Very irritating visit to PetsMart...

[NatureLover]

So as I said in my welcome thread I fell in love with a garter snake at PetsMart and wanted to buy it. I went in today all set, but I stopped to ask an associate how old she is. This associate said "actually that's a California king snake we don't have garter snakes" umm the associate yesterday referred to it as a "gartener" snake.. And it sure does look like an albino checkered garter snake.

She got suuuuper defensive, I was not acting like a know it all I just said "oh ok I thought it was a garter snake" and she's like "no it isn't I promise it's a king snake".

First of all how common are albino checkered king snakes? Maybe I'm wrong.

Second the manager came over to help the associate check other stores for me and he too was very defensive and said it was indeed a 6-month-old California king snake (I was told yesterday that it's a one month old garter snake... big difference between those two, right? This snake is pretty tiny) and that the two look nothing alike... Okay I'm an idiot then because I swear that snake looks exactly like every picture of albino checkered garter snakes I've ever seen (including the one plastered to their glass).

Im really annoyed. Not buying squat diddly from PetsMart I kind of hate that place anyway.

Even if I'm dead wrong about the snake they were very condescending about it and pretty much refused to even look at the snake in question.

[guidofatherof5]

I know very little about king snakes but it's probably a albino T. marcianus - Checkered Garter as the are very common at Petco/Petsmart.
Any chance you can go back and get a photo?
I'm certainly not defending the Petco staff but the invoice probably said king snake or they got it confused with a different invoice. Knowledge about the animals they sell seems to be lacking at many of these stores.

[d_virginiana]

Ugh... Better off getting one shipped from a breeder anyway. There are some kingsnakes with checkered patterns (just a Google search, so idk what kind) but I don't believe any kings have a stripe down the back. If it had that stripe it's a garter.

I got my ball python from PetSmart when she was put up for adoption for being 'too aggressive' when she was really just nippy due to having a retained shed. As we were filling out the adoption paper, one of the employees said the snake hated the sound of their voice... It was hard not to make a comment about how it'd be dumb to just give away the world's only hearing snake. :rolleyes:

[lupegirl8]

Oh PetSmart. The cheap, nearby source of reptile supplies is great, the employees are not. Out of all my encounters with PetCo/PetSmart employees only one has ever struck me as competent (she stopped me from getting a common pleco I mistook for a bristlenose informing me that the former can grow over a foot).

Once I went in to get Hikari wheat germ pellets, which are sold for koi but are high in Vitamin E so they can help turtles with retained scutes, and this lady came up and insisted on helping me. I asked if they had Hikari wheat germ and she asked "what is it for?". I told her "I'm buying it for my turtle to help with shedding, but they make the pellets for koi". I emphasized over and over again that these pellets would probably be in the fish section. The lady then proceeded to walk to the turtle section and slowly look over every type of turtle food, supplement, and snack they had checking for what I was looking for. As though I couldn't have checked myself. It took AGES and I just had to sit there and watch her because it would have been rude to walk away She then said, "I guess we don't have it". I asked if she could look it up in the system and she said, "if it's not here it's not anywhere". I then went to the fish section and found it immediately.

You'd think people working at a pet store would know something about pets, but apparently not.

[joeysgreen]

California king snakes commonly have a vertebral stripe. I've never seen them checkered before. They are also much larger than your baby checkered's right out of the egg. The garter should have keeled scales, the king will have shiny, smooth scales. The kingsnake's head will be apprx the same thickness as it's neck while a garter has a distinct head versus neck size. The two are unmistakable, or so I had thought :)

[d_virginiana]

I've not seen a lot of garters from other areas of the country, but I've heard from other people say the ones in the South are especially bobble-headed. The adult males in a lot of locales around here never really lose the large head/eyes.

[Wyldrose]

I bought this "King" snake at Petsmart, she was in the "assorted kingsnake" bin... Of course Milks and kings are much closer related then kings and garters. I can't complain much, she was cheap, much cheaper then the milksnake they have in now. Plus huge bonus is I have never seen an albino milk here.

[slipknot711]

OOooo an albino nelsons milksnake. very nice

[slipknot711]

ugh i hate when i stare at pics after i comment... could also be an albino queretaro king!

[Deac77]

I worked for pmart for almost 3 years we NEVER got a garter snake in, to my knowledge we didn't even carry them.

[slipknot711]

ive gotten albino checkered from petsmart, actually it was the only ones they ever sold

[Wyldrose]

OOooo an albino nelsons milksnake. very nice

Yep she is a nelsoni :)

[Saji]

Off topic..

I used to be a manager at Petco and would put signs saying "Support Afghanistan & Pakistan" (Afghans and Paki's in general) on leopard gecko terrariums to piss people off:-)

If anyone catches that.

Saji

[snipstedy]

I saw a garter at Petco with blueish green stripes last week. At least that was written on the sticker "garter snake" and it looked like a garter to me but that doesn't say much, being new to snakes.