I didn't realize this, but Petco stopped offering repeat delivery of our brand of cat food

[conuly]

Which would be fine, except they randomly sent me a different brand without adequately informing me first. If I'd brought it in I would've returned it, but Ana brought it in and put it in their cat food bin, and I can't return 12 pounds of loose dry food. They even very conscientiously remembered to throw out the bag already!

Mama Cat is very persnickety and throws up if she has the wrong food. I could try Callie or Sweetheart on it, but they have their own food as well.

Does anybody particularly want 12 pounds of WholeHearted Grain Free Chicken Formula Dry Cat Food in, idk, a baggie I guess? Several baggies. Not sure if it works out as worth it once we add in the shipping, but I don't want to just toss it without investigating options.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

fun.

call the local animal shelter or your vet?

[conuly]

Animal shelters will take unopened food, but not food that's been opened and dumped out already.

[alexseanchai]

ah. damn.

[movingfinger]

Hope Petco will refund you. Emphasize the barfing problem, if you talk to them. So many cats have particular food tolerances, they really should not substitute without asking.

Unbagged food is raccoon chow, I'm afraid. Could go to chickens, if anyone around you has them. They'll eat anything, I have been told.

[conuly]

You know, they probably did technically tell me when they emailed me to say "Your order is ready to ship!"

It's just that they didn't put "WE CHANGED YOUR ORDER!" in the subject line, which is a shitty, shitty way to do it and they damn well know it.

Unbagged food is raccoon chow, I'm afraid. Could go to chickens, if anyone around you has them. They'll eat anything, I have been told.

There actually is a chicken-owning house down the block from me, but I don't know those people.

I doubt any formal organization will take my cat food, and I wouldn't waste my time trying, but I'm hoping to get some individual or other, somebody who knows me who does TNR, to accept the largesse. Fingers crossed.

I'm sure not dumb enough to feed the raccoons and oppossums. Maybe if I lived somewhere with acres and acres of open land, so I could do it not so close to the house.

[conuly]

Yeah, so my only real bet is somebody who knows me or who is a friend-of-a-friend.

[dewline]

SO they've defeated your efforts to deflect the unwanted food to cats that can handle it?

Ergh.

[movingfinger]

An order substitution deserves a separate flagged-as-urgent communication all to itself. There are so many pets that cannot take a substitution!

I tried using Chewy, myself, and the banged-up cans put me off them...

[lavendertook]

It's crap business practice to send a replacement of their choice. They should have sent a separate notification before shipping asking you if you'd like to choose a replacement or want a refund. Why do they all make simple transactions such work in stupid ways?

If you email or call them, and supply the order number on your bill and receipt, and ask for a refund, they should refund you without requiring you to mail anything back at all, unless their business practices are even more spectacularly shitty.

If they require any mail back or any additional info from the item's package that they say they don't have, tell them politely but emphatically that if they don't refund you, you'll be reporting to all your friends online and multiple consumer reporting sites about this awful customer unfriendliness, and taking your business elsewhere, even if you can't manage to do those things. Good luck!

[killing_rose]

While we have a sensitive stomach cat and thus cannot take the food (the kittens? They'd be fine. Mr. "I throw up daily if I look at something new, much less eat it", not so much.

However, if you want me to do battle with Petco, I can pretty much guarantee that I would win. (Okay, 80%, but I argue people down for a living and then explain the facts of life as they now have to tolerate it, and every supervisor I've ever had had been nothing but complimentary.) I am good at pretending to be friends so that my friends with call-phobia don't have to cope with a phone call.

[gingicat]

Confirmed.

[thewayne]

We have always bought a specific brand of dogfood, Avoderm, for our poodles. It's main ingredient is avocados. Our local store stopped carrying it, and we won't drive to Las Cruces just for dog food. So it's online ordering. Every pay day, twice a month, I order a 26 lb bag of dog food.

As far as finding someone to take your current food, has anyone suggested a local shelter, preferably no-kill?

[wendelah1]

If no one you know is interested, could you list it on whatever the local freebie site is?

I have a friend who lives on Long Island near Stony Brook University Hospital with two cats, but that's not exactly close by.

[spikethemuffin]

Every animal shelter knows several That One Ladies who take in cats and find homes for them. You might be able to get a referral? Also, your vet may be able to take it. Or a food pantry.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Don't toss it; either donate it to the animal shelter, or seal it up and save it for the cold and snowy winter that's coming, when some poor homeless kitties will be very glad to have it.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Don't you have NextDoor in your area? Bound to be a neighbor that feeds homeless cats.