Sad Returns

It always throws me off when customers call the store to say that their animal died.
Like fish. Fish I can understand.

But when it's the other animals...like the birds and the hamsters or more often the Reptiles.....
I get so...confused?

Because like, I see those creatures basically every single day.
And usually notice when things aren't going well with them.

So like...when a customer tells me that their new pet died within our guaranteed return period...
It's weird.
I automatically wonder what the customer did to kill the creature. 
(Though I don't say so to the customer.) 

Because like....it was fine when it left the store...why did it die so quickly when it came into your care?

Really more often than not it's not the customer's fault at all.
Some animals just like to...well die. 

This morning I had a customer all to say that the Tortoise they'd bought like a week ago...had been found dead. 

Which O.o I'm pretty sure we had that tortoise in our store for like two or three weeks....and It seemed like he'd been eating fine.
So it was confusing to have the customer call and say he was dead.
Because like. O.o 
Huh? 

*shakes head*
I wonder if he wasn't warm enough or something....

In any case.
The customer was calling to see if they could return the tortoise because they had read about the policy. (which alarm bells...if they had to read it that means that the customer wasn't told it, and my associates are supposed to be telling every customer about the return policy if they're purchasing a pet) 
Which they can. Because it was within the timeframe specified.
And we happened to have a tortoise in the store (we'd got it in a couple of days ago) 

So they came into the store a couple of hours later and exchanged out the tortoise, and my manager was sure to spend some time with him to be sure that they were taking adequate care of their tortoise. 

So hopefully *fingers crossed* this one lives a lot lot lot longer. 

-Sarnic Dirchi