Under $70

I was called over to reptiles today, to find a woman and her two daughters sitting in front of our anole cages waiting to be helped. You see they wanted a reptile.

A glance in their cart told me that they had no idea what they were doing.

A small 5.5 gallon tank, a bag of sand, a little hut.

Great....if you were looking for a hermit crab.

But anoles are tropical creatures that get pretty big. So they'd need at least a 10 gallon tank, and dirt and lots of branches.

Thankfully, the customers freely admitted that they had no idea what they were doing.

So I began to tell them what they would need like a larger tank, dirt, some heat lamps...

When the mother was like. "Okay, but we just want to get everything for under $70."

Ah. Well now it makes sense why they wanted the $5 anoles. They were looking for a cheap pet.

*shakes head*

It's always slightly irritating when people try to go the cheap route with animals.

I mean, I get it if you don't have a lot of money but want a pet, you'd want to get the bare basics first and upgrade or add in things as you get more money.

But if you're just looking to get a cheap pet....

You shouldn't get a pet.

Especially not a reptile.

As honestly, they aren't like dogs or cats or birds where you can just put a bowl of food in their cage and call it good.

They require live food, and basically weekly trips to the store.

*shakes head*

No, if they wanted a pet that wouldn't cost a lot...a reptile isn't the place to start as most of the time you're dropping $200-$300 depending on the setup and what sales we have going to get everything set up.

Not to mention your weekly trips to the store to buy crickets and mealworms.

So after I began bringing up all this information, showing them good kits and such, they quickly changed their mind.
"you want a bird? Can we get a bird for under $70?"

Ummm....barely? It would depend on the cage and the bird and the food....

To which the customers were like. "This local pet store has a deal where you can get a cage set up and the bird as well for $50 do you have anything like that?"

No....no I don't.

I have starter kits yes with stuff you need for animals, but I never bundle an animal into the sale. (though customers would be more than estatic if we did.)

I have to admit I was grateful that they left the store to go back to the local store for their bird.

Because I honestly don't like dealing with people who do the 'spur of the moment' pets with the 'lets get this cheap.' mindset.

That's not a good way to think of an animal.

*shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi