Petco

Quite possibly the best experience I’ve ever had at a pet store. These extremely kind ladies kept themselves at work /​after/​closing and reprocessed my entire purchase so that I could use some Petco member coupons I didn’t even know I had. Unbelievably helpful and gracious and they even gave me a hilarious cat cartoon afterward. This is my Petco for life. Thank you so much.

I’m giving Petco 5 stars because the difference in service and experience from my last visit to this one is so extraordinary, the team deserves 5 stars. I’m not going to go into detail about my last visit, because I came away today a believer! I didn’t know anyone thought about kitty litter as much as me, but I found someone who understood my dilemma… Actually multiple dilemmas… Tracking litter, odor, small apartment, too much fragrance, too heavy to carry… The list goes on! But leave it to Julie at the register to spot a customer who needed some TLC. She flagged down Cheryl, the store manager who then took as much time as I needed to answer all my questions and help me find light at the end of the tunnel regarding my search for the perfect litter. I’m amazed and so grateful. So thank you, Team Petco… It’s days and experiences like this that remind me to shop local and give my merchants another chance.

UNPROFESSIONAL
They cancelled my appointment because I was going to be 15 minutes late — I was on time, just at the wrong Petco on El Camino — I was desperate because I have stitches in my thumb and couldn’t wash they myself if I wanted — totally LAME — they said if I called 10 minutes earlier they could have helped me — AS IF ??? What would the difference be
NEVER AGAIN

I stopped by this Petco, close to my house, and bought a couple of things for my Grand Doggy. Dog training was going on at the time by a women trainer. It was very disturbing to watch. She picked them up by the leash, swung them around, practically in the air and used her knee to hit them on the side. It was crazy. I’m not sure this kind of training works, but there is no way I would bring my dog here. I’m all for training, but I felt sorry for these dogs & the owners.

This review is specific to the free puppy socialization class. DO NOT EVER bring your puppy here.
We have a 9 week old puppy who was a little shy. We had been to one other puppy socialization class (Pet Food Express) and had an amazing experience.
I wanted to continue the great progress from the other class so decided to take him here. Biggest mistake ever.
They have a very small area that they divide into three to separate the dog by energy level. I appreciate that, but because the space is so small you aren’t allowed to be in the pen or mind your own dog. The pens are constantly being pushed around where a dog could get his paw stuck and have a serious injury. The only ones allowed to interact with the dogs are the «trainers». With my one experience at the other puppy social, I found that a little odd. They also instructed everyone to not look at your dog or make eye contact… along with some other pack order BS…
There are 25+ dogs to two «trainers» that are constantly distracted by having to clean up potty accidents. Again, if the space were larger, the puppy parent could take care of this part.
Prior to the class my puppy met a 14 week old Goldendoodle and his owner. They were having a great time getting introduced before the class and the other puppy parent even commented on how they have similar dispositions. They get placed in the same pen and are playing, going back in forth kind of puppy wrestling with one on top, then the other.
The trainer gets distracted by a potty accident and our two dogs bump into her as she is cleaning it up. Her very first reaction was to aggressively smack my puppy across the pen, where he goes flying and crashes into the pen. He begins whimpering and seeing all of this happen, I start to cry, as it now feels like I am letting some stranger abuse my already shy puppy. We both go to collect our puppies and the «trainer» then starts mocking me about how I will cause further damage to my puppy by treating him like a baby and letting him own me. Thinking back, I should’ve trusted my gut and told that woman to f-​off, but wanting to do what is «right» for my dog, I reluctantly listen to her and leave him in the pen.
From that point on he was scared out of his mind and was doing his best to avoid the other playing puppies while keeping an eye on me and whimpering to get him out. This went on for about 10 minutes and then I went to get him. She again mocks me and says that his tail is up, so he is fine.
Immediately when I got home, I contacted the trainer I had met the day before, whom we had a great experience with. She confirmed that I should’ve trusted my instincts by leaving and that this old school, dominating «training» was not right for any dog and would do more harm than good. I do not believe dogs should be babied by any means, but I much prefer an environment of positive reinforcement, with a knowledgeable trainer who understands puppy behavior and knows how to check in with them.

Staff is always helpful and friendly to me and my dog. I always enjoy coming here. They’re so nice to my Louie. He always gets extra treats from the cashiers because he’s so cute.

The pet store is fine but nothing special. But the training program, led by Jimi, is top-​notch!

Came by to buy some dog food for my pup. Smaller Petco but very clean and appeared fully stocked. Looks new too. 26 lb bag of Natural Balance was about $ 60 bucks which isn’t bad. Cashier was extremely friend and gave my dog a treat which I know they usually do but he was very nice and super helpful. I would definitely go again even though it’s a smaller Petco it’s one of the best ones that I’ve been too. Will be coming here for their $ 19 dollar rabies shots they offer every Sunday.

This is a smallish Petco right on El Camino Real. Although it is small, it has most of what you might want for your pet. It is pretty easy to get in and out of quickly. The staff is relatively helpful and competent. I will likely make this my go-​to shop for my pets’ needs.

Petco makes me so sad. I went in there today and saw a bunch of sad, mistreated animals. The conures (large, exotic birds) were in tiny glass enclosures by themselves, even though they are inquisitive, social animals. There were few toys, no room to fly, and you could tell they were going mad because of excessive grooming. One of the conures had been in there since 2013… I can’t even imagine what hell it must be like to live day in and day out in a tiny enclosure away from other birds. Not to mention the cages were very dirty, as was their drinking water. Hoping the birds didn’t spend all day in their enclosures, I asked an employee if they were put elsewhere at night. She said no. That broke my heart.
Also, there were many, many, dead fish in the tanks. Petco does not care about animals in the least.

Got my Maltese, Lucky groomed here, the groomer Xochilt was excellent. She was kind, and friendly, my dog loved her. I was very pleased with the end result, Lucky looked better than ever!

I love Petco for all my pet needs, but the grooming here is what keeps me coming back! One groomer in particular is our favorite, Xochilt is her name, and she always gives us such awesome service! she’s great with our dogs, does a great job and just over all makes the experience a good one :) I would recommend her to any one!

I’m beyond pleased with the grooming department in this store! Xochilt is the best! I drive out of my way just to see her. My dog always looks and smells amazing, and he’s definitely treated with care! He’s always excited when I drop him off & that says it all, this place is amazing!

I took my newly rescued bichon frise to Jessie at Petco who did a really good job grooming him. She had to pretty much shave off all his hair because of matting. Although I couldn’t recognise my dog afterwards and missed his fluffiness, I admit it had to be done. The only thing I would have liked more attention on is his nails, I don’t feel like it was trimmed back very much. But I’ll definitely be going there again! They even gave us a bag of doggie treats afterwards!

I have to start this out by recognizing the amazingness of the lady who is a cat expert. You have helped me with my cats more times than I can count. Thank you!
Love the fact that Petco offers a lot of recycled or greener options. They also offer some of the best foods and treats for animals. The staff is friendly and everything is very easy to find.
They even give you coupons on the amount of items you buy. No other pet store that I know of does that.
I’m never going back to Petsmart.

This is for Jessie at the Grooming Salon. We have a squirmy and active puppy with a fleecy coat. Jessie did an excellent job clipping his coat, brushing his teeth, and trimming his nails, and even stayed late to make sure he was done. She paid a lot of attention to his (overgrown) paws and got them back to a manageable level. When I picked him up, he not only showed no signs of stress, but was happy to snuggle with the other groomers some more. I’ll be going back!

This review is for TRAINING:
My boyfriend and I LOVE Jimi. She seriously knows her stuff and is always brutally honest, which in the end is the best you could ever want. I read the previous reviews from Unilocalers saying she was too aggressive, and yes I did think so as well at first. I would cringe when she corrected my Newfoundland puppy and fight back tears when she would reprimand us on what we were doing wrong. But honestly, she’s not being aggressive or abusive at all but in fact doing her job (what you pay her for). After being through Puppy I and now II with her and seeing my puppy improve immensely, I don’t regret a single moment learning from her. She is being assertive and not hurting the puppies at all with the way she corrects them, and chances are the people who wrote those reviews are used to «babying» their dogs and can’t handle someone else not putting up with it and actually gaining control of the situation. That was TOTALLY me at one point. But the truth is that you do more damage treating your dog like a child than what it is: an animal that needs to respect you and you need to respect and lead as well.
I honestly believe what Jimi preaches, that dogs aren’t the problem… the owners are. I would baby the hell out of my Newfie, and he was the biggest spoiled brat ever. He’d nibble and bark at anyone who was close to me and wouldn’t respond to his name or authority. He ran the house, all because I let him. Once we took him to Jimi’s class, he realized he has rules and I realized I needed to have them too. It was rough, but now he’s such a great dog, knows a bunch of tricks, and is almost done with Puppy II at just 5 months old. He’s great on a leash, respects other people AND me, and we are working to making him a certified AKC Canine Good Citizen, something we couldn’t have done without Jimi. She will be patient if we are late, and will spend extra time with us after class just to make sure we have a firm understanding of that day’s lesson. I’m 8 months pregnant and she taught me all the skills I’d need to handle my dog safely and she is helping us prepare for introducing our dog and the baby. Of course our puppy’s not perfect, but his improvements are vast and daily, not to mention it’s awesome to get compliments from strangers on how well behaved our dog is. :)
The effort you put into being good dog owners is the result you’ll see in your dogs during training. Don’t expect Jimi to perform miracles. And if you can’t handle being the alpha in your family… gtfo.
So yeah, you can listen to the reviews from people who probably wrote them projecting their own anger and frustration from their lack of control in their own lives onto Jimi, or you can listen to the reviewer who was at that point, didn’t give up, listened to the expert while renouncing my own bad habits, and now has a rock star puppy. I’ve been to other Petco’s (by the way) and their trainers aren’t even half as great. I recommend her to all my friends and family, hands down.
You rock Jimi!!! You’ll always have our greatest love and appreciation. Thanks for everything! :)

This review is for the grooming.
We took our puppy there and everything worked out great. It is a four hour process where you drop him off and then come back. I think it was $ 48, which was much more reasonable than the other places I had seen online (many were $ 100+). Our little poodle mix came back to us groomed and seemed happy. When we picked him up they had put a fun little american flag bandana on him for 4^th of July and then gave us a free bag of treats that they said he really liked when they were grooming him. The woman who did the grooming was very friendly and you could tell loved dogs.
Separately and in addition, we’ve taken him to the puppy socialization class there which is free at 2pm on Sundays I think. That was a nice free offering from Petco that is easy to just show up for if you have the time.

Move over Rover, let Jimi take over! This review is for the puppy classes this Petco offers. Jimi Dixon was very helpful in guiding me to help my timid puppy overcome some of his fears. I had to be trained more than my pup :)
We were able to do an ‘accelerated’ puppy class by having two sessions a week, since we were about to move out of state and did not want to miss out on his early socialization phase.
Petco would not have been my first choice for a puppy class, I have to admit, but my neighbor ended up talking and introducing me to Jimi, who was teaching a cute white lab at the moment. After a short talk I trusted her expertise and signed up for the class.
On some days (Tuesday evenings) I was the only one in class and on some days (Saturday mornings) there were many other pups. It was great to experience both settings. When I was the only one the one-​on-​one tutoring was extremely to the point and helpful, and with others it was great for socialization.
I also thoroughly enjoyed our time with Jimi. She is very straightforward, but as a Dutch person, I like it when people just say things how they are. I am here to learn, not to have my ego massaged.
I also recommend the weekly puppy socials that they organize. Jimi and Patty took great care not to flood my pup too much and respect his timid nature, while also encouraging him to try and sniff some puppy butt.
Four months later and my darling boy now has many friends of different sizes and ages that he wrestles and plays with, and I feel these puppy classes were of great help in getting there!

Grooming Review :
Groomer name — Xochit
1. Lacks basic manners.
2. Cannot manage her appointments. for the last appointment she took in my dog for grooming at 1:00pm and asked me to pick him at 4:00. I receive no call from her at 4:00 so finally I call her myself. She arrogantly tells me that my dog is still in the cage, and she has not been able to groom him as the dog before him was fussy (she is badmouthing someone else’s dog!). Finally I get my dog groomed hurriedly at 7 with absolutely no attention to details.
3. On the following appointment which was at 10:00, we reach at 10:15 due to morning traffic and apologize for the same. She starts being rude and giving us nasty looks for bringing our dog late. She says, because we are 15 mins late, we now have 2 dogs lined up ahead of us and hence my dog will be there for more than 4+ hours. (so 1 groomer is accepting 3 dogs in less than 15 mins???) and she cannot give an estimate for how long it would take for her to groom our dog! (so potentially he may be held up for the whole day) We offer an apology and say that we can ourselves give a bath to our dog to shorten her efforts and get him back when she is ready, and she raises her voice and refuses curtly. We remind her that she was the one who held up our dog for ~7 hours last time in spite of showing up to appointment on time and she just shrugs it off arrogantly. Of course we left without grooming.
4. She literally manhandled the dog that came in before us, once the owners left the premises. She had another puppy that she had left on the grooming table, and it was crying non-​stop and she did nothing to comfort the poor puppy, but went on hurriedly with his haircut
I can completely understand the pressure of handling multiple clients, but she needs to learn professionalism for the human clients and gentleness for the four legged ones. She could have spoken us to us nicely, and we would have definitely rescheduled with her. It’s only her arrogance and indifference that angered us.
Of course, we have had a good experience with the rest of the staff and other groomers at this facility and would not like to attribute this review to them.
Next time you want to groom your baby, ask for anyone but this groomer and you should be fine.