We have a hard time staffing our pets dept at my store too, Mad. We have a second shift "wanderer" too and he's never around when you need him. The dept mgr and usually one other guy works during the day, evenings are rough.
I was stopped when I was shopping the other day and was yelled at by a customer b/c she wanted fish and noone was around. of course if she would have walked down two aisles, there were quite a few assoc in hba/cosmetics. And then we I told him a customer needed fish he was like "huh?"