Lordoftheswarms
New member
Note that I have no evidence for anything below, as it is 9 months since I stopped volunteering, my exit was quick, and the pet store closed 3 months ago. All of the following I had written down so that I could relate it on the classifieds at a later time once things cooled down.
I volunteered at (the now closed) Reptile Kingdom in Edmonton, Alberta for the owner Dawn Sheppard. Stay away from this person!
The following is my account of my experiences with Reptile Kingdom, and Dawn Sheppard. Take into consideration that I have Asperger's Syndrome. I have difficulty determining what is and what is not appropriate behavior. While I am still a nice, good natured, and generous person, it took a lot (3 months of abuse) for me to realize that something was wrong with Dawn and how she treated her volunteers, and the customers.
For about a year, she had the business but didn't manage it at all. She left it in the hands of some teenagers that she knew nothing about, and according to her, they ripped her off of 10,000 by cashing in checks or something. They also stole a laptop, and some of the more expensive animals before leaving on their last day at the store. When I eventually stopped volunteering, I wondered whether they stole this stuff, or if they took what they had earned but weren't being paid.
Fast forward a couple months, she was then running the store just by volunteers. I wanted experience with reptiles, preferably while being paid, but volunteering sounded better than nothing. I had 3 other part time jobs amounting to over 40 hours a week, but I still put in hundreds of hours at the store over the summer. I also donated hundreds of dollars of my own equipment while I was there, however, to my knowledge none of the volunteers or the staff were ever appreciated for their contributions.
Considering how much I had given her and the store, I would have expected her to be appreciative and provide me with a 10 gallon tank and a piece of driftwood, but she was unwilling to sell it these to me, even at retail prices.
It seems to me at that point (near the end of my 3 months volunteering) she was becoming emotionally unstable, and unreasonably spiteful.
On a related note, I bought a pair of panther chameleons from a local breeder, with my own money to breed them for the store. I was treating my own house as a breeding and holding facility for Dawn, and was investing money in animals at her suggestion, for her. At the time of the purchase, she had promised me two exoterra flexariums to house the Panther pair in. I bought them with the expectation that she would follow through. For 3 - 4 weeks I waited while my panther girl was losing weight because she was being submissive to the male panther and wasn't eating. Every day, I would ask Dawn if she had brought the flexariums she had promised, and every day, she had some excuse. I ultimately got fed up and took a zoomed screen cage that was store merchandise, paid for it at cost, and set up my panther girl in it. Dawn of course got upset that I had taken it, and I got upset back that she hadn't provided as promised. To illustrate why, I had taken the screen cage, I told her that the Panther girl wasn't eating. She responded with "Call your supplier", as if it were the supplier's fault. She does not take responsibility for anything. I kept the pressure on her to bring the other flexarium for the male, he was still in the store's crappy wooden and plexi enclosures which was connected to the UROMASTYX tank! Clearly he was being dehydrated, and stressed out from being in an inappropriate (not mesh) enclosure. I waited a further 2 weeks (a total of 5 weeks) for a flexarium for the male. A fellow volunteer lived at her house and got it for me in time for me to bring the male home so I wouldn't be stressing out about this during my wedding.
By this time, I had had such a bad experience, I sold the chameleons to a couple that had the appropriate set up, and I didn't give Dawn any of it. She had shown no concern for my animals. In my opinion, she had been negligent, and treated the animals inhumanely and did not deserve the proceeds from that sale. I eventually reinvested that money in my collection after I left the store.
I defended Dawn and Reptile Kingdom at my own expense, here on the BOI.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118536&highlight=Reptile+Kingdom
After reading my contribution, she became verbally abusive to me because I had given my honest opinion on the BOI that poor husbandry was still a significant issue while I was defending her, saying that things were improving.
I acknowledge that I have difficulty reading people and social situations due to my Asperger's Syndrome, but I have never seen anyone treat anyone else like she treated me. It is my opinion, that she was way out of line. She never apologized to me, and she never thanked me for defending her.
Near the end of my time at the store, there hadn't been an animal order, or dry goods order for at least 2 months. I was still getting requests for certain animals though. I started looking online for suppliers of those animals, and when I had told the other volunteers that I was wanting to use my own money to help the store make an order (the store was constantly almost declaring bankruptcy), Dawn responded through another volunteer that she felt I shouldn't order from her suppliers. She took this innovative and generous act as if I were wanting to steal her suppliers or something. I had intended to bring in the animals that were being requested, and sell them as someone from the store, not as a private person. I would have gotten my money back, and the store would have profited from a sale that wouldn't have required cash flow. It seems to me that Dawn was paranoid at this point.
One major issue that I have not yet related, is that Dawn confides every detail of her crises in her personal and business life as a strategy to get pity and free help and assistance from anyone and everyone. She related all the major issues in her life to all the volunteers, and many customers coming straight in off the street. I think that she was using this as a strategy to make people feel like they should support her and her store by making purchases and volunteering. To anyone working under her, this can get quite exhausting, because she has a lot wrong in her life.
I had also made an insect order for the store, but was never paid what the store owed me, approximately 40 dollars.
A teenager volunteer that knew comparatively nothing about reptiles was ordering me around about what needed to be done when I came in, meanwhile, she was always playing with the animals. She felt this was appropriate because that is essentially what Dawn was doing for a couple weeks: playing farmville on facebook and ordering the volunteers around.
As someone with Asperger's Syndrome, topics and chores that are of interest to me take up a significant amount of my time and thought. In any given hour, I probably spend about half an hour thinking about reptiles, husbandry, genetics, and vivarium construction. The other volunteers and Dawn didn't understand that, and were unwilling to accept my volunteering as husbandry correction and habitat construction. They wanted me to do all the mundane tasks such as dishwashing, and daily maintainence. I felt they should have been doing that instead of sitting around playing with animals and on facebook. I was dishwashing at 3 other jobs, why would I want to come across the city and volunteer to do more dishwashing? I felt that my volunteer contribution was unappreciated, that they were unwilling to accept my contribution, and me. "Reptile Kingdom doesn't need someone reaching for the stars" was one of the last things one of the volunteers had said to me the day before I stopped volunteering.
The day I left, I took almost all of the equipment that I had donated back.
I had intended the donation to be permanent, but by the end, I felt they, especially Dawn, did not deserve it, and the relationship had never been reciprocal. I now know that one of the traits of Asperger's syndrome is giving away property impulsively. I had donated:
a power bar, and extension cord, several lights and light fixtures, several tanks including 5, 10, 20, 40, 60 gallons, two of which were large custom tanks that I had been working on and off since high school, tools, hardware, a mini refrigerator, my hovabotor incubator, rubbermaid tubs, my own money, and space at my place of residence to be used as a breeding and holding facility. Most of that I took back when I left, except cash, hardware, and a few tanks.
I reluctantly returned the animals that I had been caring for, for Dawn.
The one good thing about this experience is that I learned a lot about the husbandry of a lot of reptiles because so many of the animals were being mistreated and neglected.
The following is a list of all the husbandry failures I can recall, in chronological order.
Male Meller's Chameleons (I think) were kept communally.
Compact fluorescent lights wired on the floor of the cage. Possibility that this could have burned or electrocuted the leopard geckos, as well as start a fire.
Leopard geckos kept on sand, with no humid hides of any kind, and no or limited supplementation.
Limited heat tape for leopard geckos kept communally.
Juvenile leopard gecko with eye infection was left untreated indefinitely. Dawn took the animal home, but we never heard of it again. I am under the impression it died in her care.
Tokay gecko kept in an arid enclosure.
Baby crested gecko kept in nonsecure container resulting in it getting loose, and ripping the skin off one of its back legs when it was caught under the garbage can.
Baby crested gecko fed exclusively mealworms, and heated to 90 F (it had been kept in the enclosure connected to the uromastyx tank) resulting in death.
Baby veiled chameleon was left overnight in a small exoterra faunarium with approximately 10 crickets and no material for the chameleon to climb on.
The next morning, the baby veiled had its tongue completely out of it's body, and the crickets were eating the tongue. It died shortly thereafter.
Ruta's, Fischer's, Panther, Veiled, Jackson's, and Senegal's chameleon kept in glass. The Rutas, fischer's females, jackson's and senegal's chameleons died. Dawn used the excuse that they were wild caught, but it is my opinion that they were in good health when they came into the store.
Flooded Senegal's and Fischer's chameleon's tanks.
Panther chams kept communally.
Baby Ball pythons kept in TINY 6 inch cubed plastic tupperware containers for weeks, without a functioning heat source.
Baby corn snakes were kept with insufficient heat, and in far too much humidity.
Dumerils monitors were kept, but I bet they were kept in non-optimal conditions. Dawn had the dream of contributing to the captive breeding of these, even though only a few people had been successful in captive breeding with them.
Lygodactylus williamsi died of too low humidity, someone had removed the water fountain, and daily misting provided insufficient humidity.
The remaining L. williamsi had calcium deficency symptoms. This was more my fault than anyone elses. No one else bothered to look up, or change anything with any of the geckos, they just left it to me because I was perceived as the expert. That proved to be a problem when I was in a bike accident and was immobilized for two weeks. The L. williamsi recovered, but I was only there for another few weeks after that so I don't know what happened to it.
Customer service catastrophes
See this thread.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121685&highlight=Reptile+Kingdom
By the end of the thread linked above, Taz is somewhat discredited, but given the experience I've had with Dawn and the Panther Chameleons, I can see how Taz could have gotten screwed over.
A Boa constrictor had mites, and one of the volunteers took out all the contaminated newspaper substrate and left it on the floor in the snake room.
A customer bought the boa after it had been treated by water baths (cheap ineffective approach if you ask me). The customer returned with the snake covered in mites, and the volunteer treated the customer as if it was their fault.
This same boa's head was caught in the open spot below the hinge of a door. If it hadn't been for me, that boa would have died right there by decapitation. One of the volunteers had been walking around with the snake while doing something, and wasn't paying attention to what the snake was doing.
At the end of my volunteering, I did three things to get the store closed. I don't deny it, this was revenge, but at the same time, it was in the best interest of the animals.
I reported the following Fire code violations to the Fire Marshal.
All the wiring for all the heat tape, and light fixtures was done by Dawn, not by a professional electrician. There were several places where there were live wires exposed. As mentioned while discussing poor husbandry, compact fluorescent lights were wired on the floor of the cages. Wooden doors and flammable paint was stacked up against the furnace.
Considering that the last pet store on Whyte ave burnt down, it is hard to believe how she would cut corners on the fire code.
Lease violations:
Dawn was breeding African Soft Fur rats for a while, and according to her lease, she should not have had live rodents on the property.
Quite a few reptiles had gotten loose. The rat snake that was found near the store was on the invoices according to one of the other volunteers, but Dawn lied to Neil Weldon and said it wasn't hers. Speaking of Neil Weldon, Dawn can't stand most of the ERAS executive, and blames them and Jim Dyke from J&J reptiles in some conspiracy against her. Back to the animals that have gotten loose. Baby crested gecko, tokay gecko, leopard gecko, lygodactylus williamsi, several snakes, especially corn snakes. I found a chunk of a snake one time. WTF? Where did the rest of it go?
I also reported many of the poor husbandry issues to the Edmonton Humane Society, and they told me that they were opening a file on the store.
I suppose someone could find evidence for much of this by finding the court records.
In my opinion and experience, Dawn Sheppard is not someone you want to work for, buy animals from, or otherwise depend on.
I volunteered at (the now closed) Reptile Kingdom in Edmonton, Alberta for the owner Dawn Sheppard. Stay away from this person!
The following is my account of my experiences with Reptile Kingdom, and Dawn Sheppard. Take into consideration that I have Asperger's Syndrome. I have difficulty determining what is and what is not appropriate behavior. While I am still a nice, good natured, and generous person, it took a lot (3 months of abuse) for me to realize that something was wrong with Dawn and how she treated her volunteers, and the customers.
For about a year, she had the business but didn't manage it at all. She left it in the hands of some teenagers that she knew nothing about, and according to her, they ripped her off of 10,000 by cashing in checks or something. They also stole a laptop, and some of the more expensive animals before leaving on their last day at the store. When I eventually stopped volunteering, I wondered whether they stole this stuff, or if they took what they had earned but weren't being paid.
Fast forward a couple months, she was then running the store just by volunteers. I wanted experience with reptiles, preferably while being paid, but volunteering sounded better than nothing. I had 3 other part time jobs amounting to over 40 hours a week, but I still put in hundreds of hours at the store over the summer. I also donated hundreds of dollars of my own equipment while I was there, however, to my knowledge none of the volunteers or the staff were ever appreciated for their contributions.
Considering how much I had given her and the store, I would have expected her to be appreciative and provide me with a 10 gallon tank and a piece of driftwood, but she was unwilling to sell it these to me, even at retail prices.
It seems to me at that point (near the end of my 3 months volunteering) she was becoming emotionally unstable, and unreasonably spiteful.
On a related note, I bought a pair of panther chameleons from a local breeder, with my own money to breed them for the store. I was treating my own house as a breeding and holding facility for Dawn, and was investing money in animals at her suggestion, for her. At the time of the purchase, she had promised me two exoterra flexariums to house the Panther pair in. I bought them with the expectation that she would follow through. For 3 - 4 weeks I waited while my panther girl was losing weight because she was being submissive to the male panther and wasn't eating. Every day, I would ask Dawn if she had brought the flexariums she had promised, and every day, she had some excuse. I ultimately got fed up and took a zoomed screen cage that was store merchandise, paid for it at cost, and set up my panther girl in it. Dawn of course got upset that I had taken it, and I got upset back that she hadn't provided as promised. To illustrate why, I had taken the screen cage, I told her that the Panther girl wasn't eating. She responded with "Call your supplier", as if it were the supplier's fault. She does not take responsibility for anything. I kept the pressure on her to bring the other flexarium for the male, he was still in the store's crappy wooden and plexi enclosures which was connected to the UROMASTYX tank! Clearly he was being dehydrated, and stressed out from being in an inappropriate (not mesh) enclosure. I waited a further 2 weeks (a total of 5 weeks) for a flexarium for the male. A fellow volunteer lived at her house and got it for me in time for me to bring the male home so I wouldn't be stressing out about this during my wedding.
By this time, I had had such a bad experience, I sold the chameleons to a couple that had the appropriate set up, and I didn't give Dawn any of it. She had shown no concern for my animals. In my opinion, she had been negligent, and treated the animals inhumanely and did not deserve the proceeds from that sale. I eventually reinvested that money in my collection after I left the store.
I defended Dawn and Reptile Kingdom at my own expense, here on the BOI.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118536&highlight=Reptile+Kingdom
After reading my contribution, she became verbally abusive to me because I had given my honest opinion on the BOI that poor husbandry was still a significant issue while I was defending her, saying that things were improving.
I acknowledge that I have difficulty reading people and social situations due to my Asperger's Syndrome, but I have never seen anyone treat anyone else like she treated me. It is my opinion, that she was way out of line. She never apologized to me, and she never thanked me for defending her.
Near the end of my time at the store, there hadn't been an animal order, or dry goods order for at least 2 months. I was still getting requests for certain animals though. I started looking online for suppliers of those animals, and when I had told the other volunteers that I was wanting to use my own money to help the store make an order (the store was constantly almost declaring bankruptcy), Dawn responded through another volunteer that she felt I shouldn't order from her suppliers. She took this innovative and generous act as if I were wanting to steal her suppliers or something. I had intended to bring in the animals that were being requested, and sell them as someone from the store, not as a private person. I would have gotten my money back, and the store would have profited from a sale that wouldn't have required cash flow. It seems to me that Dawn was paranoid at this point.
One major issue that I have not yet related, is that Dawn confides every detail of her crises in her personal and business life as a strategy to get pity and free help and assistance from anyone and everyone. She related all the major issues in her life to all the volunteers, and many customers coming straight in off the street. I think that she was using this as a strategy to make people feel like they should support her and her store by making purchases and volunteering. To anyone working under her, this can get quite exhausting, because she has a lot wrong in her life.
I had also made an insect order for the store, but was never paid what the store owed me, approximately 40 dollars.
A teenager volunteer that knew comparatively nothing about reptiles was ordering me around about what needed to be done when I came in, meanwhile, she was always playing with the animals. She felt this was appropriate because that is essentially what Dawn was doing for a couple weeks: playing farmville on facebook and ordering the volunteers around.
As someone with Asperger's Syndrome, topics and chores that are of interest to me take up a significant amount of my time and thought. In any given hour, I probably spend about half an hour thinking about reptiles, husbandry, genetics, and vivarium construction. The other volunteers and Dawn didn't understand that, and were unwilling to accept my volunteering as husbandry correction and habitat construction. They wanted me to do all the mundane tasks such as dishwashing, and daily maintainence. I felt they should have been doing that instead of sitting around playing with animals and on facebook. I was dishwashing at 3 other jobs, why would I want to come across the city and volunteer to do more dishwashing? I felt that my volunteer contribution was unappreciated, that they were unwilling to accept my contribution, and me. "Reptile Kingdom doesn't need someone reaching for the stars" was one of the last things one of the volunteers had said to me the day before I stopped volunteering.
The day I left, I took almost all of the equipment that I had donated back.
I had intended the donation to be permanent, but by the end, I felt they, especially Dawn, did not deserve it, and the relationship had never been reciprocal. I now know that one of the traits of Asperger's syndrome is giving away property impulsively. I had donated:
a power bar, and extension cord, several lights and light fixtures, several tanks including 5, 10, 20, 40, 60 gallons, two of which were large custom tanks that I had been working on and off since high school, tools, hardware, a mini refrigerator, my hovabotor incubator, rubbermaid tubs, my own money, and space at my place of residence to be used as a breeding and holding facility. Most of that I took back when I left, except cash, hardware, and a few tanks.
I reluctantly returned the animals that I had been caring for, for Dawn.
The one good thing about this experience is that I learned a lot about the husbandry of a lot of reptiles because so many of the animals were being mistreated and neglected.
The following is a list of all the husbandry failures I can recall, in chronological order.
Male Meller's Chameleons (I think) were kept communally.
Compact fluorescent lights wired on the floor of the cage. Possibility that this could have burned or electrocuted the leopard geckos, as well as start a fire.
Leopard geckos kept on sand, with no humid hides of any kind, and no or limited supplementation.
Limited heat tape for leopard geckos kept communally.
Juvenile leopard gecko with eye infection was left untreated indefinitely. Dawn took the animal home, but we never heard of it again. I am under the impression it died in her care.
Tokay gecko kept in an arid enclosure.
Baby crested gecko kept in nonsecure container resulting in it getting loose, and ripping the skin off one of its back legs when it was caught under the garbage can.
Baby crested gecko fed exclusively mealworms, and heated to 90 F (it had been kept in the enclosure connected to the uromastyx tank) resulting in death.
Baby veiled chameleon was left overnight in a small exoterra faunarium with approximately 10 crickets and no material for the chameleon to climb on.
The next morning, the baby veiled had its tongue completely out of it's body, and the crickets were eating the tongue. It died shortly thereafter.
Ruta's, Fischer's, Panther, Veiled, Jackson's, and Senegal's chameleon kept in glass. The Rutas, fischer's females, jackson's and senegal's chameleons died. Dawn used the excuse that they were wild caught, but it is my opinion that they were in good health when they came into the store.
Flooded Senegal's and Fischer's chameleon's tanks.
Panther chams kept communally.
Baby Ball pythons kept in TINY 6 inch cubed plastic tupperware containers for weeks, without a functioning heat source.
Baby corn snakes were kept with insufficient heat, and in far too much humidity.
Dumerils monitors were kept, but I bet they were kept in non-optimal conditions. Dawn had the dream of contributing to the captive breeding of these, even though only a few people had been successful in captive breeding with them.
Lygodactylus williamsi died of too low humidity, someone had removed the water fountain, and daily misting provided insufficient humidity.
The remaining L. williamsi had calcium deficency symptoms. This was more my fault than anyone elses. No one else bothered to look up, or change anything with any of the geckos, they just left it to me because I was perceived as the expert. That proved to be a problem when I was in a bike accident and was immobilized for two weeks. The L. williamsi recovered, but I was only there for another few weeks after that so I don't know what happened to it.
Customer service catastrophes
See this thread.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121685&highlight=Reptile+Kingdom
By the end of the thread linked above, Taz is somewhat discredited, but given the experience I've had with Dawn and the Panther Chameleons, I can see how Taz could have gotten screwed over.
A Boa constrictor had mites, and one of the volunteers took out all the contaminated newspaper substrate and left it on the floor in the snake room.
A customer bought the boa after it had been treated by water baths (cheap ineffective approach if you ask me). The customer returned with the snake covered in mites, and the volunteer treated the customer as if it was their fault.
This same boa's head was caught in the open spot below the hinge of a door. If it hadn't been for me, that boa would have died right there by decapitation. One of the volunteers had been walking around with the snake while doing something, and wasn't paying attention to what the snake was doing.
At the end of my volunteering, I did three things to get the store closed. I don't deny it, this was revenge, but at the same time, it was in the best interest of the animals.
I reported the following Fire code violations to the Fire Marshal.
All the wiring for all the heat tape, and light fixtures was done by Dawn, not by a professional electrician. There were several places where there were live wires exposed. As mentioned while discussing poor husbandry, compact fluorescent lights were wired on the floor of the cages. Wooden doors and flammable paint was stacked up against the furnace.
Considering that the last pet store on Whyte ave burnt down, it is hard to believe how she would cut corners on the fire code.
Lease violations:
Dawn was breeding African Soft Fur rats for a while, and according to her lease, she should not have had live rodents on the property.
Quite a few reptiles had gotten loose. The rat snake that was found near the store was on the invoices according to one of the other volunteers, but Dawn lied to Neil Weldon and said it wasn't hers. Speaking of Neil Weldon, Dawn can't stand most of the ERAS executive, and blames them and Jim Dyke from J&J reptiles in some conspiracy against her. Back to the animals that have gotten loose. Baby crested gecko, tokay gecko, leopard gecko, lygodactylus williamsi, several snakes, especially corn snakes. I found a chunk of a snake one time. WTF? Where did the rest of it go?
I also reported many of the poor husbandry issues to the Edmonton Humane Society, and they told me that they were opening a file on the store.
I suppose someone could find evidence for much of this by finding the court records.
In my opinion and experience, Dawn Sheppard is not someone you want to work for, buy animals from, or otherwise depend on.
