Petco employees...

Acottrelll

Member
Today I went into a petco and saw they had a Jacksons I was interested in. The employee would not let me handle him and he said it was because they are sensitive to the oils on our skin and shouldn’t be handled for more than 2 minutes? I’ve never heard of this before. Is this true? Lol
 
I had the same thing happen when my friend bought a hermit crab and wanted to hold it. The employee said that the oils of our hand harm their skin, even though hermit crabs have exoskeletons . . . Also none of them could tell me the gender of the chameleons. They told me, "You probably won't know the gender until they are about 4-6 months old. They were probably about 6-7 weeks old at that point. I bought one anyway and knew long before that. If I hadn't done a lot of research before getting a chameleon, I probably would have believed the unknown sex and oily skin nonsense. o_O
 
Yeah, I work at PetCo and that’s definitely not true. There are some amphibious animals (frogs, salamanders) that really ARE sensitive to the salts and oils on human skin, but chameleons can be handled without being harmed by them. Depending on the temperament and the trust you’ve established with your chameleon, handling them can very much stress them out, though. That’s why it’s important to let them come onto your outstretched hand or arm on their own. Never grab them from above, either, as this is interpreted as an aggressive movement.
 
I'll bet its just a handy excuse for not letting "customers" handle their livestock. Its an obscure enough reason to put off the more ignorant, keeps the creatures from being pestered by every curious looker, and may protect the store from claims that the animal bit or clawed someone. Whether the staff knows its baloney or not, the end result is that it does protect the chams a little.
 
I worked in a local pet shop.b saying stuff about oil is a lot nicer than, "I don't have all day to stand here while you pretend you're going to buy it." I had to judge how serious I thought the person was before getting animals out otherwise I spent all day getting bunnies and snakes out and even the, 1of maybe 20 ended in a sale. I often told people the snake just ate and was likely to bite.
 
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