes to selling pets.
We make sure our associates are well
equipped to answer customers'
questions about the pet and determine
if it's the right fit. We
provide customers with the tools to help
them make a responsible
decision and to deliver the proper care and
attention needed for
their pet.
We
share your passion for pets and want to assure you we'll do
what's
right for our Pet Parents and their pets. You can also find
additional
information about dwarf rabbits and our test on our
website at www.petsmartfacts.com.
Sincerely,
Barany
Chittenden
Product Care Specialist
This is RabbitWise's
reply to the canned e-mail response from PetSmart:
The fact that your form letter response is from a "Product" Specialist says it all. "Product" is a business
term and business is about profit. Animals are living beings, not products. When one deals with products, one's primary
concern is not about the long term welfare of the animals, in this case rabbits, but about the profit margin.
There is no misinformation or confusion in the rabbit community that you need to clarify for us. In a society where
animals are treated as throw away objects when they've outlived their "usefulness", there is no morally acceptable reason
to breed more. Since you work with rescues, you are well aware that we kill 5-9 million adoptable animals every
year---cats, dogs, and rabbits in that order--- for no better reason than they have no homes which makes this sales plan
even more reprehensible. Under these circumstances there is no such thing as a reputable breeder and if you
took the responsibility you say that you take seriously you wouldn't print such a preposterous statement. To
state that you are sensitive to the issue of pet populations and animal welfare is a sadistic misrepresentation.
You have chosen Dwarf rabbits because they are more appealing to children and therefore more likely to be sold.
If you had done research that was competent and not from consultants that you were paying, you'd be perfectly clear
that rabbits are not good companion animals for children. You did not ask the rabbit rescue community for their
feedback because you knew you wouldn't get the answers that you wanted to hear. You spayed and neutered them because
you know that this would be once less argument that we would proffer AND you could sell them for more money. What's
going to happen to the ones you don't sell? Are they going to be sold for live snake food? How many bunnies will
die while they are being shipped to your stores? How many of your staff are going to be trained in rabbit care?
How many will die in your stores because of incompetent care? Your letter from the president of The House Rabbit Society
clearly outlined the concerns of the rabbit community. Will you be taking them seriously?
Clearly, you have not visited any of your stores lately. They are staffed predominantly by adolescents who know
little to nothing about any of the animals that they are supposed to be taking care of. There have been no care
sheets about rabbits for years in one of the stores that I will now stop shopping in. Do you really think that when
profit and keeping one's job is involved that a poorly trained "associate" is going to discourage a sale because s/he has
determined that the fit is not right? Please, do you really think we are all that stupid and naive? Even
with a home visit, an extensive application procedure, and an adoption contract, mistakes are made.
You share nothing of our true concern about our beloved rabbits with the rescue community. It is insulting
to us to even suggest that you do. Given your behavior lately and the tripe you have written in your response to our
concerns and complaints, your have shown your true disingenuousness.
We will join with House Rabbit Society and every other organization in the country that is willing to discourage others
from having relationships with you.
The House Rabbit Society has sent the following
letter to PetSmart's CEO. It outlines all the issues as to why PetSmart
is being PetStupid. Use it for information to write your own letter/e-mail.
July 14, 2007 Robert F. Moran President and Chief Operating Officer PetSmart, Inc. 19601 North
27th Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85027 Dear Mr. Moran, I am writing this letter in response to PetSmart’s recently
announced decision to sell purpose-bred, baby dwarf rabbits in PetSmart stores. For some time now, House Rabbit Society
and other rabbit rescue organizations have enjoyed mutually beneficial relationships with their local PetSmart stores, placing
rescued and adoptable rabbits through adoption programs at those stores. To say that House Rabbit Society is disappointed
by PetSmart's violation of its own commitment to save rescued animals would be a gross understatement. I’m sure you
can understand why PetSmart’s decision to sell rabbits feels like such a betrayal, after all the work done by your partnering
organizations to place homeless rabbits through your stores. PetSmart’s proposed sale of rabbits goes against
everything that PetSmart itself claims to stand for. According to the Humane Society of the United States, rabbits are the
third most-frequently relinquished species at shelters across the country – a huge, and largely hidden, problem, because
many members of the general public are simply not aware of it. PetSmart claims that its sale of baby rabbits will not exacerbate
this problem because 1) all PetSmart dwarf rabbits will be spayed/neutered prior to sale, and PetSmart employees will be
“trained to instruct the public” regarding their care; 2) PetSmart will perform “customer-satisfacti on
surveys” after the purchase of a rabbit and will have a 14-day return policy, in case the rabbit “doesn’t
work out.” Let me address each of these points.
1) Although spaying/neutering does indeed prevent further reproduction,
it does not prevent – or even acknowledge – the myriad other reasons why so many rabbits end up in shelters. These
problems can be prevented only by skilled, up-front screening of all potential adopters by rabbit caregivers with long-term,
first-hand knowledge of companion rabbits. This skill is not something that can be acquired overnight. While your sales staff
may go through a limited training before being tasked with caring for and adopting
out these complicated animals, our own
volunteers go through a minimum of a year of training before they are qualified to educate the public about rabbits. Our HRS
veterinarians have received substantial additional training and experience with rabbits (since companion rabbit medicine,
with rare exceptions, is not part of the curriculum in veterinary medical schools), and as a group, have treated and cared
for tens of thousands of rabbits over the last couple of decades alone. It is regrettable that you have chosen to
ignore
all of this education and experience when considering the sale of rabbits in your stores.
2) To do its “survey,”
will PetSmart contact its customers after several weeks? Months? Years? Throughout the lifetime of the rabbit (up to ten years
or more)? In our experience, rabbits can be abandoned due to a change in the owners’ circumstances many months or even
years after the initial purchase. PetSmart’s 14-day return policy will simply not provide the window that is needed
for all of the PetSmart rabbits that will be abandoned months or years after purchase. Many will be dropped off at animalshelters,
where, if not adopted or rescued by groups like House Rabbit Society, they will be euthanized. Others will simply be released
into neighborhoods or wilderness areas because of the tragically mistaken belief that a companion rabbit set loose will join
a wild rabbit family. Instead,
these rabbits fall victim to dogs, cats, raccoons, raptors, and automobiles. Will
the numbers of rabbits euthanized thanks to PetSmart’s new rabbit sales program be subtracted from the number of rabbits
PetSmart Charities claims to have saved? Will PetSmart agree to take back any rabbit purchased at any of its stores, over
the rabbit’s 10-year lifespan? That is precisely what
we, and many other rescue organizations, agree to do when we
adopt out a rabbit, because it is the only way to assure the rabbit will not end up in a shelter again.
The HRS members
and representatives who have already contacted PetSmart have been given various reasons for PetSmart’s decision.
We
have been told that PetSmart is responding to “market demand:” customers come into a store looking for rabbits,
and PetSmart wants to meet this demand. What happens if customers come in asking for puppies and kittens? Will PetSmart
let this demand go unmet? Are rabbits less worthy of PetSmart’s protection than puppies and kittens?
We have
been informed that PetSmart made its decision only after consulting with a team of “pet care experts.” House Rabbit
Society, the largest repository of rabbit care experts in the world, was never consulted, nor, as far as we know, was any
other rabbit rescue organization. HRS not only has more information on the demanding levels of care needed by rabbits than
your own staff, but our volunteers know more about the surplus rabbit problem than any pet store ever could, since they deal
with it on a daily basis.
We have also been told that PetSmart selected baby dwarf rabbits as the “best type
of rabbit for a family.” This flies in the face of what most rabbit rescuers know from experience, and points to how
sadly misinformed PetSmart’s decision is. Baby rabbits – like baby animals of any kind – are more destructive
and require much more training and supervision than more mature animals, and dwarf rabbits are often significantly more skittish
and
harder to handle than larger rabbits. Further, dwarf rabbits have a higher incidence of dental disease due to their
small, shortened head shape, and this can mean expensive veterinary care as often as every other month. And finally, the pediatric
surgeries that are required to produce sale-ready, baby rabbits may have potentially serious negative health effects. For
example, it is known in other small mammals that bone density is decreased when these pediatric procedures are performed.
In a rabbit, who already has a lightweight and fragile skeleton, this additional bone loss could be a serious problem in later
years.
Contrary to popular belief, rabbits are not low-maintenance animals. In fact, compared to dogs and cats, they
are actually high-maintenance pets. The hundreds of phone calls that we receive every week demonstrate that people who
purchase rabbits at pet stores simply do not attain enough information on how to care for them, nor do they commit to the
ten years or more that a rabbit will live. While you maintain that your veterinarians will teach your staff about rabbit care,
we know that pet store staff, like so many service employees throughout this country, are generally short-term
or part-time
employees, often teenagers, most of whom have never lived with even one rabbit, let alone the scores that our volunteers have
lived with. They simply do not have the knowledge, skills, or inclination to properly educate the public about these
complex animals.
As the world’s largest rabbit rescue organization with a presence in forty states and six countries,
and a website that gets over a million hits per week, House Rabbit Society has played the leading role in rescuing and placing
abandoned rabbits. In our twenty years of rescue work, we have rescued over 20,000 rabbits, and our members look to us to
fight the continued breeding and sale of rabbits, and to prevent as many of their deaths as we can. We are deeply concerned
about this issue, since the vast majority of the pet rabbits we rescue and rehabilitate were originally
purchased through
pet stores and breeders.
There simply is no excuse in this day and age for a company with a
reputation for compassion
to continue to sell animals, but especially
animals that are abandoned and euthanized at the rate that dogs, cats, and
rabbits are. For PetSmart to feign ignorance or imply that the deaths of rabbits do not matter is repugnant to the men and
women around the country who have dedicated their lives to saving these animals.
House Rabbit Society will be informing
our members of PetSmart’s decision to place dollars over lives, and will encourage our members and allies to shop elsewhere
for their pet supplies. As a national licensing organization, HRS does not prohibit its individual chapters from deciding
for themselves whom they will partner with in their adoption activities. We recognize that some of our chapters have built
strong and mutually productive relationships with some PetSmart stores, and we will not interfere with these. But as a
national
rescue organization, we can tell you that many of our chapters do not want to work with any organization that sells or breeds
rabbits, and are extremely distressed by PetSmart's decision. We also will be speaking with the many dog and cat rescue groups
that PetSmart works with to let them know of your decision.
In closing, on behalf of the Board of Directors of
House Rabbit Society, I ask that PetSmart immediately reconsider its proposal regarding the sale of rabbits in PetSmart stores.
PetSmart has honored its policy not to sell puppies and kittens in any of its stores; we ask that you extend the same protection
to rabbits, and remember that compassion should not be limited to one or two animal species.
I eagerly await your response
to our request. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need further information or clarification on anything covered
in this letter. Finally, if PetSmart executives would like a face-to-face meeting with members of our board, we will go out
of our way to arrange this.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Wilsbach, Ph.D.
President
House Rabbit Society
cc:
Anita
Garcia, Manager of Adoptions, PetSmart Services and Store Operations
Philip L. Francis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
David
K. Lenhardt, Senior Vice President, Services and Store Operations
Mary Miller, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Sophie
Engelhard Craighead, President of the Board, PetSmart Charities
****
What You
Can Do Regarding PetSmart's Sale of Rabbits
Please let PetSmart know that you are unhappy with their
decision to sell rabbits in their stores, rather than reach out to more rabbit rescue groups to expand their rabbit adoption
programs. Please send PetSmart a polite letter or email, or give them a call to let them know of your concerns, via the contact
information below:
Email: http://www.petsmart.com/global/customerservice/contactUsForm.jsp
Phone: (800) 738-1385
Fax: (623) 580-6502
Snail mail:
PetSmart, Inc.
19601 North 27th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ
85027
SEND BACK YOUR PET PERKS CARDS TO :
Robert F. Moran
President and Chief Operating Officer
PetSmart, Inc.
19601 North 27th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ
85027
ANIMAL PLACE JOINS PROTEST AGAINST PETSMART
In their July, 2007 e-newsletter, ANIMAL PLACE asked
their readers to write and complain to PetSmart about their decision to sell live rabbits and other animals.
BLOGSPHERE & NET NEWS TALKING ABOUT RABBITS BEING SOLD
AT PETSMART
Go to these links and add your comments.
http://www.thenorthwestern.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070807/GPG03/70807074
BEST FRIENDS JOINS PROTEST
IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS PROTESTS PETSMART'S BUNNY
SALES
CRUELTY FREE ADDS BLOG:
ANIMAL PROTECTION INSTITUTE JOINS THE PROTEST!
EASY VEGAN JOINS THE FRAY:
http://www.easyvegan.info/2007/07/24/api-speak-out-for-circus-animals-rabbits-and-wildlife/
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