In Reply to: PLEASE READ! Pet Stores with gliders what a horrible thing! posted by Savannah on June 15, 1999 at 14:39:53:

I just bought a sugar glider 3 days ago from a pet store. On some pet store's behalf, before I bought my little Gizmo I had asked to see his living conditions, watched how the pet store handled him, asked lots of questions of the person who handled him, did a lot of research on the web before I purchased him from the pet store. We're still in the process of bonding and trusting, afterall, it's only been three days, but after the first day he no longer crabbed at me, however he would bite. Last night he didn't crab, and didn't bite. He's still very shy and somewhat apprehensive, but I am taking it slow with him and waiting for his signals that he trusts me, I watch his behavior and do a lot of reading from everywhere I can. He has a mellow disposition and although he's been out of the pouch since 4/1/99 (opened eyes on 4/18/99), I think things are progressing. I do not see any "bad" signs of anything that has happened due to being bought at a pet store. Just as there are good people and bad people, intelligent and ignorant people, there are good pet stores and there are bad. There should be an agency that you can report the pet stores to, but I don't think it's fair to slam them all. The pet store I got them from has 2 sets of breeding gliders which they have. I hope that Gizmo and I continue to bond and eventually trusts me completely. Time and Love will tell.: Hi everybody I hate seeing gliders in pet stores! Before I knew about gliders and their needs I bought one from a pet store. Big mistake! The guy that owned the store was feeding her Iguana food and many other bad things. He said to go out and buy leather gloves because she bites hard. Since we didn't know much about them at the time we did as he said and bought the stuff. She was in a bird cage barely 1 foot tall. We brought her home in a pet carrier and put her in my room. We went to Wal-mart to get some stuff the guy said to get. We got home and we found that she squeezed her way out of the carrier. We didn't know what to do and we couldn't put her in the cage we were going to because she could of gotten out of there too. Some how we got her to go in an extra 10 gallon fish aquarium and we ran to the petstore to get a cage. We got her a cage but it was the biggest cage in the world but it would have to do. We took the pouch she was in and put it in the cage. She was horrible I kinda hated her. She would bite us and scare me half to death with her crabbing. The next day we went to the pet store and there was this lady I was going to get a glider from before but they were to expensive. We were buying some mealworms and she asked what they were for and I told her and she told us a bunch of stuff to feed her and we went straight to the store and bought fruits and veggies and some babyfood. It took her awhile to get used to her new diet. I am happy to say now she is the funnest glider I own and I now own five gliders but the are all special in their own way. Oh yeah and that glider from the petstore has a cage about six feet tall and her name is Sugar. But not all stories like mine have happy endings.
: I have something else to say and I am sorry this is so long. Well anyways there is another pet shop that has gliders every so often. This place make me sick! The have usually 2 or more gliders in a 10 gallon aquarium and these ones aren't fed properly either. I just don't know what to do! If only people knew that they could get hand tame baby gliders for $100-$200 dollars rather than $300 maybe the pet shops wouldn't carry them anymore. What should I do? Should I buy them? Should I talk to the owners? Please help!

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