*~*~*~*~* Spotlight on firespiritmelody! *~*~*~*~* - Page 2 « Back to Group Discussions

[BeanBean06]

What kinds of animals to you sell at your pet store?

[KateHNM]

I feel like you do about vaccinations.  The theory is great and I know most kids that get vaccinations don't seem to suffer any unpleasant symptoms, but many do and I don't trust the pharmaceutical companies one bit.  I've been reading Dr. Sears vaccine book and it's been tough to decide how to proceed (skip them altogether or pick certain ones and space them out or delay them).  With so much pressure around me to get my child vaccinated, I want to ask you:

Was it a difficult choice for you and what problems or consequences have you had since deciding to skip all vaccines?

[firespiritmelody]

Originally Posted by BeanBean06 

What kinds of animals to you sell at your pet store?

All sorts of stuff. My mom's been working with animals pretty much her entire life, so this is what I've grown up doing. We basically have a pet "health food" store - nearly all our products are holistically based with the exception of some of the fish stuff because that's ridiculously difficult to get lol. We also do a lot of education on how to care for critter the right way and unfortunately will refuse to "sell" a critter to someone who doesn't seem like they're going to take care of it. We also do a ton of research before brining in a new product or food and don't make decisions about that sort of thing without a lot of thought and consideration!

We do mostly small animals, birds, reptiles and fish but we also work with some exotic animals like hedgehogs and sugar glider and things like that as well as puppies and kittens. I know that's a tough one for a lot of people, but please take my word for it that we do things very very differently then other stores and we do NOT work with puppy mills, ever.

We're also pretty much the only place (in our county at least) that will take in older animals needing to be rehomed - there's plenty of places for rehoming dogs and cats, but not birds, reptiles, fish, etc. So, we're happy to offer that service as space allows. 

[firespiritmelody]

Originally Posted by KateHNM 

I feel like you do about vaccinations.  The theory is great and I know most kids that get vaccinations don't seem to suffer any unpleasant symptoms, but many do and I don't trust the pharmaceutical companies one bit.  I've been reading Dr. Sears vaccine book and it's been tough to decide how to proceed (skip them altogether or pick certain ones and space them out or delay them).  With so much pressure around me to get my child vaccinated, I want to ask you:

Was it a difficult choice for you and what problems or consequences have you had since deciding to skip all vaccines?

YES!! It was ridiculously hard and I second guess myself all the time. Especially because my state (and my county specifically) have some of the highest whooping cough in the country. (Knock on wood, but thankfully we've never had it!)

We don't really tell a lot of people unless it specifically comes up in conversation and I flat out tell them that *my* kids HAVE had negative reactions. It's not theoretical for me, it's fact. And it was scary. I'm so thankful that the reactions weren't worse then they were (we don't have any learning disabilities or anything like that)

The biggest problem we've had is one school our girls went to. In our state you didn't have to have a medical waiver, you could just sign off on it for "personal reasons" and that was it (they changed that last year, but this was before that) Anyway, the school knew when we registered that we had declined vaccinations but the school nurse went nuts on us called me irresponsible etc and demanded that I have a physician "approve" it. So, we did, just to get them off our backs. Then, they tried to say that the form had to be updated *once a month* (which wasn't true!) and they weren't happy that we called them out on it. We ended up moving the following year and haven't had any issues with the current school (we're not the only non/selective vaxing parents here, thank goodness) but we did have to sign a statement saying we'd keep the kids home if there was an outbreak of anything "vaccine preventable".

I've thought about doing some of the vaccines now that they're getting older, but I don't know. This is really a situation of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" because either decision comes heavily weighted with real potential consequences either way.

[BeanBean06]

Wow that sounds like a fantastic pet store you have there I wish there were more like yours! All ours around here are horrible! In fact I've called animal welfare on one in particular a few times, but nothing ever seems to be done for those poor animals... *sigh*

[Munchkin08]

Originally Posted by KateHNM 

I feel like you do about vaccinations.  The theory is great and I know most kids that get vaccinations don't seem to suffer any unpleasant symptoms, but many do and I don't trust the pharmaceutical companies one bit.  I've been reading Dr. Sears vaccine book and it's been tough to decide how to proceed (skip them altogether or pick certain ones and space them out or delay them).  With so much pressure around me to get my child vaccinated, I want to ask you:

Was it a difficult choice for you and what problems or consequences have you had since deciding to skip all vaccines?

I may have missed the original comment but I would love to continue the conversation about vaccines. Another thread perhaps? I have Dr. Sears book, but have yet to read it yet. 

[firespiritmelody]

Originally Posted by BeanBean06 

Wow that sounds like a fantastic pet store you have there I wish there were more like yours! All ours around here are horrible! In fact I've called animal welfare on one in particular a few times, but nothing ever seems to be done for those poor animals... *sigh*

 Thank you!! We work ridiculously hard to do what we do, and do it well. We've got clients that travel to us from all over the state and even from OR and CA in the past! It's so frustrating to me that there are so many crappy shops out there because we jump through a tremendous number of hoops to have the licenses and what not that we have and I wish *all* the pet store were required to have the licenses! It would week out sooo many that aren't in it for the right reasons!

[TIFF4NY]

Do you have a designated space setup or planned for the baby at all? 

[firespiritmelody]

Originally Posted by TIFF4NY 

Do you have a designated space setup or planned for the baby at all? 

Not yet. Baby will room in with us and my 4 year old still shares our room for sleeping and her dresser as well. We did move her clothes out of the changing table and into a different dresser so that the changing table can become "baby central" lol (where we're storing odds and ends that we don't have any where else to put yet hehe)

We'll pull out the cosleeper eventually but we've got to get some stuff (ie: bins and bins of clothing that the kids have out grown) out of our room and try rearranging a bit first.