Pets at Home... this isn't okay 

"WHERE DO I GET ANIMALS FROM IF IT'S NOT FROM A PET STORE?" Animals from chain pet stores come from rodent mills. Please google image search this. Are you okay with supporting this? Buying animals from pet stores gives money to this industry, and continues the breeding of your pets parents in these horrible conditions. Good reputable ethical breeders, rescues, people rehoming their pets - theres always better options. Please watch this video of mine about the topic: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GhwxPwY4OhA.html

This is so sickening, animals ARE NOT toys. They aren’t accessories for your “playground”. Stop treating them like it

Other pets stores: don't tap on the glass This store: yo poke your head in the cage

This furthers the idea children have that animals are just toys.

It's all fun and games until a toddler witnesses a hamster eat it's sibling because the store didn't do it's research.

Whenever I see those "take a peek" holes all I can think about is the little girl from Finding Nemo aggressively tapping on the glass 😅 poor animals

Why are they targeting kids? It’s weird. It’s adults who pay. It’s adults who (should be) taking care of the animals.

They should’ve made it one-way glass. That would help SOME.

Have these people ever seen children on a playground? They scream when they play.

Pets at home don't make their pets feel at home

Wow I haven't even finished the video yet but they're really marketing pets towards small children...pets are not toys or 'learning experiences'. Just because it is not a cat or dog does not mean they don't require similar levels of care.

Small children stress me, so I can just imagine how these little animals are going to feel. 😥

What kind of 'animal expert' you must be to think that traping animals in a small place, exposing them to the loud noises and lots of stress would be healthy? Outrageous. They more likely do not care for these animals. If they did, it wouldn't be happening.

I feel like the smaller areas just encourages the false idea that animals only need a shoebox of space forever. It makes me quite sad.

“Pets At home birthday part” oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no.....

If I’m being honest, I’m quite impressed with the old enclosures. The old rat and bunny cages looked decently spacious and enriching. However, they’ve totally downgraded their care and the new cages look so small with no privacy. I can’t even imagine putting my rats in one of those cages. They’d be so bored

Pets at Home are going to need a zoo license at this rate. Ours started advertising their 'feeding times' recently which made me angry enough. This is just disgusting. Those poor animals.

The worst part is most children small enough to play in the enclosures are not even old enough to know how to properly care for a small animal. Pretty sure we can all agree school age children shouldn't have hamsters.

Here in Canada we have a pet store called “Mondou” that doesn’t sell animals but just the products which I support❤️🐭

Signed! Everything about that new design just screams "We don't care, we just want more money." That design would be a huge step backwards. Might as well change the name to "Pets for profit" while they're at it...

Children sometimes taunt animals for fun, so no this is a horrible idea.

I hope they dont do this to my local one :( It's like "hey do you want to buy a pet from us who's been traumatised already? Great, come pick out a pet from our Pet Village!'

Wow, I cant imagine what was going through their heads when they decided to implement this. This is just asking for disaster :(

They just want money, they don’t care a single bit about the animals well-being it’s so sad.

Can you imagine just chilling and you see a huge eyeball looking straight at you and a finger repeatedly tapping your windows?

Take a shot (non alcoholic ofc) every time I said "personally" 😅 but i'm not out here to be sued so I have to make it look as much as my own opinion as possible haha

Oh no😢 This is not okay! Pets are not toys and do not belong in a playground...

This is disgusting! ANIMALS AREN'T TOYS, have some empathy for their basic needs at least Pets At Home. Thank you so much for enabling people to stand up against this by setting up a petition site, perhaps we can make a small difference to these poor animals living standards X

The acrylic hides would get so hot too :( this is terrible. They have gone backwards.

I have never heard of Pets at Home and I'll admit, at first I thought... where else are we supposed to keep our pets? But yeah, that sounds terrible.

I love how pets at home title themselves as “Pet Experts” yeahhhhhhh pets at home we believe you , not like they’re distressing prey animals which can lead to a heart attack.

I hate this a lot and everything about it but the least they could've done was give the viewing windows one way glass. They're rich. Wtf.

Yeah like the employees are going to tell other people’s kids to be quiet I can hear so many Karen’s telling them not to discipline their kids right now 💀🤷🏻‍♀️ these enclosures are absolutely ridiculous and I don’t understand how they think it’s ok for a hamster to be in an enclosure where they can barely stretch out with multiple other hamsters. For 6 rabbits to be in an enclosure that’s not even big enough for 2. For the rats to have no enrichment. See through hides? Seriously? I’ve been trying to help fight this issue for as long as I’ve known about it but it seems like we’re getting no where. I’m not going to stop though. I hope you don’t either! 💙

Gosh, haven't been to Pets at Home in years, but I took a trip there today for some extra rat supplies (got my boys two today, they are happily exploring behind me as I type this :DD ) and I couldn't believe the change. Their stores were not acceptable before, but this is just ridiculous. All those poor animals being traumatised by the kids :(((( I will definitely be signing that petition!!

Absolutely ridiculous. People already let their kids run riot in the stores now the stores themselves are encouraging it around these prey animals.

5:57 .... see how it says "made just for them.... The habitats have been *carfully crafted* with our pets in mind.." Yeh right 🙄😒😡

Signed, this is absolutely disgusting.

Pets at home left a rat by himself for over two weeks. I had to buy him even though I had 4 girls, he was sad ! He's a black hooded dumbo rat, he has the cutest face ever and he's very sweet, still scatty. He lives (neutured) with my 4 girls. And the first night he was with me, he had his own cage and was boggling his first night here because he loved his fleece blanket on his hammock ❤️

Pets should have a playground, not be one. *looks at rat cage. ....I'm not saying follow my example of spending all your money on homemade food and toys but, you know. Dont be cheap.

Everything has to be about entertainment for non responsible children where they would squeeze and shove their elsa dolls in the poor animals face

I agree with you. We don’t need any more fuel to the fire of animals being seen as toys by children. Professionalism, albeit in moderation, is key.

I’ve haven’t heard about pets at home redesigning their stores but it honestly doesn’t seem like a very smart design idea. Thank you so much for respectfully stating your opinion! This is why you’re one of my favorite pet youtubers

Pets are not toys. They aren’t a playground for children. This is nothing short of horrible in my opinion. It’s already bad enough that children buy a rat or hamster due to pet stores marketing them towards children. In reality, they are a big commitment. These animals need large spaces, not the crappy tiny critter trail. A living animal is not a toy.

Ah, pets at home. When I was young, we got some pet guinea pigs from a Pets at home store. My pig was a ginger boy with beautiful red eyes. His name was gingernut. He was a friendly pig, and seemingly tame from when we got him. He seemed a little out of it sometimes though, but was a great pig. Too bad about the ringworm... yeah. All of the pigs had ringworm from when we got them 😒. Oh well. Just a small bumb in the road, right? No. Within a month of me owning him, Gingernut had to be put down, as he had developed some kind of brain cancer (I'm serious). After a few weeks we got another pig from Pets at home because I was really upset, and thought this was just a one time thing. My new pig was a very small cream and brown pig called Dusty. I wish he was in my life longer, I never got to know him... he died within a week from diarrhea. As a child, this pretty much traumatised me. Two potentially amazing pigs, gone in such a shot time. It's been almost a decade since I've been in a pets at home store. Never again.

I don’t like children

luckily this hasn’t been implemented where i live yet as it’s quite rural :( but im sort-of friends with the manager so ill ask him about it and try to dissuade it if i can :)

Pets at home...more like pets at hell 😡

why did they make this. there’s a pet store in my town that cares for the animals properly like proper enclosures and everything which is obviously the one i support! great video and thank you for bringing awareness!

I only support my local pet stores who "sell" animals that are small local places that adopt out animals and are partenered with local shelters :)

Im in America never heard of this store.

My local pet at home has not done this yet luckily!

my one thing is why can we not give animals privacy like why do we need to have see through hides and windows look into their tunnels why do we need this

I got into a large argument with them on Instagram, they were clearly frustrated by the fact that I had done my research and had hands on experience, and there for they were unable to fool me. So much of what they said was untrue and I was told so many pathetic excuses. How about they take some responsibility for the animals in their care? This is ridiculous, and I can not believe the RSPCA would collaborate with a company so cruel

I legit did a entire paper about why rabbits and small children are a terrible mix. This is mostly due to people buying bunnies on a whim for Easter presents and not understanding how complex they are. This kind of set up will absolutely increase the amount of bunny sales during Easter, which unfortunately results in a lot of bunnies living unhappy lives. There is so much evidence supporting the fact that bunnies and kids don't make a good pair, and I am appalled that such a massive company couldn't find the time to do any research. Young children developmentally can not grasp the concept of how delicate these animals are and have no sense of strength. At a stage where everything is sensory this can cause bodily harm to the rabbit and child. Not to mention the rabbits who are placed in a frightening environment like this can form human aggression which is very hard to reverse. As a bunny owner this makes me absolutely sick.

I always go to my local pets at home to buy supplies for my two gerbils and there are already children hitting the glass and running around as it is. when someone buys a rabbit from pets at home the rabbit will already be scared of humans from what has happened when they were in the store, it makes me so angry that a pet store that should be caring for the welfare of the pets they sell is tormenting the animals for their own benefits. Money.

The problem is prior to this Pets at Homes animals have no socialisation or handling before they are sold then they go to homes with noisy children and freak out then are taken back because people cant handle them easily x

This is why your here To help with poorly looked after animals I live in the U.K. And I also find the small pets badly looked after

I’m from Chesterfield and I’ve seen this new format in person. They had 4 Syrian hamster in 1 tiny tank, they were all trying to climb out and were crawling over each other. I was so saddened to see the amount of stress they were in. Also, I hate how they call themselves “pet experts” when they’d rather employ a person without an animal qualification than someone with. when I talked to an employee there about the reptiles, the lady knew nothing about them, she didn’t even know how to handle them. It’s ridiculous.

their non interactive cages are horrible too. i was going in there to buy my gerbils food and i was looking at the hamsters. there was barely any space for them. the enclosures were about 30cm x 20cm

when i went to pets at home to get my hamster a few months ago they gave a leaflet with wrong hamster info

I'm so thankful that my local Pets at Home isn't going to be doing this. These poor animals! How can someone think that this is an okay thing to do?

I went into pets at home a couple weeks ago to get some supply’s for my dog and and the glass tanks for the hamsters were tiny! They had 5 dwarf hamsters in one small cage poor bbys 🥺💗

why even add a space for small animals to hide away if youre still putting windows where human faces can just hover and stare? completely defeating the purpose of those small burrow-like spaces that are traditionally put in standard enclosures

Thank you for spreading the word Emi! I have shared the link to your petition on Facebook! I feel really bad for the poor animals! 💗😔

Who else clicked as soon as they saw the notification? 👇🏻

Signed and sent to family and friends, who've signed too. This is an absolutely stupid idea, who in their right mind thought it sounded good??

As a person who works at a pet store, I can say that we wish we could ban children from the small animals section. We have open enclosures and kids throw animals more than you would think. And parents like to think we’re babysitters and literally drop their kids off at our store. It’s not ok, and we wish we could close the enclosures or at least ban people who are horrible to the animals/ make them pay for vet care.

"our enclosures exceed minimum pet shop licensing standards" yeah okay what about actual animal welfare standards??? tf?????????

I hardly ever go to Pets at Home because I get so wound up when I do 😠

Whenever we go to a pet store I always teach my 5 year old sister to talk quietly and not to tap on the glass or anything I feel bad for the little animals having to deal with this

The pets at home near me has done this and it is so sad. It’s almost like the animals they sell are just objects😢

You know they don't care when in every defence they just keep saying "well it suits the legal requirements" and so on. Right but if you care about their welfare as much as you say you do surely you'd be like everyone else here and go above and beyond the "requirements" I know all big companies are like this in some way or form and it's just "good business" but when it comes to actual living creatures, you preaching how much you care all the time, and telling other people (customers) how to care for animals, surely you'd want to make a good example?

I’ve never bought from pets at home but I used to like nipping in to see the animals when I was at the retail park because It cheers me up. Definitely will not be doing that anymore , this is just depressing

I feel so bad for these pets, mainly because they can’t do anything about it. They can’t talk and they just live this horrible life.

This is good. I love how you are spreading awareness of this mistreatment for these poor animals. Kids playing, disturbing, tapping on glass, running around making noise, and more is definitely not okay. You, making this video that has gotten 177,419 views (From the time I made this comment) will for sure spread awareness and hopefully, just hopefully at least half of the viewers will start supporting you, stopping this horribleness and stop supporting these horrible pet stores. And yes, it is not okay to be getting rodents from rodent mills. They will more likely have cons, for example, sickness, fear, and more. I am not okay with supporting these new changes. Luckily, me and my family got our rats from a breeder and not some untrustworthy pets store. Again, thank you for making this video and informing people about the cons of supporting pet stores. I wish you the best of luck on stopping pet stores. Stay safe.

I think instead of having the actual animal on display they should do it like in the zoo. A notice board with all the pictures or a screen displaying photos. This means the rats can have a private life yet still be available for‘viewing’ Please if you feel like this is the case like so it can be noticed

They really need interactive educational activities which teach them how to handle and care for each species x

this is disgusting. I' m so glad this has'nt happened to my local pets at home, especially bc its near a nursery. The poor animals

This is so sad, I'm glad you're speaking about it. Imagine if our apartment complexes had holes to peek through and crawl tunnels for small children.. it's the same thing. Every living creature deserves it's own space no matter what size. Also, your glasses are super cute on you!

I signed this petition so quickly after it came out!! So glad to see people with a following talking out about it!!

Jeez, I thought Pets at Home was better than that 😬 Edit: also I just signed the petition and have copied the link to share it. My mum will not let me donate money even though she agrees with this. I’ll share it will my friends and tell them to sign it too bcs they are both animal lovers.

there's a PetsAtHome where I live, and thankfully, the pets are well cared for. All the workers are well educated! I got my boys from there and theyre amazing. I hope they don't have this design!😥its horrible

THANK YOU FOR ADDRESSING THIS

Thank you so much for màking a video about this, I moved in to the stockport area and went to the pets at home and I was shocked by the new design. Also I bought my 2 rabbits (brothers) from a pets at home about a year ago, when I got them (I was fully aware of this before I got them and this was a big reason why I bought the 2 of them, as I knew I had the patience for them and didn't want them getting split up and/or going to the wrong owners) they were extremely timid.. the staff did not treat them correctly and just saw them as a product. I still have one of mine but his brother died whilst waking up from his neutering operation, my vet said my rabbit died due to a lung condition because of bad breeding, so I do not recommend getting a pet from pets at home and supporting how they breed and treat their animals, please do not buy from them, thank you x

I got my Guinea pigs from pets at home but it’s nothing like this one. They have huge enclosures for the rabbits and guinea pigs and the people that work there would not support this and gave us the biggest cage they had for guinea pigs which has two floors

I was super confused at first. I was like "where else should I have my pets if not at home?" But to my defense I'm sick and exhausted.

My local store I think has been redesigned but it’s a pretty small store which is probably why they didn’t make it into a playground. The enclosures have those red ‘hides’ but the employees did actually add extra proper hides inside which is good. I think some stores are ran well because they have employees who genuinely care for the animals and want the best for them and others like the owners are just there to get paid.

We got our two rats from the local pets at home store and even thought they were both "health checked" by one of the staff who told us she has many rats herself, within an hour of getting them settled, I knew there was something wrong. We took them to the vet in the same store a couple of days later and the vet said they had clearly been quite poorly for a while! Pets at home foot the bill for the two consultations and medications which can't have been cheap. 18 months on and the respiratory infections have returned and we've been left with a £50 vet bill and scratches all over our arms trying to give them the medication! I never knew this was an issue and whenever we go in now it's so obvious that the rats for sale have this infection! They only eat the nuggets from pets at home so we can't boycott them unfortunately but I won't be buying live animals from there again after having the boys be so poorly through the neglect of pets at home!

didn't hear about this at all !! one in Stockport ?? i kinda wanna see to see how the animals are treated / if staff do anything , might go investigate with the boyfriend since its a 30 min drive

I went to pets at home today since I was walking past and I saw a sign saying they are changing the layout. When I heard this I was so upset. I walked in and I could see people talking to the workers about how exited they were to take their kids there when its done. I can’t believe people are supporting this

So many animals are gonna die from stress in this environment, even if the animals are in a silent environment they can still be looked at 24/7 which is stressful enough let alone adding all the noise, this coming from someone who owns rabbits. Sad that these animals aren’t even getting the minimal space they’re supposed to have (4x a rabbits length), both my rabbits have 6ftWx9ftL which is only the run around area, both their home boxes add another 3-4ftL that are attached outside of the run around area & my one rabbit who’s a climber even has 3ft high vert areas (my other rabbit isn’t a climber/jumper), my rabbits have more than enough space & im still in the process of wanting to give them more space, seeing those habitats makes me really sad.

Really happy that I decided to notify you, I would've never thought to do petitions etc to get it changed back and stopped let alone have the audience to have as many signatures as you've manage to round up 🖤 Fingers crossed they actually listen and stop treating the pets like toys especially when it is illegal to buy a pet from them (and in general) if you are under 18. They deserve so much better then kids banging on the enclosures both underneath them and around them and having nowhere to escape to, just seems like a lack of care and actual research and more so "hey that looks cool and will attract customers/attention"

One time I saw a rat in a small tank in a pet store and it was running around in circles :( there was something wrong with the poor baby

I live in Melbourne Australia and I have NEVER seen any small pets being sold in pet stores only fish and cats from a shelter, I guess I’m just lucky

I signed the petition! Come on ppl!

im glad the big pet store chain near me has re caged all their rats into *more* suitable housing. it went from tiny aquariums with 3-4 rats with mixed seed pellet mix and a bowl of water with 1 plastic igloo, to currently how it is now; a bar cage with 2-3 rats, a relatively okay size, proper pellets and a proper water bottle with hammocks and lots of toys. im so glad!

Animal-loving children need to be taught to respect animals early. Animals aren’t toys, and they don’t exist for the entertainment of kids.

Thank you for making a video about this! Most people haven’t heard that pets at home is doing this. The RSPCA is against this as well. I do go to Pets at home because it’s the only pet shop that’s near me that I can get good dog and rabbit food from. I didn’t know they were going to change all the pet shops to this which makes me sad 😔 I think pets at home is trying to make it too kid friendly I don’t think any pet is a good pet for just kids to look after. It’s like one step forward but two steps back with their pet care ☹️ I do think the adoption bit is good better if they made it bigger but they should stop breeding and selling the animals.

I signed the petition and shared it to my friends x

Thank gosh! My pets at homes decent and would never ever see them do this they also clean the cages every sundays as I’ve watched it! But my mum was going to apply for a job once and I’m sure it said if you buy a pet you get a day off or something similar on there website but that’s a few years ago