PetSmart Nightmare

Yesterday I got the air conditioner fixed in my car (hooray!) and the girls and I spent the day with Craig. That was really nice. Todd came into town, met me, and then we got in the van and picked up Walker.

We drove out on Hwy 64 and looked at a couple of houses.

That is where nice ended. We had to bury our cat, Daisycutter, yesterday morning. He liked to fight too much... Anyway we need a cat to keep down mice, since we live out in the country. So, unsure where to go, we went to PetSmart, a place we thought we could trust. We looked at the cats in the area they have for cat adoptions, and one orange cat watched us and seemed really interested in us. So we asked to play with it. So we went into the cubicle with the cat and the attendant and played with the cat. It was affectionate-- walking from one of us to the next to be petted, purring, and generally acting as though it would ever choose to be with anyone else. Little did we know.

We put the cat in the cardboard carrier, and drove to the truck. Todd and Meleah took the cat home. They got the cat out of the carrier and let him sit in the front of the truck. The cat lay in Todd's lap for a while, then in Meleah's. Then he lay down between them. Again, pleasant, affectionate, happy kitty behavior.

Then they got home. Walker and Olivia and I had gone to Wal-Mart to pick up some supper, so we weren't there yet. Todd got the cat out of the truck. He walked to the porch. The cat looked around, then, without warning, sank his teeth into Todd's wrist! Then he clawed until he got loose. He ran around the porch to the back deck. There Meleah tried to catch him, but he clawed her to rush headlong off the edge of the deck. Never one to give up, Meleah caught him, but then he clawed her again and fell the remaining distance.

This was a horrible, nightmarish experience. But, wait, it gets worse. Todd called PetSmart and told them what happened. The person who answered the phone was horrified and sympathetic, but said that we would need to see Karl Justice in the morning to process the refund. Told us to knock on the door if we got there before they opened this morning.

I got there about 9:15 and asked to speak to the manager. The clerk said, "So are you the one with the crazy cat?" and I said, "Yeah, how did you know?" And she pointed to the bandage on Meleah's arm. So we find Karl Justice. He asked me to describe what happened and I did. Then he started lecturing me on taking care of animals. He said things like, "We always encourage people not to take rescued animals out of the container" (which they hadn't) and "Rescued animals really need to be handled carefully" (as though we weren't). He asked if we had the cat. I told him that we could not catch the cat. That we had not even seen the cat since he had escaped. Then he told me that he would have to call the humane society since they would have to authorize a refund. Then he walked into another office and shut the door. He emerged, telling me that he had to talk to someone else before he could authorize a refund. So I offered him my cell phone number, which he took down.

Then he continued to talk to me as though I were incompetent. The implication was that the cat had run away because we had not treated it correctly. I finally told him that this cat acted nice and affectionate at the store and in the truck, then acted like a barn cat trapped in a sack when we got it home.

I will never take another rescued animal again, and I don't know that I will do any more business with PetSmart.