  You might remember the other week I wrote about how our local pet store closed suddenly & left me in a bind about Albert's food. Well, a former employee of that store comes into my place of work & he & I were talking & he started telling me some stuff. I won't go into details, but the basic story is the owners just up & left town, because the business was going under. There has been no heat or water for a few weeks & he & the couple other employees ( which are mostly just out of highschool kids)  didn't know how to get in to the store cause they had no keys, so after a day or so of not being able to get ahold of the owners they broke in. He said there was alot of dead animals that had either frozen to death or died from lack of water. Some he said were sick to begin with. He & a couple of the employees & their parents saved a few snakes & a couple birds. Everything else was dead, according to him. He is a fairly reliable source of info, in my opinion. The office I work in is actually across the street from the pet store & we have been watching everyday to see if anyone comes back or for any signs of movement & there have been none. I thought alot about this, if I actually wanted to get involved with something like this right now. I'm having alot of personal stuff going on & just can't mentally deal with anymore crap right now. But, I just couldn't get those poor animals off my mind. So, I e-mailed our local humane league & an animal control officer got back to me yesterday. He said the pet store has been investigated twice in the past year they have been opened (both times confirmed)  & that since the sudden closure, mine was the 8th call for investigation they have received. He said due to confidentiality reasons, he could not give me any more info than that, but that they are actively trying to track the former owners down.  I figure that if they can catch these people & maybe prevent them from doing this again, then it would be worth it. Even though this won't bring those animals back, I want to see these people to pay. It makes me sick to think I've been giving these people my money & that we actually bought an animal from them! God knows I would NEVER regret getting Radar. He was sent to us for a reason I'm sure. But we are now seeing health problems that the vet said stem from his inproper care the 1st few weeks of his life. Also the vet thinks he was not as old as he should have been ( & that they told me he was!) when he was sold to us. As bad a shape as he was in, he was one of the lucky ones. If they can bring these people to justice, then maybe these animals won't have died completely in vain. This whole thing makes me sick. For every pet store that is shut down, a new one just takes it's place. I'm not downing every pet store. I know there are some people that legitimately care about the animals in their stores, but unfortunately from my experience they are the minority. If the guy couldn't take care of the animals anymore, he should have just called the humane league & asked them to come get them. Or even just asked us customers that came in on a weekly basis if we could take any for him. I gladly would have taken some & fostered them until I could find them homes. Anything would have been better then how it turned out. I can't stop thinking about the 1 lone orange & black boar they had the week before they closed. He came over & I was talking to him, he wasn't the least bit afraid. He seemed to relish the attention & contact of another living thing. I thought about him that whole week, but just didn't feel I could take care of another piggie right now. I can't stand the thought of what may have happened to him.  Sorry, I'm going on & on... I know you guys would understand this. If I get anymore info, I will be sure to pass it on. Hug your animals a little longer tonite in honor of the ones who weren't so lucky. Thanks for listening.

***JAIME***
http://www.piggiepages1.blinkz.com/ 
