Metric
New Member
I work at a retail pet store, and one of my biggest pet-peeves (no pun intended) is when someone decides it's a good idea to purchase a pet as a gift for someone.
In most cases, I think it's the worst fathomable idea someone could come up with, but there are a few exceptions, like an addition to a fish tank, or a Betta fish or sometimes even a hamster on rare occasion.
With Chameleons being the delicate little flowers they are, does anyone else get nervous about Christmas time and the possible influx of newbies coming to the forums with threads sounding something like, "hi, im new here I just got a chameleon for Christmas, what does it eat?" followed by many of us replying, giving correct information that results in that new member having to re-create the living quarters for their new pet, resulting in a huge investment. Ideally, this is the "best" case scenario, because the recipient of the gift was conscious enough to make the effort of finding this forum, meaning they were looking for information, and I'm all for that.
What really makes me nervous, is the amount of people that won't come to the forum out of sheer ignorance, and lack of interest in their gifted chameleon.
Now I know it's silly to worry so much, since there are bigger issues in world that I should be concerned with like child slavery, deforestation, child-sex trade, and homelessness just to name a few, but for some reason I'm able to emotionally and mentally block those out (maybe I'm a terrible person) but for some reason, I feel a churn in my gut when I think about chameleons and Christmas.
Regardless, I'll continue doing my part by telling customers not to purchase pets as gifts, but I was just wondering, am I the only one that thinks/feels this way?
edit: spelling/grammar
In most cases, I think it's the worst fathomable idea someone could come up with, but there are a few exceptions, like an addition to a fish tank, or a Betta fish or sometimes even a hamster on rare occasion.
With Chameleons being the delicate little flowers they are, does anyone else get nervous about Christmas time and the possible influx of newbies coming to the forums with threads sounding something like, "hi, im new here I just got a chameleon for Christmas, what does it eat?" followed by many of us replying, giving correct information that results in that new member having to re-create the living quarters for their new pet, resulting in a huge investment. Ideally, this is the "best" case scenario, because the recipient of the gift was conscious enough to make the effort of finding this forum, meaning they were looking for information, and I'm all for that.
What really makes me nervous, is the amount of people that won't come to the forum out of sheer ignorance, and lack of interest in their gifted chameleon.
Now I know it's silly to worry so much, since there are bigger issues in world that I should be concerned with like child slavery, deforestation, child-sex trade, and homelessness just to name a few, but for some reason I'm able to emotionally and mentally block those out (maybe I'm a terrible person) but for some reason, I feel a churn in my gut when I think about chameleons and Christmas.
Regardless, I'll continue doing my part by telling customers not to purchase pets as gifts, but I was just wondering, am I the only one that thinks/feels this way?
edit: spelling/grammar