The situation is reversed here. We do have one large chain/franchise (by local standards) and they have been pretty well informed. I believe they even required certain courses of their employees at some point. They are still not by any means perfect, but still far more professional than the small stores. The smaller stores are usually the ones that don't know their back side from a iguana, probably for historical reasons. Exotic pets (i.e. other than mammals and birds) weren't available until they changed some animal import law in the mid-80's.