Pet Shop — Local services in Boston

In summary; they neglect cold blooded and aquatic animals and abuse birds and rodents. Don't give them money.

It's like a car accident, gets worse to look at the closer you get. They have a bunch of mid tier products one would find at Petco or any other reputable pet store (yes Petco is more humane than them). Got greeted by a scruffy looking dog, which was nice, until I saw the dog hobbling around the shop with a leash dragging behind it. They keep the animals other than fish (which were all in small algae ridden tanks) in a back room where you can't immediately see them, and it's a terrible industrial looking space. The mice are all crowded into small ten gallon tanks by the two dozen in mixed genders and ages, which leads to the sad sight of countless ill, pregnant, and clearly distressed mice crowded and piled together. The hamsters, while fewer in number, were in similar dissaray. If you don't know, mice and hamsters are territorial and need carefully measured space to make sure they don't kill each other or sicken themselves with stress. The birds were all shrieking, which stressed each other out and led to more shrieking, and it was to the point where some birds were clambering across the ceilings and spinning around on the floor of small cages. Oh, and all the bird and rodent cages had a water bottle, a food bowl, and bedding, no toys or shelters at all. Two and three foot boas were in the same size tanks as the mice. And again, ask the animals were in one room to distress each other further. Giving this business money is rewarding industrial practice that leads to sick, miserable animals. The last straw for me was seeing that dog drag it's leash across the ground, revealing giant dust bunnies. I recommend disobeying the "no cameras" directive the sign at the closed door to the animal room declares, it genuinely angers me that they get...

19 years ago, in my 20’s I wandered into the Pet Shop just to take a peek at the animals, not intending to leave with a new friend. What I saw was devastating. My soon to be cat daughter’s husband who was living with her in a cage was being purchased by some young students because his colors were more crisp, and she was in distress reaching for him, crying, hissing, etc. I began crying and decided I needed to take her home with me. The owner of this shop helped me clip her nails, and we were off to our new life together. I loved her with all my heart, but when I lost my parents back to back, I needed to take care of myself, and moved overseas temporarily. I couldn’t bear to re-home her with strangers, so a loving colleague and friend of mine took care of Sophie while I got my strength back so I could return in these very important and poignant years to take care of my baby who I never stopped loving. On September 23rd, 2025, she slipped into heart failure and her future no longer seemed it would be bright on this earth, so I sent her to Heaven. Sophie was 20 years old. I know she went directly from my lap to my mother’s lap in Heaven when she passed. I will forever be grateful that I walked into the Pet Shop on Harvard Avenue that afternoon and found my soulmate. I was 25 years old and Sophie stayed with me from 1 year of age until she was 20. She waited for me to heal from the losses of my family members and we reunited. We never stopped loving each other, and I believe she lived as long as she did and waited for me because of the love we shared. She will forever be my daughter. Thank you to the owner of the Pet Shop. My life was changed that day...

I can’t speak to the conditions of the fish, as the only type of animal there I am familiar with and am comfortable writing a review based off of is the birds, but what I saw I certainly was not happy with. Right at the entrance there was a small cockatiel who had no perches in its cage, and was hanging awkwardly onto the corner wall whose toe nails had clearly gone months past when they needed to be cut, each nail as long or longer than the toe it was attached to. This is a simple and quick task that doesn’t take ten minutes to do, and is evidence of the neglect that the staff have there. Above the bird sat a sign saying that you weren’t allowed to take pictures of it. In the back room where they keep the rest of the birds, it’s small and cramped. While the two of us were there, the person I was with wanted to take a photo of the hyacinth macaw and I, and must have forgotten their sketchy “no photography” rule. Well, the attempt at taking a photo resulted in the clerk shouting “NO, NO, NO, STOP THAT, DIDNT YOU SEE THE FKING SIGNS?” (which I can see the logic that banning photography would result from people shoving the camera in an animal’s face but come on now) and he then called her, loudly, a “fking r*tard.” She was nowhere near a bird, standing in the middle of the room at the time so the invasion of animal privacy thing was obviously not a factor. The conditions were just sad, no other word for it. I hope that cockatiel gets purchased soon, lord knows it needs some help and that mean jackwagon behind the counter certainly isn’t going to do it. Please take your...