Every year Pets at Home receives a pat on the back for their decision to suspend the sale of rabbits over Easter. Pets at Home actually still sells rabbits in the form of a voucher to redeem on the Tuesday.
This year again free workshops have also been organised to attract kids into the store, in Pets at Home's words: 'to teach them how rewarding pets can be'! This is just marketing. The children then beg the parents for a rabbit. The parents give in and a few weeks later the rabbit is forgotten about. The parents then contact a rescue centre or advertise online to get rid of the unwanted pet. Lots of those currently in the classified ads but it gets worse after Easter. In a recent article in Closer magazine the RSPCA revealed a 48% spike in discarded rabbits 4 months after Easter.
The figures don't lie. Rabbits are still bought on impulse and discarded like commodities.
Children get bored and move on to something else, especially when the cute bunny is not so cuddly anymore. Baby rabbits will let you pick them up and cuddle them. A few months later when they reach maturity, it's usually a different story! But that's the small print that isn't mentioned.
Pets at Home needs to stop putting profit before pets and stop selling rabbits altogether. Making your customers wait a couple of days before taking the rabbit home is not going to make much of a difference. Especially since it's only for 4 days of the year, whilst the workshops are generating sales!
Please RT to P@H: https://twitter.com/BaBBACampaign/status/1117417553196933120
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Thank you!
Isabelle Rineau
@BaBBACampaign
info@babba.org