Rescue Journal

the Bosley's fiasco..

Carol  ·  Feb. 19, 2013

Maple Ridge Bosley's has been a huge supportor of SAINTS since we began. marion, the owner/operator has donated the vast majority of our monthly cat and dog food consistently, year after year. She also donates expensive custom cat trees to our silent auctions, attends our events and never misses a chance to sell our tickets, host our donation boxes, donate prizes to our pub nights and open houses and promote SAINTS every chance that she gets. Every time i go in there to purchase something for SAINTS...a huge percentage comes right off the top..she doesn't charge us one cent more than she absolutely has to....she refuses to profit from us.

It is not just SAINTS that she helps...she is equally generous to the Maple Ridge SPCA, Katies Place and other rescues out there. She hosts SPCA cats for adoption in the store, pays out of her pocket the costs of FIV/FeLV testing and finds many great homes among her loyal customers. Marion believes in rescue, she lives her support of homeless animals every day....in many ways. she is a truly good person.

So along comes a new bad parent company which plans to exploit animals for profit by selling them at their company stores. Franchises like marions who own their stores will not have to sell them, but the stores owned by the company will.

so..what to do...what to do?

i will not penalize such a kind, generous and morally conscious person over something she didn't (and doesn't) do and over which she has no control.
and i will not support a corporate monster who fills it's profit belly by selling animal bodies and souls.

i say screw the bad parent company and their company owned stores. boycott them into either joining the 20th century animal welfare movement or straight into extinction...it is their choice.

and i will continue to support the independently owned, rescue and animal friendly Bosley's and drive their profits up as high as i can (but i wil have to convince marion not to give us such big discounts to accomplish this!) i want to prove to that bad parent that exploiting animals for profit is so not cool and that their little independent owner/operators who choose NOT to sell living beings are way better people, are far more morally and socially conscious and ultimately much more successful and respected business minded people then the brain dead morons settling their greedy butts in their comfy new head office board room chairs.

to me this is the morally correct thing to do. honor and support the ones who do right and boycott the profits right out of the ones who do wrong.
this is fair.

Comments

Lisa

http://www.spca.bc.ca/news-and-events/news/bosleys-parternship-ends-2013.html#.USViBzcRMTs

PS - if anyone knows of anyone who can help, we have 40 fancy mice that we were called about yesterday and so we are looking for foster & adoptive homes. Tks

Lisa

The BC SPCA severed ties with bosleys and will no longer partner with them. There is a link on their home page.
All stores - franchises or corporate all pay back into the new owner Value pet so all the money flows back to them.

Judy B.

How do we know which stores are corporate owned and which ones are privately owned? We have a new Bosley's in town but they don't sell any live animals and they are a satellite adoption place for the SPCA.

cheryl and stef

totally agree Sheila, I will also support Marion and keep shopping in her store.

Sheila

I talked to carol about the whole bosley's issue and so I know I am not out of place by saying - yes - saints would still take the same stance of supporting the maple ridge franchised owned bosley's if the corporate owned stores started selling cats and dogs. What carol says about Marion would still be true - no matter what decision the corporation makes. I would still support Marion for the reasons carol points out - no matter what species would be sold - because who she is and how she conducts her business and life doesn't change depending on the animal being discussed.

Lisa

In case anyone hasn't seen a small animal pet mill.
This us where hamsters come from.

http://www.petsmartcruelty.com/photo_gallery.asp

Lisa

That's the whole point.
It is not cats or dogs.
It is the small ones like hamsters.
People see it, they read it and then they say it's wrong BUT.....

Small animal sales will never stop because people even those in the know think it's wrong BUT....
Small animals also come from mills but people will look the other way. If anyyyyyyyyy bosleys decided to sell cats or dogs there would be such an uproar and people would boycott until they changed.
The idea of live sales bothers folks but just how much really only depends on what they are selling.
It still isn't enough to make people choose to not shop there.

cheryl and stef

I just read the bosley's sight and I think I got it wrong. It says small animals which I am thinking are mice, hamsters, gerbils, fish birds. I still think it is wrong to sell any of these animals from pet stores.

cheryl and stef

Is there any petitions going around that say no to selling animals thru bosley's pet stores. You would think that they would be so against selling because of where the poor animals are coming from. If most people only realized that the majority of dogs that you are getting from pet stores are from puppy mills and not reputable breeders maybe some would change their minds about buying them there. Gosh how can we get this to stop. I totally support Marion and her Bosley's store, The only animals in that store are stuffed with fluff and that is the way it should stay in all stores.

Carol

saints does not support any type of animal exploitation..including stores that sell any kind of living creature...even pet fish, we also do not attend or fundraise at venues, community events, pet or agricultural fairs with petting zoos, pony rides or exotic animals on display.

maple ridge bosleys does NOT do any of the things that we are against AND actally participates in supporting and improving the lives of homeless animals in the community..why would we punish one of the good guys for that? it doesn't make sense.

i am well aware of the plight of small animals, the silent screamers..the ones most likely to be bought and sold in pet stores, neglected in ignorant homes right into daily torture and then turned loose on the street to survive or not on their own.

i get it and so does independently owned bosleys's in maple ridge which is why they refuse to sell them.

i see no point in killing off our like minded allies if we want to win the war.

Maggie

Of course we should continue to support Marion; it's the moral thing to do. For anyone to punish her for the sins of the parent company is misguided.

Lisa

My question would be if people are still choosing to support Bosleys (even the franchisees pay back to corporate), would they feel differently if the animals the new parent company would be selling were cats & dogs?

It seems that yes, people will agree that *it is wrong to sell animals* however they will continue to support them knowing that they sell small animals, birds & reptiles BUT they don't sell cats or dogs.

I have a feeling the mood would be MUCH different if it were other animals being offered up for sale. People wouldn't so easily say yes it's wrong BUT....

Speaking as the only rescue who takes in small animals (most city shelters do not take them in and you will be hard pressed to find any spcas taking them in either (other than maybe one or two at most)).....we are drowning/choking/suffocating as it is and I can't even begin to express how disheartening and soul destroying it is to see the rescue community agreeing that it is wrong **BUT**.....

If the rescue community can't come together as a unified voice there certainly is no hope for the public.

I will say I had little faith before but now any scrap of it is all gone....in all the years and years doing small animals, each day seems to just get that much more worse.

BTW - we are trying to deal with 40+ mice, 20+ degus and about 15 rabbits all within the past few days if anyone wants to foster. I can't wait until the stores start to sell more to anyone who will pay the price or get one free when they buy a cage.