Dear Pets at Home My name is Thimble. I am one of the tens of thousands of rabbits who are not impressed by your Easter ban on rabbit sales because I’m one of the tens of thousands who get neglected, put to sleep due to lack knowledge about proper rabbit care, or get abandoned each year. I petition you to either take the Responsible Approach to selling rabbits or stop selling us altogether.  My friend and I were sold together at one of your stores as a Christmas present for children. Shortly after, I became ill. The father brought me to a vet, but this was not to make me better. He was not willing to pay for my consultation, treatment or medications; all he wanted was me to be put to sleep because it was cheaper for him to buy a new rabbit for the children than to get me treated. A vet nurse managed to persuade him to sign me over to a rescue who would get me diagnosed and treated because I had a good chance of recovery, and I was fighting for my life, showing that I was not ready to be put to sleep. I am now in good hands, and I am getting all the diagnostics and treatment I need because people at the rescue treat me as family, not as cheap, disposable goods. So this is my story. At only 22 weeks old, I was given up in my illness, abandoned by the family and children whom I loved, and separated from my bunny friend because of irresponsible selling by Britain’s largest pet store. Responsible Approach to Selling Rabbits Stop marketing us rabbits as cheap and easy pets or starter pets for children. Inform customers that we have many illnesses and may cost hundreds in vet bills. Ensure that we go to homes that truly understand our needs and are able and willing to care for us in sickness and health, treat us as family and not disposable pets. The only way to do this is to do what rabbit rescues do: send us to our homes neutered, vaccinated, microchipped, and following a successful home-check while informing potential owners about the actual and possible financial costs of having rabbits as pets. It would mean that rabbits are sold at an older age, and it would put up the price of pet rabbits considerably, but this is the only way to sell us rabbits responsibly. As Britain’s largest pet store, if you can’t do it well, you should not do it at all. Hence, the only alternative is to stop selling rabbits. Pets at Home do NOT put pets before profits You claim to be at the forefront of animal welfare and demonstrate this with professionally put together videos of your staff caring for us out the back of your stores. But providing rabbits with first-class care at your stores does not at all constitute being at the forefront of animal welfare because the time we spend with you is short in comparison to lifetimes of misery endured by us in homes who are not ready or willing to care for us as they would care for their family, in homes that treat us as second-rate pets. Only ensuring that we go to first-class forever homes constitutes putting us first. Your behind-the-scenes facilities may be fantastic, your staff knowledgeable, your shop floor checks regular, your breeders “ethical”, and your care guides informative, but your marketing videos are nothing more than wool over customers’ eyes because none of these ensure that animals go to best or indeed suitable homes. Your adoption program is nothing more than a glorified means of discarding your unsold stock. Yes, you do also take in animals from general public, but still your Adoption for Pets it is a mockery of adoption because you do absolutely nothing to ensure the rehomed pets’ future. A neutering voucher does not ensure we get a good home for life. Having us neutered and vaccinated, then thoroughly vetting our new home and asking for a donation towards your expenses does. In comparison to what actually needs to be done to rehome a rabbit properly, giving a neutering voucher is a cop-out; if any other organisation rehomed like you do and called it adoption, they would have a hard time indeed. Your halting the sales of rabbits over Easter does not prevent impulse buys because it is quite easy to buy us on impulse for the rest of the year. Most people who want to give rabbits as Easter gifts would shop before Good Friday. Outside the Easter period, anyone can go in and buy or adopt a rabbit at your store instantly, much quicker and cheaper than from a rescue. Impulse buys and “adoptions” are prevented only for a few days. Animal rescues do everything in their power to put off impulse adoptions: you cannot go to a rescue and come out with a pet, because you have applications to make and home-checks to pass, and a time period to wait for it all to happen serves as an effective cooling-off period. But you can go to your store and walk out with a pet in a matter of minutes.  To you, rabbits are nothing more than the 'lost leader item' For you pet shops, we rabbits are not the direct source of profit: we are the 'lost leader item' – the way to get into the huge sales of hay, food, cages, etc. that follow. It is profitable for you to make it easy for anyone to get a rabbit, and do you make it easy. Such easy access to low-cost pet rabbits creates a tremendous rabbit welfare problem in the country. Studies suggest that 75% of two million pet rabbits are badly cared for and misunderstood by their human families, and it is widely accepted that rabbits are the most neglected of all UK pets. When people pay hundreds or thousands for their cats and dogs, they often put greater value on them and are willing to spend more on them in vet bills than on a rabbit whom they can buy two of for £50. We are implicitly marketed as cheap, easy children's pets, and when our families are not able or willing to meet our needs, we get dumped outside to die under car wheels or to be killed by foxes, we get left on rescues’ and vets’ doorsteps and thrown over their fences when their waiting lists are full, and these are the better of outcomes; those of us who are really unlucky spend our lives imprisoned in hutches that are too small for us, knees deep in our own mess, without fresh water or hay, covered in mites, suffering from abscesses, dental problems, eye and ear infections, without first aid or indeed veterinary care we desperately need. Because we only cost £50 a pair. Because we are 'just a rabbit'. Because we don't complain or make a fuss. Because it is easy to discard us. Because you can just go and buy another one when this one's faulty. And it is YOU, pet shops, who create this problem in the first place and then relentlessly proliferate it year after year. You betray animals and undermine rescues Rescues neuter, vaccinate and microchip us, then home-check and vet our adopters while asking for a minuscule adoption donation which does not even begin to cover what is spent to prepare each of us for our new home. (That is what constitutes putting pets before profits. Caring for us nicely  at your store does not.) Yet rescues are in dire need of funds and run waiting lists that are bursting at the seams, working around the clock, and despondent because you, the pet shop which purports to be putting us first, continuously exacerbate the situation. Rescues are forced to fire-fight, constantly mopping up your mess, powerless to do anything to stop this madness or halt the giant pet-spewing machine that is Pets at Home. That is how it looks from the other side of the fence. By treating animals as a lost leader item while hypocritically claiming that you put pets before profits, you resort to a disingenuous corporate marketing trick, one that undermines animal rescues, misleads your customers, and betrays the animals whom you sell, all while you purport to be doing the complete opposite.  My plea As the largest UK pet retailer, Pets at Home, please lead by example and either stop selling rabbits or only sell us to first-class homes which you vet and home-check. I know it’s a lot to ask, but this is my story and my view, and my only hope to have it heard. After all, puppies and kittens are not sold cheaply in your stores. So why are you still selling rabbits cheaply and accessibly when the existence of a tremendous rabbit welfare problem is widely-acknowledged around the country? Paw waveThimble