Terrible treatment of a seriously injured animal at PetsMart in Toronto

(sent September 20, 2004, to cs@petsmart.com, copy sent to storehelp@petsmart.com September 21)

To whom it may concern:

On Sunday, September 19, 2004, between 5:30 and 6 pm, I witnessed a badly injured animal who was not receiving any pain relief or other treatment at the PetsMart at Eglinton and Laird, in Toronto.

The bloodfin tetra's body was cut almost completely in half. The poor fish was still alive and conscious, trying pathetically to swim. I feel nauseous imagining what kind of pain s/he was suffering.

I immediately notifed a man working in the fish department. He said he already knew about it, and seemed absolutely unconcerned, and went back to his other conversation with a customer. I discussed the situation with another fish department employee, who seemed mildly concerned but also did absolutely nothing.

I would like PetsMart to investigate this incident, and develop policies (if you don't already have them) to ensure that veterinary emergencies are responded to immediately. In this case, euthanasia was probably the only humane option. Euthanizing a fish is not difficult, it involves placing the fish in a tank with an overdose of a suitable anesthetic. A store which cares for hundreds if not thousands of fish should be equipped to handle this type of emergency, and should also have access to an aquatic vet to ensure fish well-being.

Please let me know what steps you will take to ensure this kind of atrocious neglect of a suffering animal will never occur again in PetsMart's stores.

Sincerely,

Rosemary Amey

Freedom for Animals

http://freeanimals.org/

PetsMart's Responses

September 22, 2004

Dear Rosemary,

I am sincerely sorry to hear of the situation that occurred at our East York, Ontario PETsMART store. As you mention, it is horrible for a fish to suffer that way. We do have provisions in our store Policies and Procedures for humane euthanasia of fish, and also for frequent checking of the aquariums to be sure there are no sick or dead fish. Our policy also states that situations like you described should be handled with urgency, not as it was handled in this case. I have contacted the store and will investigate the situation and reply back with my findings.

Thank you for your concern for all the pets,

Nick Saint-Erne, DVM
Quality Assurance
PETsMART, Inc.

September 23, 2004

Dear Rosemary,

Below is the information I received regarding the injured fish at our store in East York. It was humanely euthanized using anesthetic (CO2) overdose in the water according to our Policies and Procedures, and in accordance with accepted American Veterinary Medical Association standards for humane euthanasia. I am sorry it seemed like the issue was not given the concern you expected, but I believe the Pet Care Manager's comments explain the situation.

Please let me know if you have any further concerns.

Nick Saint-Erne, DVM

Hello Dr. Nick.

I was here on Sunday, and when this injured fish was spotted by a customer, I personally dealt with it. There was a period of several minutes where I could not personally attend the issue due to customer volume on this particular Sunday, but I assure you that the policies on euthanasia were followed and this fish was taken care of accordingly.

Unfortunately, the associates in the department do not have the authorization to euthanize fish, and therefore were unable to act until I personally attended to this issue, and I realize how bad this looks for our customers. This does not reflect in any way how we run the Pet Care Department, and I assure you that this is an isolated experience. At any time there is a problem like this, I attend to the issue as soon as possible, and unfortunately due to the fact that I was the Duty Manager on Sunday evening and attending to several other customer issues at the same time, I had great difficulty in immediately attending to this.

If you have any other questions or concerns please contact me.

Andrew Leahy
East York, 0935
Pet Care Manager

FFA's Reply

Dear Dr. Saint-Erne,

Thank you for your prompt reply on this matter.

I am still very concerned. The fish was not left to suffer for "a few minutes", but for 20-30 minutes that I am aware of (who knows how longer before that--when I reported the injured fish to the employee in the fish department, he was already aware of that, but continued his conversation with another customer). Maybe Mr Leahy was only aware of the fish's situation for a few minutes, but the fish suffered much longer than that.

While some situations, such as cleaning a contaminated water dish, can wait a while until a conversation with a customer is finished, when an animal is in great pain it is an emergency that should be responded to at once. It should be a store policy that in a situation like this, the employee should politely excuse himself from the conversation with the customer and see to the injured animal first. (Maybe this is already policy, in which case the employees in the fish department at the East York location need to be reminded of it.)

The East York location seem to always be busy whenever I go there, and I would like future incidents like this one to be avoided.

Sincerely,
Rosemary Amey
Freedom for Animals
http://freeanimals.org/