Feel guilty for buying pets from pet stores

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I bought my rats from the pet store but everywhere I read about rats it advises you NOT to buy pets from pet stores as apparently they are bred in the worst possible conditions and by buying the pets you are paying for more mothers to give birth in bad conditions.

Am I bad for buying rats from the pet store? Their environment seems to be clean every time I go in there and look at them and they look well-fed. But apparently it's only about business and not about the animal's wellbeing, so we're kind of guilted into not buying from pet stores.

On a forum for rat owners that I go on I said that I have given 4 rats from the pet store a good home, but some members made me feel guilty about it, saying that by paying for rats from the pet store I am actually hurting other rats. Is this strictly true? I feel so bad. What do I do? Make sure rats from pet stores don't get a good home? Try to put the pet stores out of business?

Don't beat yourself up, please.

It would be nice if you adopted a dog/cat from a shelter-----but you have the right to get the dog/cat/whatever from a pet store, too.

No, you're not bad for unwittingly participating in something horrible when you only interact with it's sterile face. Yes, you contributed, but they took advantage of you and everyone else like you in order to get your contribution - that makes them worse, not you.

I word this very generically because I feel this way broadly, not just about this specific version of this sort of situation.

If you were truly a bad person, you wouldn't have made this post. File the experience under "Live and Learn." You're a good person.

It still makes me feel bad though, especially when someone said that some female rats are kept in bad environments all their lives and just have to keep giving birth, and it hit me hard when they added "and people like you fund this by buying rats from the pet store".

Can't they just let the mothers give birth once or twice then put them into the store or adoption services or whatever before they're old, so that they can still live a nice life? Why are some humans so cruel? I think there should be a law against it.

You're approaching the problem from an empathetic standpoint, that's why it's so guano and unthinkable. They're just thinking from a maximizing profit standpoint. It's a puppy mill on a smaller scale (or, erm... bigger when you consider the individuals instead of the space they take up).

There should be laws against it. We care enough to pass laws making it illegal to treat some animals like this, but others aren't so lucky.

Joe 90. Pet stores vary. Most are very good in looking after their animals, but lets say one does not look after them... Doesn't the little thing need someone to rescue it or them?

This is probably an unusual perspective, but I feel bad about the idea of buying pets at all.

I ask myself "why should I have the right to determine this animal's future and destiny?" and I don't have a good answer to that question.

Pets bring humans a lot of joy, and vice versa. Rats don't live so long in the wild, and if fancy rats were to be released out into the wild they'll only die anyway. So why not give them a good home? My rats have helped me cope through lockdown, and they are well-fed, happy little creatures.

I love animals but I don't look at it in a "tree-hugger's" way.

When I ask myself this, my answer is, "If I have the ability to give a life a better fate or destiny than it might otherwise have, I am doing no harm". At least 3 of my rats "destiny" was to be fed to a snake before I interfered. Instead they spent 4 years playing in laundry piles, getting cuddles, and enjoying tasty snacks. All of my rats got many years worth of spoiled happiness and fun. I may have chosen their destiny, I but I don't see how they could have had a better one - tho I could easily see them as having a worse one, like staying in a tiny cage, or living in the wild foraging for scraps and dodging predators. I won't keep rats (or any pets) unless I know I can give them the best life they deserve.


@ OP
If you can find a breeder, that's great. But even private breeders can be just as bad, too. I wouldn't take their reprimands to heart, much of the time it's just virtue signaling. If the only place you can get your furry friends is from a pet store, then that's your only option. Every business is going to treat their animals like a commodity, cos that's how they make money - but some pet stores do at least try to treat the critters humanely. I have found that PetSmart makes a big deal about humanely caring for their critters, and unlike some other chain stores that have large bins with dozens of small critters, they only keep a few at a time - so it seems like they're mindful of over-breeding, and don't just churn them out. At least where I live - and where I live, more people keep snakes than rats. So not all pet stores are as bad as they're made out to be.

Whether or not the animals in that particular store were born into an uncaring environment, they were obviously well cared-for when you brought them.
You care for them and ABOUT them.
They have a loving home, and you need and deserve affectionate and entertaining pets. They, as you say, are helping you get through this bewildering and intimidating time.
They and you are doing so very much for each other, the result of your purchase is that you did a good thing, and their happy lives show that.
You could post some pictures, so we can see how cute they are!

Whether or not it's common it's a perfectly reasonable perspective.

Don't worry too much about it they make you happy and you're giving them a good home.

I feel pretty bad these days about some pets that are clearly not meant to be domesticated. I used to keep fish and have had quite a lot of them in the past. In the end though I saw a pretty familiar pattern where they seemed clearly distressed from being in the captivity of a tank. I made the decision to stop keeping them as pets in the end, there is no way I could ever be that selfish. That being said there are a lot of types of pets that warm up to their owners and enjoy human interaction. It is just a bit of a problem when people just think reclusive behaviour is normal.

Pet shops vary.

I don't think a cat & dog shelter would shelter rats. Or that that would be a good environment for them.

I don't know enough about rat breeders vs pet shops to know which is worse for the rat or if it's bad for rats to be kept like that. I do know that I feel bad for the small animals at Pets at Home cos dogs are allowed in the shop and go straight to that part of the shop if allowed to by humans...

Obviously it would be better if you adopted them from a friend. But that's something to do next time.

We bought 2 of our cats from breeders. One was by a breeder who didn't care for any of their cats & she had all sorts of infections when she came The other only cared about half their pets (it was weird). When we went there, my cat's dad and uncles were all in cages and the mum and aunties and kittens were all like pets walking around the house.

We won't do that again - at least I won't. But what we've learnt is treat them well the rest of their lives! Give them the lives they wouldn't have had at the pet shop/with the breeder. In a way then, you're 'rescuing' the individuals even if you're contributing to the trade of such animals.

Is there such a thing as a 'pedigree' rat?

I don’t feel the dogs and cats or other animals in people’s homes mind “having their destiny determined” by the humans who treat them well.

As for humans who treat them cruelly, that would be a whole other story. Those people should be hung by their you know whats!

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 21 Nov 2020, 1:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.