Question Of What I Guess You Could Call Morals

[kendall]

I am 18 and have been looking very hard at getting a job in Industry (I am currently studying a Cert III in companion animal services)

I refuse to buy products from petstores that sell puppies, highly against it.

There is an opening at the petstore at my local shopping centre, it would be a great opportunity because I know what I am talking about and I can learn more and more

Only problem is, there is puppies and other animals sold from this petshop. I am trying to think, if I just try for the job and get it and keep it until I can find something else or stand by what I believe

I am desperate for a new job, because my other one is horrible and I have been trying for a few months.

No petshops that sell animals are good. But some are far better than others. And you do need a job.

So I say, apply for the job, go for the interview, then ask them about their policies about purchasing & rehoming puppies. Be polite - you can say that it's an issue that concerns you since they talk about it a lot on your course, for example. If the answers about where the pups come from & who they are sold to are acceptable to you (not ideal, but acceptable), and you think the boss is a good person & open to ideas, then I'd say go for the job & try to change them from inside. ;)

It will never be ideal. But if it's a typical shoddy pet store, then you could possibly also do a lot of good there, if the boss will listen to your ideas. Such as to get the shop to do home checks before selling animals, get them to only buy large breed puppies with hip scores, trying to persuade them to work in partnership with the local shelter to sell pound animals not BYB animals, getting them to desex the animals before selling them (or selling them with a desex voucher included), or to only taking BYB animals to sell for free (i.e., don't pay the BYB for them so the BYB doesn't make a profit & isn't as tempted to do it again).

Nice in theory but if it is THE big pet store then nothing will change My boss was really only in it for the money, he would buy dogs for as cheaps as possible and sell them for stupid amounts of money, cats were taken in for free unless they were a 'breed'. They did vet check, worm, deflea, vaccinate and groom the pups and kittens, they were fed premium food and they were all sold with discount vouchers for desexing and the next two vaccinations. People can just walk in off the street and buy a dog - one person came down to buy stamps....

[Christina]

Some people don't let their ethics bother them & others do.

This bothers you or you wouldn't have posted.

One thing I have found in life, I am a lot older, is that if I work somewhere where their practices are against my ethics I don't last long & become very miserable.

I think that when you find out more about what goes on under the surface about puppies in pet shops & the whole trade behind the scenes you will become very upset.

If I were you I would not take this job.

In life it is an old saying that as one door closes another door opens.

You will find this out & hopefully another opportunity will come along soon

[Esky the husky]

I wouldn't do it personally

Making my money selling live animals makes me no better than a BYB IMO

Say you work there for a while and then want to move on to something else.

You then have this thing on your resume that lets everyone know you've been selling pets.

To some employers this might be a worse thing to see than someone with your qualification who doesn't have much experience in the industry.

[labsrule]

I am 18 and have been looking very hard at getting a job in Industry (I am currently studying a Cert III in companion animal services)

I refuse to buy products from petstores that sell puppies, highly against it.

There is an opening at the petstore at my local shopping centre, it would be a great opportunity because I know what I am talking about and I can learn more and more

Only problem is, there is puppies and other animals sold from this petshop. I am trying to think, if I just try for the job and get it and keep it until I can find something else or stand by what I believe

I am desperate for a new job, because my other one is horrible and I have been trying for a few months.

I am going to try and see what happens, its convenient and I'll kind of be doing something I enjoy =S

So according to your original post you are highly against petstores that sell puppies and in the next breathe you are going to try it and see what happens Don't understand why you bothered posting in the first place as you seem to have already made your mind up. Start off as you mean to go on - compromising values/morals/ethics should never be taken lightly as you are essentially undermining your own conscience and there are consequences of doing this.

[Rach...]

Thanks everyone, I am almost 100% sure I am not going to go in and apply. I have also told my friend who told me about the position the exact reason why I will not be applying (they were there looking at puppies) and they are now reconsidering where they get their new pup from. Had a long talk with my parents and even though it would help out if I got it, they don't want me to do something if I am really against it. I wont even purchase anything for my animals from this store and refuse to go in there with friends when we are at the shops so thinking about it more I just couldnt justify working there I really do not things would change in this pet shop they are a large franchise.

I stopped doing work experience at a place because I did not agree with the way they do things and did not take them up on their offer for me to do further work experience.

[Jenni87]

Just saw this and thought I'd add something.

Rach, at TAFE we have Career Connect. It helps the students find work in the industry of study. I'm not sure if you have tried that but if you pop to the bookshop they should have the forms there to register??

[corvus]

As a raging conservationist, I went and worked as an environmental consultant for a while. That basically meant I was assessing the impact developments would have on the environment and ultimately signing off on it. Sometimes I would decide that something was going to have a significant impact and all that would happen was the developers would change their design slightly, or bargain for compensatory habitat, or the government would decide to let them do it anyway.

I am not and never will be comfortable with some of the developments I assessed. But if we didn't assess them, some dodgy company only interested in profits would and who knows what would be allowed to happen to the environment's detriment.

Eventually, I got disillusioned with the whole industry and how flawed the process is and decided to get out of it all, but I don't regret my years there at all. I learnt a huge amount, gained useful experience in things like budgeting, animal ethics applications and talking to clients and I even made a difference every now and then.

So, finally relating my experience to your current predicament, I would say don't be blinded to opportunities to learn, gain experience, and make a difference on the front line, so to speak by your moral standards. You don't have to encourage every impulse buyer to hand over the cash for a puppy. You don't have to be complicit in mistreatment of animals. If there is something you can do to right a wrong, who is stopping you? If you are in the store, you can instigate change from within. And besides all that, I do know someone who started out working in a pet store and is now a full-time vet nurse, so it certainly can be a stepping stone.

[Sky_Mel]

When I was your age I got a job at a pet store and I didn't even last the week!

I still work in the animal industry but could never go back to a pet store. I was always against the sale of pets in pet stores but wanted to get as much experience as I could in all facets of the industry. So sad when they were trying to sell of puppies and kittens to people that had no clue