I bought two Guinea Pigs from Petco in Springfield, IL. I bought each a week apart with the first one being bought on February 23 and the second being bought a week later. I choose each of them from the female cage at the store. The cages where clearly marked female and male and again I want reiterate the fact I wanted two females.By April I realized that one was getting bigger around the middle so I searched the internet to find out how to tell the sexes of Guinea Pigs which you can determine when they are two weeks old. My pigs where well past that when I bought them anyway I checked each pig to my amazement I had a female and a male. Needless to say the rounder one was female and pregnant. I called the store in April to express my total disgust with them. I was told that I could bring in the male which I did and Brett gave me my money back. He also told me that I could bring the babies in when they were weaned and able to be away from their mother. On May 24 the female gave birth to five male guinea pigs which would have to be taken out of the cage before they where three to four weeks because the babies could get the mother pregnant again. So I bought another cage which to house the babies and extra supplies like food, bowls, water bottles, vitamins, and other things necessary for baby pigs. On August 12, I called Petco to see if they could take the babies now since they where growing out of their cage and I could no longer keep the mother plus five babies as well as maintain two cages and care. Danielle hesitated but said she could make room for three of the male babies. I said I would be there soon and put the three males in a glass aquarium with bedding and food. When I arrived at Petco I told my son (age 12) to find someone to help us since no one was up front manning the cash registers. Danielle and a sales associate, Ellen, walked up with my son saying you must be the one with the guinea pigs. I said yes and they said you will have to sign a release that releases the guinea pigs to Petco. While they were off putting the babies in the back and helping other customers I was reading the release and had a problem the wording because it said I was returning my pet back to them. Which of course is not what I was doing, I was merely giving them what had been their mistake to begin with in return for reimbursement for raising a product that I had no intention of having in the first place. Ellen asked if I had a question since I had not signed the release yet and I said yes I have a problem with it saying I am returning my pet. She said she could get Danielle (the manager in charge of the store while Dawn was in DC) again for me. I said yes and Danielle came out again asking if I had a problem. I said yes I do I am not returning this pets I am bring them in based on the fact that since the pregnancy in retrospect had been the stores fault. Danielle said that she could only take them if I signed the release and turned them over so they could be adopted out. I said so I will not receive any reimbursement for these babies and she said no. She said she could call her manager but all she could offer was a bag of food in turn for the three guinea pig babies. I said you need to call your manager and she went to the back to call her. She came back saying she could not reach her and we went over the conversation again. I asked her to try her manager again so she left and went to the back once again. She came back and said her manager said they could give me nothing for the pigs and I said even though the whole problem started here in the store in February—Danielle said she had the store manager on the phone and I could speak to her. I retold my store and Dawn (store manager of the Springfield Location) said she could not give me anything but could take the guinea pigs off my hands I respond that they were the ones responsible for putting them in my hands in the first place. Dawn told me she would not argue with me and I finally said fine I will take my pigs with me but I will investigate futher into her claim that the store does not guarntee the sex of their animals even though they are in separate cages stating whether or not they are female or male!
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