5 Things PETCO Doesn't Want You To Know

A friend of mine who knows that I'm a vegan and an animal rights advocate recently mentioned to me that she was going to PETCO to buy a new toy for her dog. Apparently, she thought I liked PETCO because the store doesn't sell dogs and cats. I actually encourage people to boycott the company. PETCO may put on an animal-friendly façade by not selling dogs and cats—which is a responsible decision considering the dog and cat overpopulation problem—but the company is in business to make money, not for love of animals.

I decided to write a blog about PETCO in case other people with companion animals aren't aware of the problems at PETCO. Here are five things you should know before choosing to shop at PETCO:

1. Undercover Investigators Have Documented Neglect, Abuse, and Deplorable Conditions at PETCO's Suppliers: The birds, reptiles, and other small animals that PETCO sells come from breeding mills and animal dealers that typically warehouse animals in crude, filthy conditions without adequate veterinary care or food or water.

An investigator from PETA recently went undercover at Sun Pet Ltd, an Atlanta-based wholesale animal dealer that supplies animals to PETCO, PetSmart, and pet stores. According to the investigator, hundreds of birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, mice, and rats were suffering in Sun Pet's enormous warehouses. The animals were treated as mere merchandise and some were killed in cruel, violent ways.  One Sun Pet worker even put live hamsters into a bag and bashed the bag against a table to kill the hamsters.

Sun Pet not only purchased animals from unlicensed dealers, but from the now-defunct U.S. Global Exotics (USGE), the Texas-based warehouse that imported and exported hundreds of thousands of animals a year for eventual sale at pet stores, including PETCO. More than 26,000 neglected exotic animals were seized from USGE following another PETA investigation. (Shamelessly, PETCO even tried to profit off of these animals after they were confiscated.)

2. Sick and Injured Animals Have Allegedly Been Left to Languish in PETCO Stores: Through the years, PETA has received countless calls, letters, and e-mails from PETCO customers and employees who are concerned about animals at PETCO. Some customers claim to have seen live rats and mice lying next to dead ones in feces-covered cages, sick birds, and dead geckos, snakes, and other reptiles, as well as animals left with no food or water for days. A whistleblower at a Houston store revealed that employees there were not trained how to hand feed birds and, as a result, many were injured or died

Sick and dying animals at many PETCO stores are allegedly not seen by a veterinarian.  (Several former employees have even claimed that they were "not allowed" to take animals to the veterinarian.) A “Team Leader” at an undisclosed PETCO location, told PETA, "If an animal is dead or on the brink of it in our store, we are supposed to put them in a holding tank until they do die."

3. PETCO Paid $1.75 Million to Settle a Lawsuit Over its Animal Care Record and Shady Consumer Practices: 

Four California counties filed a lawsuit against PETCO, alleging that PETCO failed to notice or treat sick animals, and that it overcharged its customers as well. The company shelled out $1.75 million to settle the suit.

 In 2004, PETCO paid more than $850,000 to settle similar charges and was ordered by the court to implement a detailed daily animal care procedure in all its California stores.

After the San Francisco Animal Care and Control found dying and dead birds, a dead turtle molding and left to rot, dehydrated and lethargic iguanas, and a toad “cooked to death” at bay area stores, the city attorney of San Francisco said, “PETCO has proven that it is not capable of caring for the animals it sells in a humane manner. If they can’t treat living things with care and consideration, they sure shouldn’t be in the business of selling pets.”

4.  PETCO Has Also Been Sued For Negligent Grooming Practices: A Utah resident sued PETCO for  negligence and loss of companionship when her dog  was hanged to death from a leash at a PETCO store after employees left the dog unattended and she attempted to jump out of a grooming tub. PETCO's attorneys argued that damages, if any, should be limited to the dog's “fair market value,” a position that seems to contrast poorly with PETCO's claim that it understands that animals are "members of the family."

5. U.S. Marshalls Confiscated Contaminated Pet Food from PETCO's Food-Distribution Center: In June 2008, U.S. Marshalls seized pet food from PETCO's distribution center in Illinois because the FDA suspected it had been contaminated by rodents and other animals. People who purchased pet food from PETCO stores in 16 states were instructed to wash the cans and their hands with soap and water. The food didn't cause any illnesses that I'm aware of, but the situation did make me wonder: If the company couldn't even keep food clean and safe, how could it be trusted with living beings".

I might be willing to "give PETCO another chance" with regard to that last one if the company stopped selling birds, reptiles, and other small animals. PETCO could still make money and meet the needs of people with companion animals—PETA members included—if it sold only food, toys, and other supplies—not animals. Until then, PETCO is one place not to go if you care about animals. Plenty of companies sell dog and cat food, toys, beds, bowls, collars, leashes, and other supplies online without selling animals.

A few of Carly and my favorites are PetFoodDirect.com, Carealot.com, PetGuys.com, DogToys.com, DrugStore.com, and Evolution.com. There are many more too, but you get the idea!

A Great Group That Helps Animals...And One That Doesn't

Hey PNNer's, I'm back! For a post or two, at least. Things have been pretty busy here, but I wanted to share with you a sweet story about a rescued donkey and her newborn foal.

The two are living at the Animal Rahat retirement center for "working animals" in India.  I recently wrote a Care2 blog about the rescue and Animal Rahat's efforts to help animals. Please check it out to learn more about the group's good work.

While I'm on the subject of animals, I also wanted to warn everyone not to fall for Procter & Gamble's (P&G) latest sales gimmick. Most of you have probably seen P&G's commercial boasting that Dawn dishwashing liquid is gentle and effective enough to clean oil-covered birds and marine mammals. The company has long given Dawn to rescue workers to clean wildlife affected by oil spills, and now it plans to donate one dollar (up to $500,000) to the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) and the Marine Mammal Center each time someone buys a bottle of Dawn and "activates" the donation.

This sounds really nice and, normally, I applaud companies that attempt to help animals. But I'm going to have to pass on P&G's sales ploy and continue to purchase dish detergent from a cruelty-free company. P&G may be bragging about its efforts to help birds and other wildlife, and perhaps justifiably so, but there's a reason why the company isn't saying much about what it does to dogs, cats, and other animals in laboratory experiments. It's going to take more than Dawn to clean up P&G's rep.

P&G owns a slew of companies that aren't exactly considered to be animal-friendly. Caring people have been boycotting the Iams company, for example, for about eight years now. In 2002 and early 2003, an investigator from PETA went undercover at an Iams contract laboratory where researchers were conducting nutritional tests on animals for research and product development. The investigator reportedly saw dogs in barren steel cages and cement cells, dogs who had been left on a filthy paint-chipped floor after chunks of muscle had been hacked from their thighs, dogs who had been surgically debarked, and sick dogs and cats who were left to languish in their cages.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a complaint revealing that the government inspectors who investigated the contract laboratory from 2002 to 2005 found that laboratory personnel weren’t trained to perform experiments on animals; did not provide clean, structurally-sound, spacious, ventilated and temperature-controlled housing for dogs and cats; and that animals were not given veterinary care.

Although Iams has since made some progress, it still refuses to permanently stop conducting and funding invasive or terminal experiments on animals and to adopt completely humane, non-invasive, and cage-free "in-home" testing, as many of its competitors have done.

Many of P&G's other subsidiaries have also not yet pledged to permanently stop testing their products on animals, and, since it's hard to know exactly what's going on behind closed laboratory doors, may even still be conducting notoriously cruel product tests, such as the infamous lethal dose 50 percent (LD50) test and the dreadful Draize test.

In the LD50 test, the most common animal-poisoning experiment, animals are force-fed increasing amounts of a substance until 50 percent of them die. The animals often endure severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, convulsions, seizures, paralysis, and/or bleeding from the nose, mouth, and genitals before they die. Variations of the LD50 test have been used for decades even though they have never been scientifically validated to confirm that their results are indicative of chemical effects in people.

In the Draize eye- and skin-irritation/corrosion test, rabbits are immobilized in full-body restraints while a substance is dripped or smeared into their eyes or onto their shaved skin. They generally suffer from swollen eyelids, irritated and cloudy eyes, inflamed skin, and in some cases, they may even endure ulcers, bleeding, bloody scabs, or blindness. The results of the Draize test are also highly subjective, unreliable, and not applicable to humans. Rabbits’ eyes are anatomically and physiologically different from humans’ eyes and they tend to have stronger reactions to chemicals. (Product tests do nothing to protect people anyway; even if a product blinds an animal, it can still be sold to consumers.)

Fortunately, there are many humane and effective alternatives to animal tests,and many companies proudly manufacture cruelty-free dishwashing detergent and other cleaning products .

So, I'd much buy products from a company that has pledged not to test on animals, and donate directly to the IBRRC, the MMC or other organization that helps animals—not hurts them. I hope you'll do the same.

Feces In Feed. Can You Say "Gross!?"

Okay, I’m glad that some consumer groups are calling on the FDA to ban the use of chicken feces as cattle feed, but I just can’t help but wonder why some people don’t seem think it’s just as gross and unhealthy to feed themselves the flesh of dead animals. A"rib" is actually a rib, you know?

When people eat animals and their “byproducts,” they’re also eating the crap (literally!) that the animals ate. Not to mention the antibiotics that the animals were fed, which can lead to antibiotic resistance.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but every time I see an article like this, it reminds me that many people still have no idea about what they eat. I hope the FDA bans chicken feces as feed, for the sake of humans and animals, but I’d rather see people feeding themselves vegan food!

Healthcare Isn't Just For Humans

We tend to focus on human health on PNN, but I had to take my dog Carly to the vet on Monday and I’ve spent the week chasing her around with ear drops, hot spot spray, and pills, so I thought I might write a bit about dog and cat health concerns.

Carly will be fine, thank God; she has an ear infection and a hot spot (an itchy spot that tends to spontaneously appear on dogs in warmer months) and is already healing nicely now that she has some medication.

I’m not a veterinarian; I don’t even play one on TV, so I’m not qualified to give anybody any specific medical advice. Only a vet should treat ear infections, skin problems, or any serious health concerns. But after writing about animal welfare issues for years, I have learned about some basic preventative care and common sense health issues. Here are a few simple tips to keep dogs and cats healthy, safe, and happy and well-adjusted:

Spay & Neuter 

Obviously, spaying and neutering (and adopting animals from shelters instead of buying them from breeders or pet stores) is the best way to combat animal overpopulation, but it’s also a great way to prevent certain health and behavioral problems in cats and dogs. Spaying reduces the stress and discomfort females endure during heat periods, eliminates the risk of uterine cancer, and greatly reduces the chance of mammary cancer. Neutering makes males much less likely to roam or fight, and helps prevent testicular cancer. (If you want info on low-cost spay/neuter services near you, try calling SPAY-USA at 800-248-7729.)

Let Your Best Buddy Chill  

Just like children, it’s not safe to leave your dog inside a closed car, even on mildly warm days. On a 73°F day, the inside of a parked car can reach 100ºF in 10 minutes and 120ºF in 30 minutes. Animals can succumb to heatstroke in just 15 minutes. It’s safest to leave your dog home (or drop him or her off) if you need to run an errand. (And if you ever see a dog left alone in a car, take down the car’s color, model, make, and license plate number and have the owner paged inside the store, or call local humane authorities or police. Do whatever is necessary to get the animal out of the car—his or her life may depend on it.)

Don’t Declaw

Declawing is more than a simple pedicure. It’s a painful and permanently crippling procedure that involves the amputation of the last joint of each toe, including the bones.

After surgery, the nails may grow back inside the paw, causing pain but remaining invisible to observers. Declawing results in a gradual weakening of leg, shoulder, and back muscles, and because of impaired balance caused by the procedure, declawed cats have to relearn to walk, much as a person would after losing his or her toes.

Cats come with claws for a reason. Declawing robs them of a vital natural behavior and of their natural defense. It can even make routine behaviors like scratching in the litterbox uncomfortable. Declawed cats may be morose, reclusive, and withdrawn or irritable, aggressive, and unpredictable. The lack of claws, a cat’s first line of defense, makes many cats feel so insecure that they tend to bite more often as a means of self-protection.

Regular trimmings, scratching posts, and nail caps (like Soft Paws) are effective ways to control scratching without causing your cat pain and trauma. Double-sided tape, such as Paws Off, also discourages cats from clawing furniture and upholstery. (Of course, I always remind people that their feline family members are much more important than furniture and if they’re overly concerned about claw marks, a cat really isn’t right for them!)

Research Healthy Vegetarian Options

Supermarket pet food is usually made from the flesh of animals who fall into one of four D categories - dead, dying, diseased, or disabled. It’s not something you want to feed a family member! Besides, studies have shown that the ailments associated with meat consumption in humans—such as allergies, various types of cancer, and kidney, heart, and bone problems—can also affect dogs and cats, particularly if you are buying commercial pet food.

The nutritional needs of dogs and cats can be met with a well-planned vegetarian diet and certain supplements. Of course, you have to do plenty of research—or consult a knowledgeable veterinarian—before you feed your companion animal a new diet to ensure that you understand the nutritional needs of dogs and cats.

If a dog receives too little protein, calcium, or vitamin D, his or her health could be jeopardized. Dogs also need two amino acids called L-carnitine and taurine. A deficiency of these nutrients can cause dilated cardiomyopathy, a serious illness in which the heart becomes large and flabby and can no longer function. This illness generally strikes young or middle-aged dogs who are deficient in L-carnitine or taurine because of breed, size, individual genetic make-up, or diet. (Some brands of vegetarian food contain these nutrients or supplemental L-carnitine and taurine can be bought at most health-food stores.)

Cats are often more finicky than dogs, and their nutritional requirements are more complicated. Cats need a considerable amount of vitamin A. Insufficient amounts may cause loss of hearing as well as problems with skin, bones, and intestinal and reproductive systems. Cats also need taurine. A feline lacking taurine can lose eyesight and could develop cardiomyopathy.

Feeding your companion vegetarian meals is a good idea, but you obviously need to talk to a qualified vet first (just like you’d talk with a pediatrician about a baby’s nutritional needs).

I Can See Clearly--and Cruelty-Free--Now!

Many women know that it’s easy to find cruelty-free cosmetics (even some “drugstore brands” like Revlon and Almay aren’t tested on animals), household cleaners (Method, Seventh Generation and Ecover are popular brands), and many personal care products (like Lady Mitchum deodorant and Tom’s of Maine toothpaste), but there are few cruelty-free products that are trickier to find than others. Cruelty-free contact solution, for example, isn’t often found alongside animal-tested brands like Bausch & Lomb in more “conventional” grocery stores (yet). But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

 You can get Clear Conscience multipurpose contact solution from some health food stores like Whole Foods and companies that specialize in vegan, animal-friendly products, like Pangea. You can also order it directly from the manufacturer and check their site to see if anyplace your area sells it. Sometimes eye doctor’s offices will stock it if you ask them—and buy it there (and have your friends do the same) enough to show them that there’s a demand for it.

No law requires cosmetics, personal care, and household cleaning products to be tested on animals. (Pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food additives, lawn fertilizers, and pesticides are required by law to be tested on animals, but that isn’t because there aren’t alternatives. It has more to do with laziness and inertia, really. Consumers need to let the companies that manufacture those products know that is their responsibility to convince the regulatory agencies (the FDA or the EPA, depending on the product) that there is a better way to determine product safety. Otherwise, they’ll continue to do things the archaic, inhumane, and unscientific way. See www.StopAnimalTests.com if you want more details.)

But back to contact solution: If you wear contacts, stock up on Clear Conscience and your sight and your conscience can be clear!   

What Rules You? Your Mind, Morals, Or Taste Buds?

I was recently reading an article about foie gras, and how many people would like restaurants to stop serving the dish. In case you don’t know, foie gras is French for fatty liver. It’s produced by force feeding ducks (or sometimes geese) so much grain and fat that their livers become diseased and expand up to 10 times their normal size. If you want all the gory details and photos and video footage, go to www.nofoiegras.org, but I think it’s suffice to say that it’s an inarguably inhumane dish.

It’s an expensive and unhealthy one too— it derives 85 percent of its calories from fat: a 2-ounce serving contains 25 grams of fat and 85 milligrams of cholesterol. Researchers have even found a link between foie gras and “amyloid-related diseases,” such as rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, type-2 diabetes, and tuberculosis. That’s hardly shocking though—if you eat a “diseased food,” you are likely to develop disease.

Do We Have the Freedom to Harm Others? Do We Want It?!

The article—and all the other articles I’ve read just like it—contained a few comments from “foodies” who see nothing wrong with the dish—because, apparently, it taste good. Often, when the issue comes up, someone “defends” the dish by insisting that it’s “delicious.” I’ve never had it so I don’t know, but frankly, that point is highly irrelevant to me. I mean, my neighbor’s liver might be delicious too, but I’m not about to stuff her full of so much food that she becomes deathly ill and immobile and then slice her up to find out!

The “defense” that usually follows is that we have freedom of choice and should be able to eat whatever we like. We do have freedom of choice; it seems what some people lack is the ability to make compassionate choices. (And we actually only have freedom of choice to an extent. We aren’t free to engage in many behaviors that harm others. Getting back to my neighbor, I’m not “free” to find out if her liver is delicious or not. And that’s just fine with me--whether she’s a human, a dog, a duck, a pig, a porcupine, a giraffe, or any other species. I don’t need to know. We have laws protecting dogs and cats, so I’m not sure why it’s “okay” to harm ducks and geese. They have feelings too.)

But my main question is this: Why have our ethics taken a back seat to our taste buds? And when did our palates become more important than our health? Where did we lose our “strength” and our common sense?

Does Food Have A Hold On You?

It’s not just foie gras that seems to be “irresistible” to some people, after all. A few weeks ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance when the subject of food came up. (It’s always a popular topic!) Something she said prompted me to mention that I had just made a vegetarian shepherd’s pie. She said that it sounded good, and than she looked at me and said that she really wished she could go vegetarian, but she “liked meat to much.” If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that line… (Even in this economy…)

Because she’s very nice and well-meaning (and smart too) and because I didn’t want to sound snotty or judgmental, I squelched the urge to point out that I liked animals, a clean environment, and my health too much to eat meat. Instead I suggested some of the great-tasting meat alternatives, recipe sites, and so on, and I joked that I’ve never thought of myself as a “pillar of strength.” It just doesn’t take much willpower to avoid animal products when you consider how they're damaging on so many levels and how there are kinder, healthier options. She agreed that this was doable and said she was eager to check out some of the alternatives I suggested.

I haven’t seen her in several weeks, so I don’t know if she really did or not, but I’m hopeful. Food can have a powerful hold on us (my weakness is dark chocolate)—and some foods (like meat, cheese, and chocolate) are thought to contain opiate-like chemicals that have “addictive” properties—but we should all strive to make our decisions using our minds and our hearts, not our taste buds.

Tim Gunn's Best Fashion Tip: Make Informed Choices

I don’t normally write about style; I’m no fashionista! Working from home, I prefer to sit around in old jeans and sweaters or “loungewear,” especially in wintertime. But that’s not to say I don’t have an eye for fashion—my eye is always on the lookout for cruelty-free clothing. There’s no fur, leather, or wool in my closet. If you aren’t sure why all of these items are inhumane, check out my Care2 blog about Fashion Victims, a video narrated by Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, the chief creative officer at Liz Claiborne. (Be warned--the video isn’t easy to watch; it’s quite graphic. But I think that’s all the more reason to watch it—averting our eyes to disturbing things doesn’t make them go away.)

Of course, whether you watch the video or not, you can make kind clothing choices. As I point out in the blog, it’s easy to find stylish, animal-friendly alternatives to fur, leather, and wool. A number of companies, including Alternative Outfitters, matt & nat, MooShoes,  Pangea, and Vegan Essentials, sell only vegan products, and many other retailers, including Delia’s, Ecolution, New Balance, Skechers, and Zappos.com, sell at least some leather and fur alternatives.

If a shopping spree is on your agenda, check out the cruelty-free shopping list and remember this: Trends come and go, but compassion is always in fashion!