PetSmart — Local services in Tigard

I wanted some Otocinclus aka "Oto" algae eater fish for my large planted aquarium. This tank has very large pieces of drift wood, and as I already said it is a planted tank. I wanted to add some fish that would eat algae.

My local independent fish store did not have any in stock. The local Petsmart in Salem did not have any Oto's in stock. According to Petsmart's website their Tigard location had some Oto's in stock. I called the Tigard store and was assured that they did in fact have Oto's.

So we made the trip to the Tigard Petsmart and asked for help getting our Oto's. The tank that had the Otocinclus tag did not have any in it. The young lady who helped us told me that they were "Put in the algae eater tank". I believed her.

Now I have never had Oto's before. They look like Siamese and Chinese Algae eaters. I was ASSURED that I was buying Oto's by TWO staff members.

I DID NOT EVER WANT to have Chinese Algae eaters in my tank. They are aggressive and would wreak havoc in my tank and attack my small fish and shrimp.

Well, she sold me four CHINESE ALGAE EATERS! NOT Otocinclus.

ONE FISH DIED ON THE WAY HOME. From Tigard to Salem.

Now I have three Chinese Algae Eaters in my tank. These fish are EXTREMELY hard to catch. They're fast and smart.

I may have to remove all of the wood and plants from the tank to catch them. Again, THIS IS AN ESTABLISHED HEAVILY PLANTED TANK! This process will ruin my hard work and may damage my plants.

I am going to make a fish trap. I found some videos on line on how to do that. I hope it works.

So yeah, I am NOT happy.

The employees at a pet store who sell fish DO NOT KNOW what they are doing. They DO NOT KNOW how to tell Chinese Algae Eaters from Oto's.

Oh yeah, they also charged me for more expensive fish. Oto's cost more than the Chinese Algae Eaters. So not only did I get fish that I do not want, I PAID EXTRA for them.

Bottom line: The staff at the Tigard Petsmart don't know what they are doing. Especially the young lady who sold us the wrong fish last night.

Her mistake is going to cost me a lot of time, money and I will have to basically ruin my beautiful established heavily planted aquarium.

AVOID THIS STORE!

One more thing. I should have walked away when we saw a dead Neon Tetra floating in one of the tanks. That young lady actually pointed the dead fish out to us and said "You don't want to buy any fish from that tank". That fish had been dead for awhile. It was decomposing, which takes several days to happen. Why, oh why wouldn't she or some other employee take a minute to take a dead decomposing fish out of the tank? This shows how indifferent their staff at caring for livestock.

Damn. I am really angry about this.

EDIT: I was contacted by the manager of the Tigard store. He suggested that I maybe I was confused and went to Petco instead of Petsmart. He said that they had not had any Oto's in stock for awhile. I told him that he still has a tank labeled with Oto's in it and that he has employees who thought they had some. AND that Petsmart's own website STILL SHOWS that they have Oto's in stock. I took this screenshot about a week later. It hadn't changed.

Oh yeah, they charged me for Oto's too. They're more expensive than Chinese Algae Eaters. Just one more example of...

THIS REVIEW IS FOR ALL TERRIER RESCUE, A SHELTER THAT DOES ADOPTION EVENTS AT THIS LOCATION. Every employee of this Petsmart has been awesome, and I hate to leave a 1 star for them but I'm hoping they will reconsider allowing this rescue to conduct adoption events at their store.

I have been to two different adoption events at the Tigard Petsmart and both times I was shocked by how exceptionally rude and condescending Samantha was. She's the main lady with the short black hair and every single person she interacted with she treated as if they were an idiot.

She refused to answer questions about any of the dogs, saying, "obviously you didn't read anything on our website..." (and they literally have no information or bios about any of the dogs on their website), yelled at her co-workers in front of everyone, and snapped at people who were looking at dogs, trying to tell them they were interacting with the dogs wrong (I've raised and trained dogs my whole life, nothing anyone was doing was wrong, she told one guy who was comforting a dog that was a bit nervous that he was "reinforcing bad behavior" and that he was basically teaching the dog to hate people..)

They have lots of beautiful sweet dogs but with their main point of contact being so outstandingly awful to everyone they're never going to find their forever homes.

I challenge you to go to one of their adoption events, interact with Samantha, and not leave feeling angry. I bet she doesn't even remember me because she gives the same remarkably terrible customer service...

Went here for a cat grooming and got everything but. Made an appointment for 1:00 p.m. on Monday, got a call saying they do not do cat grooming at that time so 5:00 is my new appointment. I adopted my cat (stray) from PetSmart. When it was our turn the groomers did not seem to fond. My cat did hiss once and did not resist or try to bite after that. They put on a cone and handled my cat very well. My wife and I walked outside to watch from the window and got called back to let us know they will not be able to bathe her, they had already talked us out of a trim. The groomer said she will only be able to do a nail clipping. It literally only took about 3 minutes because my cat did not resist. She only barely cut the tips, I could of done that. I really do not like leaving bad comments but when somebody does not want to do their job and is wasting my money and time then I have no choice but to voice my opinion. PetSmart needs to state exactly what they will and will not do when bringing your cat for a grooming. I understand cats can be difficult but my cat was not putting up a fight! If every cat hissed once and got refused then either retrain or let customers be advised. The rest of the staff was nice but I will not go back to this location for anything. I'll drive out of my way for...