I need help. For context I’m a petcare associate 3 years with the company worked in 2 stores.

Today someone dropped off a hamster in a box in the middle of an aisle and it wasn’t found until the pet parent had already left. I come in for my closing shift and get told about it. My SL and ASL both haven’t even looked at the poor thing, and don’t even know what gender it is. (Female)

They say they don’t know what to do with it because it technically could be some other stores hamster and not ours, so they’re not sure how to go about things.

I close petcare and head back to our iso room and take a look at her. She is skin and bones, can barely stand, and squinting her eyes. I relay all of this to management and they talk things over while I wait for a response. Unsurprisingly I didn’t get a response until 15 minutes later when I had to track them down instead of use the radio.

My manager then asks if euthanasia is looking like a likely option. At this point it could be but I expressed to him that it would be nicer to give critical care or get it into the banfield. He then says and I quote “even if it recovers we don’t know what to do with it.” At this point I walked away and was dumbfounded by what I heard

How about we make sure it gets through the night. Or take it to be euthanized. It’s currently starving to death in the back room and I’m debating giving the hamster critical care despite whatever management may think. It’s my job to care for the animals. And right now there’s a hamster dying a slow death.

Please someone give me advice or tips I’m lost for what exactly to do.

Edit: Thanks for all the supportive comments and suggestions guys! Good to know I’m not losing my mind.

TLDR: the hamster died due to my management’s incompetence.

It’s the next day and the first thing I hear is how the hamster died. I told my CEL how I have it 7ml of critical care and it seemed to be more energetic immediately. Guess the management never conveyed that to the opener and it died some time around 1.

I’m quitting soon and when I do I’m going to bring up this day and tell them that this day was my breaking point.

When I got hired the former CEL gave me a speech about how these animals depend on us and that always stuck with me. Guess not everyone agrees.