MLAARE -White Elephant Don'ts

There is one thing I don't like about this time of year.
It's giving gifts.
More importantly.
It's the giving of animals as gifts.
Especially when the giving of an animal takes place in such an event that the person has no control over who gets the gift.
Say, like in a White Elephant Gift Exchange.

Even more so.
I don't like it when people try to fool us. Play the system.

>.<

We had a customer come into the store, and ended up getting a rat from us.
Due to a variety of circumstances with said rat.
We wouldn't be able to extend our usual time frame for returning said pet.
And said customer filled out that paperwork, understanding that they could not return said rat for any reasons once it left our store.

But then, a couple of days later.
A gentleman walked into the store with the paperwork in hand, to return a rat that he had gotten at his work's white elephant gift exchange.
He couldn't take care of the rat, didn't want it as a pet, so he returned it to our store.

The manager on duty accepted it back.
Thinking it was our rat.

Only.
For one. We couldn't accept it back because the paperwork that the person gave us back stated explicitly that we would not take it back!

But the bigger reason. Two.
IT WASN'T OUR RAT!!

No. The little chit who adopted out the rat switched the rats!
We adopted out a full grown rat.
The one that was given back to us in return?
Wasn't full grown, wasn't the same coloring.
And most important of all.
Wasn't the SAME GENDER.

To prevent breeding from happening in our stores we only sell one gender per location. So one store would sell females, while the next store would sell males.

I can't believe her! What in her mind possessed her to even THINK that this was a good idea?
That she could fool us? That she could just give away another rat an expect us to take it back.
WHEN SHE SIGNED PAPERWORK SAYING WE WOULDN'T?!?!

Obviously she wasn't listening, or chose not to remember, or thought we wouldn't question it.
Certainly the manager didn't question it.
Because they didn't know that the rat that was brought back wasn't our rat because they don't work in my department, so they wouldn't know what animal was or wasn't ours.

Yet, I also couldn't believe that she would just give away a rat in a white elephant gift exchange!
Who knew how long the rat had been without food or water, trapped in a tiny plastic tote that gave it no room to turn around?!
Ugh, there are so many words and actions I would like to do to this person.

Animals deserve GOOD FOREVER homes.
They shouldn't be given in a spur of the moment thing.
Let people choose the animals they want to have as pets when they want to have it.
Don't go forcing responsibility on them when they don't want it.

In the end, it's the animal that suffers because of it. >.<

-Sarnic Dirchi