I love animals and have all my life. I thought that Rumford was a reputable natural pet store. On my interview, I directly asked where these puppies come from. I was blatantly lied to as they said they work with a few breeders who breed dogs for them and they have seen the locations and are friendly with the breeders. I admit I was naive and wanted to believe this was true. I started out on the sales floor and sucked at it because I couldn't try to get people to buy the most expensive bed, collars, and accessories after they spent upwards of 2000 on a puppy. I moved positions to animal care in the back. On paper and in front of the store, Rumford can seem acceptable. Once you start seeing the actual care of the puppies, It's a whole different game. There are 4 back rooms with the puppies that aren't ready to be put out yet. They need to have their dewormers for a few days before being able to be purchased. On a regular ""shipment"" there are between 70-200 puppies delivered. They are placed in metal crates that are stacked 3 or four high that can be rolled around to rearrange. Depending on the dogs, there can be from 1-6 puppies per crate. The puppies need to be ""pilled"" to get their wormers. This requires the employee to use a step ladder and wrestle with the puppies to get the pill down their throat. These employees are not trained properly and many times the dogs do not get the right amount of pills. Some dogs are given more than needed, while others are given not enough. The cleaning of these crates is also disgusting. In the back there are trays under each crate. They are supposed to start with an empty clean crate and move puppies to that crate and clean the crate where they came from. Most employees will take out all the trays and clean them first while the dogs defecate and urinate on each other. There are so many cages to clean that it's impossible to properly clean them all. The sick room (which employees are supposed to wear gowns and gloves before entering) is the dirtiest of them all. there are few stacking crates in here, but many cat carriers and kennel cabs. the bottoms of these kennel cabs have shredded paper on them.
more