Petco and Petsmart really vary on a store to store basis depending on the management. That's just another reason that boycotting the whole chain makes no sense to me. Both the Petco and Petsmart stores here are always clean and the animals always look healthy and happy. I like how the birds are housed in Petco a bit more, they just recently did a huge walk-in bird room so people can walk in and see the birds instead of just looking at them like through a shop window.

I think the thing to do is if someone comes across a particular store that is managed poorly to make complaints and if those go unheeded, take your patronage elsewhere. If the animals truly seem horribly neglected or mistreated there might be other things one could do like complain to the franchise headquarters or something.

When I was growing up, there were a couple different Wal-Marts in the area. Both of them sold a few fish and smaller birds (parakeets/finches/canaries). One of them had deplorable conditions, the tanks were nasty and filled with scum and algae so bad you could hardly see the fish. There were always a few dead fish floating around in the tanks. The bird cages were nasty and the birds always looked ill. The other Wal-Mart a few miles down the road had crystal clear fish aquariums, bright, clean cages with active chattering birds, and never once did I see a sick or dying animal. I had to make my judgements based on the individual stores, and not just conclude that all Wal-Marts were one way or the other.