I decided to check this out myself, and for what it's worth, you can go the
www.peta.com and they have multiple reports of this kind of treatment at petco. As for purchasing animals in a pet store, we have a petstore in our mall that has dozens of pedigree puppies and kittens and the conditions there are just nauseating, not to mention twice the price of what you would pay at a breeder. I guess the people that purchase them must not be aware that you can get pets locally through breeders for half the price. It makes me wonder however, who polices these types of stores.....We have a local humane society which because of budget restraints doesn't do much of anything (won't even take in strays anymore) But we don't have a local ASPCA. Just another indicator of what a sad world we live in for creatures great and small.