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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tortoise Tom" data-source="post: 144703" data-attributes="member: 27883">First off: All Avics are super duper cool spiders. My very first T ever was a pink toe, back in the early 90s, and man did I love that little one!Next, you gotta ask your self: Do I care more about this individual spider, or do I care more about the plight all of these other animals will suffer when these people turn a profit from my purchase and buy more to sell?Neither answer is wrong. Neither answer is right. Its an individual decision. I feel bad for the spider sitting there neglected, but if I buy it, they will replace it with another, in perpetuity. I had a friend that used to go around and steal neglected animals from stores like that and give them away for free to good homes. Not condoning anything illegal, but he smiled a lot and felt good about what he was doing. He took pride when one of the bad shops went out of business.If you buy it, you'll love it, but feel bad about its replacement. If you don't buy it, you can feel good about ending a bad cycle, but you'll feel guilty about leaving him there.My strategy has been to educate them and try to get them to improve. I've even offered to help them clean cages or change a water if they were understaffed. Many times they don't want to hear it. If they get hostile, I'll threaten them with all the new social media stuff. That usually settles them down. I try to be polite and direct them to good sources to get better educated on the animals they sell. My results have been all over the spectrum over the years, but sometimes improvements are made. Some people eventually appreciate the help, and others are just A-holes that need to be shut down. I worked in the retail pet industry for 9 years. I've been on both sides of that counter. I use that experience to try and make things better for the animals and for the business. Sometimes it works.</blockquote>

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