Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The last day or so... ugh.

So, the last day or two have been a bit frustrating.  Yesterday, I had two people meet me at my work after work to drop off chins.  The one was Annabelle, who we got back from her "trial run" with her new family.  The person ended up telling me she thought she might be more allergic to the pine than to the chin, but didn't seem really interested in hearing about alternatives.  Though, she would have still had the pine shelves, so oh well.  Got Annabelle back and gave the girl her deposit back.

So, having a single chin up for adoption, I emailed one of the people on our waiting list and told them that she will be up for adoption if they are interested, and I told them how the previous home had fallen through.  Well, I got an email back stating that they thought chins were hypoallergenic.  Well.... they're not.  It's a common misconception, but a misconception nonetheless.  He said his daughter is allergic to cats so he didn't know how she might do with chins.  So I emailed back saying they could do the same thing -- put down a deposit and take home a chin/cage and see how it goes.  Haven't heard back from them yet -- they did say they're on vacation, so we'll see in a few days.

Haven't yet heard from the person who I emailed about Tallie and Lilly.  They'll get a few days and then I'll email the next person in line.

Got an email yesterday from one of the people coming Saturday to see the rats.  Originally they said they were going to pick out either two females or two males, so I had the females all on hold for them, and I had someone else looking at the males.  Well, then yesterday I get an email from the people who were ok with either males/females... the email said now they only were interested in males.  Well.... I had just told the other person they'd have their pick of males (either a trio or a loner that got beat up and was separated).  So I emailed the person interested in the males, asking if she wanted to either come earlier or to pick out which males she wanted ahead of time, as she's scheduled to come AFTER the other rat people on Saturday.  She emailed back saying she wanted the lone male, so that would leave the other three males as potential rats to adopt for the first people.  So, I emailed the first people saying that we did have three males, that they were all young (they said in the email they wanted them "as young as possible"), and so on.  Got an email back today from the first people asking if the males were dumbo eared.  I went back and re-read their original email saying they wanted males, and it did say they wanted dumbo eared males as young as possible.  Ugh.  So I can't remember off the top of my head if they are dumbos or not, so I emailed them saying I would check when I get home. 

Here's the thing though -- we are a rescue.  Not a petshop.  Not a rat breeder.  Saying they want dumbo eared males as young as possible -- it just depends on what we get in.  As a rescue, we typically don't get in "babies" or any specialty anything.  We get in pets when people no longer want them or can't care for them any longer.  That means... we get the very "basic" type of each pet.  For chinchillas, we mostly get standard greys.  Not violets, not sapphires, not blue diamonds -- definitely not kits.  Maybe a beige or a white once in a blue moon, but mostly standards.  Cause that's what your average chin is -- a standard.  For rats -- we typically get in black hooded rats -- cause that's what you see everywhere.  Mostly normal eared, because that's your "typical" rat.  Just like the fancy colors in chinchillas are mutations, so are the dumbo ears in rats.  Sure, the dumbo ears are more popular nowadays and more common than the variety of different chin colors but still.  Anyway, point being, here is what I think it all boils down to -- you can only be so picky when adopting animals from a rescue. 

Anyway, I will check that when I get home, back on track -- we also got Daisy and Delilah back in yesterday.  I suppose I could turn that into another rant, but I won't.  But I will talk about it.  The people gave me the chins, their food, and a container of dust with them.  The food... can't remember what type it was off the top of my head (and I'm at work, so I can't check) but it was the kind that looks like only pellets, but when you read the back, has pureed carrots and apples and all sorts of other bad stuff in it.  Really?  Cause those people wrote on the form (well, I bet they did, wait til I get it out later) that they were going to feed Mazuri.  Like seriously, don't lie to me.  I have no way to verify what the people write on the form, it could all be lies, but you'd think they'd just folow what the rescue says is best.  I mean, I would.  And here's the thing -- Mazuri's no more expensive than the crap they bought, so why not buy what's recommended?  Ok, done with that.

Moving onto the next aggravation.  Got the adoption form in the mail from the people adopting Ember's baby this weekend.  The adoption form itself looked fine, for the most part, but they put down that they were going to feed Kaytee Fiesta Max food.  Um... problem.  Reading further down the form, they had written "yes" that they had read the care packet.  Funny that, cause the care packet clearly states that the Kaytee foods are the WORST feeds you could feed, in part because they have all that extra junk (other than pellets) in them.  So, I emailed the father (cause I don't know how old the kid I'm talking to is) and I told him that they can't purchase the chinchilla if they plan on feeding that food, because, as the care packet says, it's bad for them and can significantly shorten their lifespan.  I said something about asking them to let me know what other food they plan to feed, and if it's one of the good ones, then they'll be all set to adopt.  Waiting for that email now.

On a positive note, I got in the three sets of FN stuff from the person I ordered from on CNH.  Only pulled one of them out of the box to look at them.  Was much too tired last night to even take them down and try to set up a FN with those and shelves and all, so I figured I'll maybe do that today.  I would like to set up one of the FN's today if possible, we'll see. 

Had to put Daisy and Delilah in one of our smaller spare cages.  Without moving everything around like a nut, there's a drop-down post in the ceiling that prevented me from giving them a larger cage.  They'll be fine for now though. 

Oh, last thing.  The place I order my ceramic food bowls from is killing me right now.  Maybe 2-3 weeks ago, I ordered 10 food bowls from them.  All but 3 came in pieces.  So I called up the company and said hey, so many broke, they said they will send replacements.  So, they re-sent the 7 that broke.  Four of them arrived fine... the other three broke.  I received it in two shipments -- one box with 1 bowl (was in one piece) and another box with six bowls (3 of which broke).  So I called up the company yet again and said hey, more broke, and I still want replacements (versus money back) so now I should be getting three more.  The lady I talked to asked me if the box was all banged up and I said no.  I told her that the problem is that all there is is this little tiny piece of thin bubble wrap around each bowl and a few of those air pocket things in the box, but there's a lot of empty box space, so if the box was turned upside down or something, everything would move and clink against each other, and break.  And like, when I say they came broken, I don't mean broken like oh there's a chip on the bottom... I mean broken like there's so many pieces you couldn't even put them back together if you (for some odd reason) wanted to.  And I know awhile back I was talking to Jean (of TJ's) about this and she was saying she has the same problem when she orders food bowls and that kind of stuff, that they'll come broken and she'll have to get them to send more, and at the time, I remember saying she should switch suppliers, and I do remember her saying that it didn't matter, they were all like that.  And for me, since I don't have a tax ID, I'm sort of stuck with this one place that I get mine, cause it's the only place that has halfway reasonable prices.  Ah well. I suppose it's the company's loss -- I'm not paying for them to re-send and re-send and re-send, they're the ones loosing money because the bowls are packed so badly and they have to keep reshipping them and so on.  Not my problem really, but I would just like to get in 10 uncracked/broken ones and be able to stick them in my drawer until people buy them and be done with it. 

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