The Beak Retreat

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Injured Lizard Suffers from Incomplete Treatment at PETCO

PETCO – Needham, MA, Store #284

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

I was at the PETCO in Needham, MA, and was asked to remove the surgical staples from a rat. I am a vet tech, so I agreed to do so. This rat had undergone surgery for a mammary tumor and was then adopted by a caring friend of an employee. Before the adoption could be completed, PETCO shipped her back to the breeding facility from which PETCO purchases these animals. Because this caring employee made such an outcry, she was returned to the store and now needed the staples removed before she could be placed in her new home.

While I was there I witnessed an unfortunate incident of animal suffering. A kind-hearted employee brought a baby Leopard Gecko lizard from the reptile enclosure into the isolation room with a devastating injury.

Its abdomen had been torn open and its intestines were exposed. With minimal supplies on hand, we used an expired bottle of Betadine solution to soak a cotton tipped swab to return the intestines into the abdomen. All I was able to do at that point was to hold the skin closed with a Betadine-soaked standard human Band-Aid. There were no other bandage materials or first aid care supplies available.

I was informed that the PETCO store veterinarian would not be in his office until Friday, December 20 — three days later.

It is in my opinion as a veterinary technician that this animal should have been euthanized immediately to end its suffering. Instead, this reptile was placed in a clean tank in isolation with fresh water and a plant. It was lethargic and weak. The store management would not, under any circumstances, even allow employees to use medications or vitamins from the store shelves.

This poor creature was in obvious distress, as were the three employees who were witness to this incident, yet they were helpless to do anything about it.