Jack is an animal lover and a mechanic. He writes that when he went to fix a habitat door at a local Petsmart store, he found a dead parakeet trapped inside a hollow part of the door. It wasn’t the dead bird that bothered him the most, though: it was the manager’s total lack of concern about the situation. He was upset enough to e-mail Consumerist. (Warning: post contains non-graphic dead pet photo.)

I do some mechanical contracting for Petsmart. I received a work order to do some work at a [redacted] location to fix a door in their small bird habitat. The door has a hallow section on the back side that houses some mechanical parts for the lock. When I take apart the hallow section, I notice that a parakeet had unfortunately had fallen into a small hole at the top of the door. I alert the manager that I had checked in with when I arrived at the store.

I can honestly say, she had the most nonchalant attitude towards being told you have a dead animal shoved in your door. She looked at me like something was wrong with me when I asked the door to be cleaned. How was the smell of a decaying bird not noticed? I am an animal lover and cannot understand how you can be employed by a pet store and have such a piss poor attitude towards animals. I understand that these birds may be just a commodity to you that has one purpose, to be sold; however, to some people (like me), this is a travesty. I understand that this may cause me to lose work from this business, but honestly I do not want to be aligned with a company that shows this level of disrespect to the animals it sells.

I have enclosed a picture of the bird that was trapped inside. The part that you see the bird on is attached to the back side of the door.

A PetSmart representative had this to say when we forwarded Jack’s photo and email.

Thank you for calling our attention to this unfortunate situation. At PetSmart, we’re pet parents too, and we’re dedicated to keeping pets healthy and happy. We spoke with the store manager as well as the district manager, who confirmed the birds’ habitat has been secured to prevent this from happening again.

Our business partner is welcome to contact us directly at [redacted]. We’d be happy to get him in touch with the store’s district manager if he has further questions or concerns.

Let’s hope this is the case, and that no other birds will end up trapped inside a door… alive or not.

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