Pet Industry in Ireland

kelloish

I am contemplating making a move to Ireland and want to know what the pet industry is like... Are there a fair amount of petstores? Any chains or all family owned? While I do have a college diploma I am currently working at a Petstore here in Canada and I looovvveee it. I'd love to find similar work somewhere in Ireland but we shall see.
Thanks
Kellie

monty_python

there is some great pet shops that help the coustomers out alot but there is an equal amount of bad pet shops. if you have a degree then im sure you could go to wackhers or reptile haven or the fish bowl or 1 of the great pet shops in rural ireland and get a job. but before you apply for a job in any pet shop in this country look around the shop and make your own mind up. half are brillant half should be shot.

thats my 2 cents worth


hope it helps:D

MsFifers

There are also a large no. of garden centres which have pet shops attached - so your employment prospects could include those. I'm sure they would be interested in someone with the correct educational background - at least I hope they would!:rolleyes:

carwash_2006

My own personal experience of garden centres with pet sections is that I wouldn't touch most of them with a barge pole. There are probably some out there that are not too bad, but for the most part they don't employ anybody who has a notion about animals and they just make it up as they go along.

mollydolly271

good pet shops here are few and far between so i yhink you should come over here an open an amaxing one and i would come and work for you....

Sigma Force

There are a handful of clean, well run sensible pet shops in Ireland.
Sadly the majority and I mean the big majority are a nightmare, the ones attached to hardware shops can be terrible but the worst I have seen are larger run ones believe it or not.

In most pet shops you just need to be able to work a till, in fact they seem to employ people who don't know a rabbit from a canary. So you would probably be over qualified from some.

I know this sounds harsh but the amount of sorry states I've seen animals in pet shops over the years makes me so angry in some if you complain you will get a torrent of abuse back. Many people that contact me just looking for a bit of basic guinea pig care or what have you, have gotten their animal from the pet shop and either the animal has health issues or was sexed wrong, or were given the wrong care info. etc.

The very first rescue pig I got here was a heartbreaker she was from a pet shop, she had horrific injuries eventhough we had her at the vets and she was treated with antibiotics and given a lot of tlc the infection reaccured and she sadly died.
Lost track of how many people take their new pet home from the pet shop, to find out the animal has given birth.

I'm ranting now gotta stop.
Not tarring all with the same brush but if I see one more pet shop selling guinea pigs with rabbits I will scream.

miju

I'll agree with you guinea. I bought two fish for my son to enjoy / take care off from petstop in Blanche.

They both died a week later and luckily when my son discovered them they were still half alive and swimming with one fin in a circle. They died about 5 mins later and I brought them to a "vet" to get them some medicine

The Nemo and Jack 2.0 from a different shop have been spritely for the last 3 months without a bother at all.

kelloish

Its disappointing to here that the state of petcare over there isn't great. There are still a lot of complaints about pet stores in America but here in Canada I've found it's been pretty good. Most of the progress has been because people have spoken up.

I wish I could just start up my own petstore in Ireland... sadly, I'm lacking in funds. Moving to Ireland apperently isn't cheap ;P

One of the most heartbreaking parts of moving over there is having to leave my pets. My hermit crabs and fish tanks will be taken care of but I will have to rehome my three parrots. Well I'll definitely be searching for a good Petcare job soontimes

Rory123

Petcare / Petshop???

kerrysgold

There are definitely plenty of bad ones. my local one has guineas and rabbits mixed in glass tanks and all the other smallies (chinchillas etc) in boring cages with nothing to play with or anything. I don't think pet shops here are allowed to sell pups/kittens though which is still allowed in the US? But then don't you have those shops that help dogs get adopted? those are good even though I don't supposed home checks can be done but anyway, good luck with finding a job, it'd be great to have someone who actually knows one end of an animal from the other working in a pet shop!

Warhammer

kelloish wrote: »

I am contemplating making a move to Ireland and want to know what the pet industry is like... Are there a fair amount of petstores? Any chains or all family owned? While I do have a college diploma I am currently working at a Petstore here in Canada and I looovvveee it. I'd love to find similar work somewhere in Ireland but we shall see.
Thanks
Kellie

I think that you could open a pet shop or try to get a job in a good,well known pet shop.

Themadhouse

Pet shops in Canada are very different than here. Firstly in Canada they are an awful lot bigger with a lot of better supply of foods. There seem to be quite a lot of different chains, i was in 2 or 3 big ones. I was aslo in a small one in Halifax which was lovely, it had a groomer attached to it and no animals for sale.
I suppose it all depends on what part of the petshop you enjoy working in. Here we dont have dogs or cats for sale in the shops.
I was shocked when i saw them for sale in Canada. Now while i know they were cared for and had food and water it was just a bit of a shock. But then again a lot of rescues house animals that way too. The price for these pets were crazy too!
There was a fully grown dog in a pen in one, he didn't seem very happy.
They are very different so i would perhaps contact soem of the stores and see if you can get info or do some research on the internet.

spar

Good Evening,

Today Friday the 19th of September I saw the terrible conditions in which rabbits in a pet shop on the Ennis Rd, Limerick were being kept in. In one cage there was 4large rabbits 2Guinne pigs and 6baby rabbits no older than 5weeks on display. This is an absolute disgrace from a pet shop as the cage was not fir for more than 2large rabbits at best! Not only was this over cramped the cage stank and looked like it had not be cleaned in at least a week which is terrible for 12pets in a cage let alone such a small. cage. I have two pet rabbits both small Netherland dwarfs and know exactly how much space my two need to run around and get exercise. This was not the only case of neglet in the shop they had one large white female rabbit with two small baby rabbits no older than 3weeks old in the same size cage but there was no house for them to hide in. One of the two babies was in such shock that it was shaking while lying on its side (not in the normal relaxed rabbit manor) its feet were curled up while it lay on its left hand -side. When the large rabbit jumped on the baby it didn’t move. This cage had not been cleaned and had a foul smell coming from it as well. There was 4 large male rabbits also in a small cage their water bottle had been knocked off the wall and was lying spilt all over the base of the cage. Their cage was also very smelly and dirty. In one cage there was 4lion heads and their cage was filty and had not been cleaned one of the rabbits who was white had yellow dirt all over his fur mean he was sick and still left in the cage with the others. This is an absolute disgrace and not the first time I have witnessed it in this shop. When the shop first opened and about last January I purchased my first rabbit from this shop. The staff informed me that it was 8weeks old and fully weaned. The rabbit was very small and as I was very naive I believed the staff member who told me that this was the size of a Netherland dwarf at 8weeks. About a week later I brought Gizmo to my vet to get his shots and to have a check up. My vet informed that the rabbit I had been sold was in fact only 5weeks old and should not have been taken away from his mother. As a direct result from the sale assistant lying to me Gizmo died I had feed him some basil and carrot as I had been told he had already been weaned. Gizmo had not been weaned and should not have been in the shop for sale. I rang the shop to enquire about when they would be receiving more Netherland dwarfs from their breeder. The person on the phone informed me that the ones that they had (Gizmo’s family) had been sold to them by a person who did not have room for them in their house. So the shop does not even use a proper breeder and the staff have no clue how to deal with rabbits or the how to tell people who are buying them how to look after them. This is very cruel and unfair to the pets and I feel that action should be taken on this shop straight away in order to prevent future abuse to such lovely timid animals .

Sigma Force

What's the name of the pet shop Spar?

Can you report the shop to the nearest SPCA and follow it up so they do go and visit it, eventhough the laws are vague if this shop is like this then surely something can be done.

Sigma Force

Ah is it Petmania

Our man in Havana

I don't like where this is going. Careful now.

RebelRockChick

kelloish wrote: »

I am contemplating making a move to Ireland and want to know what the pet industry is like... Are there a fair amount of petstores? Any chains or all family owned? While I do have a college diploma I am currently working at a Petstore here in Canada and I looovvveee it. I'd love to find similar work somewhere in Ireland but we shall see.
Thanks
Kellie

Well, to be honest, the pet industry in Ireland is said to be a few years (4 or 5) behind the U.S. and Canada, I have been told this while studing in order to work in the industry, but there are some great pet shops which are certainly pushing the industry forward here.

I'd imagine there would be a good few family owned/ independant pet stores. There is only one big chain store that I know of, which is Maxi Zoo, which has two stores located in Cork (Ballincollig & Midleton) and one in Limerick.

Our man in Havana

Petmania is also a large chain - these are American style stores - I can not comment on what they are like as I do not shop in them.

I know some great family run shops/pet farms & I know poor & mediocre ones as well. You really need to visit a few shops & get a feel; for the atmosphere, customer relations & of course animal welfare is a huge part of the deal too.