Pet's Palace

"snake with an awful case of mouth rot. cat in small cage with wire flooring. animals have zero enrichment, like bare empty enclosures. there was SO many animals, like so many. its hoarding and theyre not taken care of correctly. ive been an exotic animal keeper for a very long time and with EVERY SINGLE ENCLOSURE there was some issue with the care of the animal. the place also smelled like a rotten corpse, not standard rodent stink. a bad sick stink"

"Nice people but store needs a cleaning and overhaul. Their employees are young people with no knowledge of what they are selling. Cages overcrowded with animals and many of the fish tanks had rotting corpses that hadn't seen a clear shot at life probably ever. Not sure how he's in business honestly. I give them two stars because the aquarium ornaments were nice and priced OK. You shouldn't be running a pet store in these conditions. Step in and see for yourself."

"ANIMAL LOVERS BEWARE. THIS PLACE REEKS OF NEGLECT AND LITERAL FECES. Litter boxes for cats have MAYBE 2 cups of litter. Kittens and cats have no toys, and only a single old dirty towel to lay on. The 2 kittens in the back have clearly never had their nails trimmed — when they are retracted the tips are still visible coming out of the fur. The bottoms of the cages are wired, so the cats and dogs are literally standing and walking across tiny bars always. I don’t know if they are ever let out of the cage for roaming time— based on what I saw there, I highly doubt it. There was one small brown puppy there. He also had one dirty towel to lay on. He had a single soft toy (and no chews for teething, so he was going to town on my finger and crying at the same time.) He couldn’t stop scratching his head and dry skin was flaking off. The entire place REEKS. The building next door appears to be for breeding and there are rodents of all kinds in tiny plastic boxes with straw that are stacked almost to the ceiling, plus one that was loose just running around. The owner (Jay Hockensmith) has owned the place since 1979 and it is apparently the oldest pet shop in Louisville so I believe they have longtime customers that keep it running. It’s sad because I’m sure many patrons were not raised seeing what appropriate care/love for an animal is, so this shop must appear “normal” to many. I looked at the reviews, and so, so many people have purchased animals there that died shortly after. And, so, so many people wrote reviews about how disturbed they were at what they saw and that they would never come back. It took all of my will not to ask if I could hold the puppy and just walk out the door with him. My heart is broken."

"I have been going here since I was 4 yrs old, and so have known Jay (& Tony) through their work all these years. I currently have 2 healthy, sassy male Siamese cats from them ( 4 y.o. and 1.5 y.o.). It takes a lot to run a store like this, but when it's a quiet time those who have been there for years will take time to explain what the various animals there need to stay healthy at your home."

"I feel so bad for the animals at this pet store. The store is smelly and way too hot to be keeping chinchillas in. They were keeping an older male (white) and young female (gray) chinchilla together in the a small cage and the male was biting the other chinchilla and pulling her fur out. You can see the bald spot in the picture. I wanted to rescue this chinchilla so bad but it most likely has health issues due to the poor conditions it’s kept in. They also did not have a water bottle, only a bowl, which is very bad for chinchillas because if they get their fur wet it can mold and kill them."