Pet Lovers Centre Responds After Allegations of ‘Hamster Mistreatment’

If you’ve been to any Pet Lovers Centre outlet, you’d know that they’ve a unique way to attract you into the store;

With an array of cute hamsters at their shopfront.

Kids would stop and talk to the hamsters while girlfriends would bring their boyfriends in just to start a conversation. Sometimes, you’d even see rabbits that are so fluffy, people melted from their cuteness.

But…

Beyond the cuteness, there’s a lot of effort to keep them happy, from feeding them to cleaning their cages.

And one can’t help but to wonder: when did they clean the cage? Do they do it after the shop’s closed?

Apparently not; they did it in full view of others, and that was when a netizen spotted something that’s since gone viral.

Viral Facebook Post by Hamster Society of Singapore

As the name of the Facebook page suggests, it’s a group of people who “advocate for humane hamster husbandry”. Just so you know, it doesn’t mean that they’re married to hamsters: “husbandry” means “the care, cultivation, and breeding of crops and animals.”

(This is why we refuse to use chim words)

So, here’s what happened: someone sent an image (most probably from IG Story) to them, showing a hamster being kept between two baskets when the staff was cleaning the cage.

If you find it hard to visualise, I’ve drawn it out for you because I eat full nothing to do now:

The page then posted a lengthy essay about the mistreatment of animals and so on.

You can read the entire post below, though there’s not much info about the poor hamster that was sandwiched between the baskets:

The image, posted just four days ago, had garnered over 1.3K Shares. They’ve also tagged Pets Lover Centre’s Facebook Page.

Pets Lover Centre hasn’t responded on their social media platforms, but they’re responded to STOMP.

“No danger to these hamsters”

In a statement to STOMP, a spokesperson from the largest pet food retail chain in Singapore has responded, saying, “We thank you for bringing this matter to our notice.

“First and foremost, rest assured that the hamsters concerned have not been harmed in any way and continue to be happy and fine.

“Unfortunately, the way the photograph had been taken as well as what had been personally witnessed fell short of the reality of the situation, which is the fact that there was actually no danger to these hamsters.

“Also rest assured that the baskets are only used temporarily to house hamsters while their small animal enclosures are being cleaned, without posing any danger to them.

“As a matter of fact, these baskets are strong enough to protect the hamsters from harm and coupled with the way they are carefully and safely stacked offer a safe environment to them during this cleaning exercise.

“Furthermore, the whole activity takes only 15 to 20 minutes, hence there is no possibility of food or water deprivation.”

In other words, that seems to be the practice. However, in their effort “to constantly do better for our pets”, they’re changing their SOPs to these:

• Take out the hamsters from the small animal enclosure and house them into a dedicated container (between 1 ft to 1.5 ft), before the cleaning starts. We will be equipping all our outlets with such suitable containers with a food bowl and water bottle, for the cleaning exercise.
• Take out all the accessories and drinking bottle for cleaning and wash it with just plain water.
• Clean the bed and wipe the tank with a wet cloth and finally sanitise them using Urine off or Byopet, two powerful but gentle cleansers.
• Dry the tank thoroughly before placing a new bed.
• Then put back all accessories along with the food and clean water for the hamsters to resume usage.
• Put hamsters back inside the small animal enclosure.

In other words, baskets won’t be used to house the hamsters temporarily.

Case closed, maybe?