Sierra Fish & Pets — Local services in Renton

I am absolutely disgusted with this horror factory. First off, the store stunk upon entry. Not a pet-store-stink, but it smelled just dirty and unkept. There’s water all over the floors where they keep their fish and there’s hardly any lighting making way for an extreme slipping hazard. I was impressed to see they had a tank specifically for sick fish, but I soon discovered it was all for show. In the male guppy tank, I counted TEN dead fish in ONE tank! There were two fish on their way out as well, one had swim bladder and was thrashing around upside down while another was gasping at the bottom of the tank covered in ick and fin rot. In fact, almost every fish I saw had either a mild or severe case of fin rot, ick, or both! I let an employee know and she shrugged at me. SHRUGGED! She said she’d be “right there” but I secretly kept an eye on her and she didn’t do anything about it. She instead left with a fellow employee and did something else. Upon seeing the horrible fish conditions, I was scared to face the tarantulas, but what I saw was way worse than I could ever have imagined! Some of the slings (baby tarantulas) were in way too small of containers and each container was dripping with water. I was pleased to see they all had webbed which is a very good sign but I was still horrified at the conditions they were in. Tarantula’s lungs are on their “belly,” too much water can drown them so easily. Their next door neighbors were the pac man frogs, and my stomach knotted when I saw them. They’re all a little bigger than a golf ball in size and they’re all crammed in their own little cup with crickets crammed in too! I asked the same girl who shrugged at the dead fish why they were in such small cups and she told me it was because they’re like rocks and don’t move so they don’t need a large space. She said that they up their cup size as they grow and I don’t believe it considering their eyes were pressed up against the lids! She isn’t wrong, PMFs don’t move much, but they absolutely shouldn’t be in a small cup! No animal should! I could hear mass amounts of squeaking and noticed that a mama rat was out in the open without a little hut or anything and her babies were still pink. She didn’t have anything to make a nest out of or anything to hide herself and her babies in as she nursed! Not to mention the over crowded mice tanks! All the water bottles were crusty and dirty and the tanks were full of poop, as were all the reptile tanks. The final straw was this poor leopard gecko they had who was all alone because he was a bully to the others. He sat and scratched at the wall when he saw me and my boyfriend and he started to shove his little hands out of the crack in his tank and even tried shoving his head out. I asked to purchase him and a female employee with a septum ring and long blue hair took him out without washing her hands or anything. I mean, he was excited to get out of that hell hole, I would be too! It was filthy and disgusting! I put him on hold and I’ll be picking him up tomorrow after school. I feel so sorry to have to make him sit through another night at that place! The floors were dirty and poop from all the animals had fallen out of the cages too. This whole store should be ashamed. Every staff member should hang their head for working here and management should kick themselves for treating animals this way! Shame on anyone who supports this place! The only money you’re getting from me is to get that poor gecko out of there! Shame on you until the day you finally close! This will be posted on Facebook with photos I took!

EDIT: I came in today for the gecko and the owner was in. He made some odd comments to me about the “sounds geckos make when you squeeze them” but the store was a bit cleaner and the dead fish had been scooped out. It makes me wonder if the employees only clean up when they know the owner is coming in...they also didn’t have me sign adoption papers, so that’s scary to know they’ll sell anything to anyone without making sure they have proper care. Regardless, I am NEVER...

I bought 2 female rats from them on May 31st. Both super sweet, and very smart.

One of them had mites, so she has missing fur, but is absolutely adorable. I brought her home and she has respiratory problems and I have to take her to the vet. So that's fun and not at all what one should expect when buying a pet (I get animals have issues, but they shouldn't COME with issues).

The second rat, was so far along in her respiratory infection that she was fine one day, and was oozing the red goo from her eyes and nose the next day, lethargic, etc. She died in my hands....within 3 days of bringing her home. And on top of that, I was told BY the pet store employee when I called, to take her into my bathroom and turn on the shower for humidity and it would help. She died when I did that, and upon looking it up, you don't do that because it drowns them. So that's a wonderful feeling knowing I probably caused her to die faster than she would have.

No one should have to go through what I did. Feeling an animal die in your hands and its heartbeat slowly fade really messed with me. I called the store to see if I could get a replacement rat or get my money back, and I was told I need to bring the corpse in as proof.

I understand wanting proof of some kind or something like that, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to bring a corpse in. It just feels...wrong.

There's no way these rats didn't have issues before they were sold to me. To die within three days, and then my other one sneezing like there's no tomorrow is insane. I don't use woodchip bedding, only paper, and I live in a very clean apartment, so I know it isn't something I did. I've seen other reviews that the rodents aren't kept in the best of environments and I'm beginning to think that's the cause. Keep in mind as well, these were not feeder rats. The one that's still alive is a dumbo rat, and I paid extra for her. Both of them were sold as pet rats.

And no, I'm not over exaggerating on anything in this review. I sat on writing it for the past two days, and upon further thinking, I'm just going to bury the little lady that died. I'm so upset with the store, I refuse to even go back to get my money back, much less another animal.

Update: The other little lady died last night. Same thing. I was too late getting her to the ER to be put on oxygen. There was no replacing her either....she was amazing, and small and spunky, and I would give almost anything to have her back. I also called the store and spoke with Bruce, who informed me that they knowingly sold rats with respiratory disease because they got "a bad batch of rats". Bruce also claimed that it "isn't contagious", which if you know ANYTHING about respiratory disease in rats, yes, it most certainly is incredibly contagious. This is unacceptable, and wrong. Stardrop was 9 weeks old....the little girl got to live 2 months out of her lifespan because the store refused to get her treatment before selling her, and I didn't catch it fast enough. I also bought two more rats, who had a clean bill of health, and everything from another store. They are both infected now too and I have an appointment today to get them in and get them on antibiotics before they also die a slow death.

This is what Stardrop looked like last night before dying.

Don't buy your pets...

Employees were friendly and kind of helpful, but the bourke's parakeet I got today is now in the emergency vet clinic only a couple hours later. Looking back on these reviews, I'm not confident she's going to make it.

I already found it a little off-putting when I was told none of the birds were hand-tamed and they had to be chased down and caught with a net to retrieve them. I feel like hand taming parrots from a young age is very important socializing-wise, but whatever.

As soon as I left the store with my bourke parakeet, I noticed her poop was a very pale yellow. Literally anyone who has ever owned a bird would know THAT'S NOT WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE. Over only a few hours she declined scarily fast; she refused to move from a single spot in her cage the entire few hours she spent in there, when she relaxed her tail was bobbing with her breathing and it looked labored, her head kept twitching, and despite not being hand tamed, she made little to no effort running away from anyone's hand, and her feathers were unkempt; she had pin feathers on her back and did not once preen herself, she was disinterested in treats or food or water, it was almost as if she didn't have any energy at all.

I don't understand. She was flying and active in her enclosure. I was not informed of any health issues whatsoever and I feel like I shouldn't need to ask for every single little bit of VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

I have no idea what happened to her, but I'm 99% sure that all of this would've been easily avoided with the bare minimum of proper parrot husbandry; I would know because I have owned parrots for years and not a single one has gotten this sick so fast under my care. I have no idea how the birds are cared for here, but it must not be well for me to buy a bird and end up in the veterinary ER not even 5 hours later.

This is not normal. This shouldn't happen. This is not okay. And I know for a fact this was not my fault.

If you ever consider getting parrots, please please please go to parrot specific stores that actually take care of and pay attention to their birds. Don't...