The following is a guest post from peta2’s Rachel.

Quick! Think on your toes! What things in life do you hold dear? Is it friendship or family—or even just plain old freedom? All good things … and pretty essential, right?

Frogs imprisoned in Brookstone’s tiny tanks being so brilliantly marketed as “Frog-O-Spheres” are denied all of those things, even though they desire them as much as you or I. Why? To make a quick buck, of course.

Brookstone, what will it take to get you to stop supporting cruelty to animals? It’s not just us at PETA who are concerned—it’s your own employees, your customers, and millions of others who’ve seen our recent undercover investigation into the supplier your Frog-O-Sphere prisoners come from—where these frogs were seen being thrown around carelessly and even tossed into the garbage while they were still alive. Brookstone, the complaints don’t just come to us—they come to you. Check out some of the more concerning/awful/just-plain-dumb comments from the Frog-O-Sphere review page on Brookstone’s Web site:

“Our family cat knocked over the tank and ‘played’ with the the frogs for over three hours. I was able to find the frogs (scattered through the house), who were still alive??”

“It’s hard to keep track of which frog ate however many pebbles and making sure the other one got enough. … I guess it’s not that crucial though ….”

“My grandsons received this as a gift and we thought the ‘living gravel’ was the packing pouch of black/brown stuff. We almost killed the frogs before we started.“

“A lot of people on here have said that their snail has died. It’s VERY common for the snail to die, they told me that at the store.”

Luckily, in large part because of e-mails and calls from people like you, Brookstone stopped selling snails in its tiny frog prisons, but frogs are still dying. Please call Brookstone and ask it why, after undercover investigations, employee concerns, and comments on its own Web site about frogs suffering and dying, it refuses to stop selling animals. Ask the company to do the right thing now.

Posted by Rachel Owen

Since we announced the disturbing findings of our recent undercover investigation inside Wild Creations—the supplier of frogs for Brookstone’s Frog-O-Spheres—we’ve seen Wild Creations shut down its Facebook page in less than a day (that’s got to be some kind of record!), and thousands of people have taken action to get Brookstone to stop selling Frog-O-Spheres forever.

Here are five simple, sure-to-be-successful things you can do to help fight Brookstone:

• Take action by urging Brookstone to end all Frog-O-Sphere sales immediately.
• Share our investigation on Facebook, and in mere seconds you can tell everyone in your social network about the horror behind Brookstone’s frog prisons.
• Call Ronald Boire, president and CEO of Brookstone, at 1-603-880-9500. Our digital presence is unstoppable, but old-school dialing never hurts!
• Make animated amphibians entertaining and educational by handing out flyers at upcoming screenings of The Princess and the Frog.
• Put your viral talents to a compassionate cause by creating your own Brookstone video.

If all our readers take action on the digital, viral, and cellular fronts, we can win this battle. Do your part, and I’ll save you a seat at the victory celebration!

Posted by Logan Scherer

wildaboutbritain.co / CC

Your calls and e-mails truly make a difference. Case in point: Snails who were the designated “janitors” of Brookstone’s plastic boxes of filth, aka “Frog-O-Sheres,” have been retired. We’ve just received word from an insider at Brookstone that snails will no longer be included in any Frog-O-Sphere shipments. Because of your hard work, countless snails will be spared life in the tiny, toxic tanks.

(Let’s pause briefly for your pat on the back/cartwheel/victory lap around the office.)

OK. That’s good work, and this victory is a step in the right direction for Brookstone, but we still need your help to free the frogs from these miserable, inadequate tanks. The company recently appointed a new CEO, Ronald Boire, so your voice is more important than ever. Please send a short, polite letter to him and ask that the company stop selling all live animals. Even if you’ve written to Brookstone before, write again to the new top dog.

Won’t you help frogs live “hoppily ever after”? (My apologies, folks. I couldn’t resist that one.)

Posted by Karin Bennett

This week, we received a tip that Brookstone’s district managers and vice presidents were gathering in the Manchester, New Hampshire, area, where their headquarters is based, for corporate meetings and store visits.

While they were going over new store layouts and new bonus packages for selling killing as many frogs as possible, our larger-than-life “frog” was following them wherever they went. Our frog wanted to remind them of the one thing that Brookstone executives have clearly left out of their training manuals: compassion.

We stood outside their headquarters …

We followed them on their tour of New Hampshire Brookstone stores …

We even followed them to the restaurant where they ate dinner!

We’re not going to let Brookstone forget about the thousands of frogs who are dying on their store shelves, while shipped across the country, and in the homes of people who do not have the ability to care for them. Until Brookstone ends the sale of Frog-O-Spheres at its stores nationwide, it can consider our “frog” its permanent shadow.

Posted by Liz Graffeo

Imagine being sealed inside a clear coffin, bubble-wrapped, packaged in a box and sent through the mail on a terrifying journey to an unknown destination. Jostled around, forced to endure the summer heat while sitting in a delivery truck, and living in your own waste. If you can imagine this, you have some idea of how the little frog in this video feels.

This traumatized or now dead frog is a ‘replacement’ for another who died in a Brookstone Frog-O-Sphere. Despite public outrage and PETA protests, the body count continues to rise as Brookstone refuses to stop peddling live animals.

Urge Brookstone to send these Frog-O-Spheres packing and immediately implement a policy against selling live animals at all of their stores. If you know anybody who has misguidedly purchased these poor frogs only to watch them helplessly suffer and die, please inform them to request a chargeback on their credit card as Brookstone defers responsibility and costs for deaths and ‘replacements’ to the breeder.

Posted by Amy Elizabeth

Despite complaints from thousands of concerned consumers, undercover photos of frogs living in decrepit conditions, reports of dying frogs, and a run-in with the law in New Jersey—Brookstone still refuses to stop selling its cruel Frog-O-Spheres.

As the death toll mounts, we're turning up the pressure:

PETA's giant frog showed up at a Boston Brookstone to let the company—and potential customers—know that he's hopping mad.

These Boston College students won't be shopping at Brookstone anytime soon.

Kids, Just Say "No" to Brookstone.

Please urge Brookstone to immediately stop selling Frog-O-Spheres and implement a policy against the sale of any live animals at Brookstone stores.

Posted by Liz Graffeo

Anyone out there know of a gadget that makes rotten retailers stop selling live frogs and snails in tiny prisons? Anyone?

Didn’t think so. That’s why we’re calling on you to drop whatever you’re doing right now and tell gadget magnate Brookstone to stop selling Frog-O-Spheres ASAP!

Despite complaint after complaint, Brookstone—a company that apparently has a heart of stone—is continuing to “package” frogs and snails together in pitiful plastic prisons and sell them to customers who don’t have a clue about how to take care of these extremely delicate animals.

A distraught Brookstone employee has sent us undercover photos and horrifying details confirming that frogs and snails are sold with little regard for who will care for them:

“Most parents will exclaim right in front of me that they are not going to help the child to care for these living creatures. Then when I offer to sell them the additional food they will tell me flat out that the frogs won’t live that long. It kills me that these frogs that can live to be 15 years old [won't] even last 1 year as a pet in a controlled [environment].”

The whistleblower went on to describe how animals are forced to languish and suffer on Brookstone’s shelves without any veterinary care:

“We did have a frog that had a growth on its bottom. We eventually transferred that aquarium to the stock room and the frog died. No vet was called …. There is absolutely no policy or [veterinary] contact in my store for sick frogs. … [W]hen they do die we are told to “flush” them. … The snails die even more frequently. We have a bag full of over 15 snails that have died in the last month.”

But, hey, no worries—if Kermit dies before his 30-day warranty is up, Brookstone will replace him for free! So long as you have your receipt, just flush and replace.

Let Brookstone know that these frogs aren’t just a drop in the bucket. Please take action now!

Posted by Amy Elizabeth

columbia / CC

Brookstone store employees—many of whom are straight out of high school, not vet school—are the sole caretakers of these animals while the Frog-O-Spheres are in the stores. According to Brookstone's head honchos, the only time these frogs receive any "care" is when employees briefly peer into the Frog-O-Sphere to check on the animals' condition. After performing these spot checks, employees are instructed merely to write down whether the frogs are "expired," sick/injured, or healthy. Despite any store's claim that it has a veterinarian on file (per the Frog-O-Sphere SOPs), sick or injured frogs never receive medical attention. Instead, these animals—who are sensitive to sound and even minimal changes in temperature—are merely stashed in the back of the store until they either die or recover on their own.

Turns out this is illegal—in the Garden State, at least.

We did some digging and discovered that pet shops in New Jersey are required to provide veterinary care for sick or injured animals and must be licensed with the township in which they're located—both are details that Brookstone seems to have missed.

After we brought this to the attention of NJ authorities, PETA received word from across the state that inspectors were on the case (PETA quickly confirmed that a Princeton-area Brookstone has no license on file, and alerted local health authorities, who immediately issued a cease and desist order to the store.). The state's Office of Animal Welfare has also taken an interest in this matter because Brookstone was informed about the various permits that were needed before its stores even began selling these tiny torture chambers, but the company failed to obtain them.

Click here to tell Brookstone that it's time to stop selling living beings at all its stores.

Posted by Jeff Mackey

Since we posted our action alert about Brookstone’s boneheaded decision to sell live frogs and snails who are confined to minuscule “Frog-O-Spheres,” we’ve heard from lots of people who’ve confirmed our worst fears about the likely fate of these animals.

Brookstone has admitted that they aren’t screening potential “Frog-O-Sphere” customers, and their woefully inadequate recommendations for care—changing the water twice a year and feeding the frogs twice a week—are leading to snap decisions by unprepared people, as is likely the case with the person who posted this comment on Brookstone’s Web site:

“[T]he snail died in about a week (but really, who cares?). And the recommended 2 pellets a week is not enough (the frogs are so hungry they don’t move to conserve energy). When I started tripling their recommended meals, they became very active and cool. … Hopefully, they’ll last until I can buy a pet snake and feed them to it.”

People who are a bit more kindhearted have been flooding PETA with calls and e-mails about frogs and snails getting sick or dying, while callers to Brookstone’s customer service department who complain that their frogs appear to need medical attention are merely told to put the frogs in a separate bowl. Those who call about dead frogs and snails have been told that they should throw the corpses in the garbage and that new animals can be shipped or picked up at their nearest location. As a testament to Brookstone’s level of care, “replacement” animals are sent through the mail and handed to customers at the stores in plastic sandwich bags.

Other well-meaning folks are asking whether they should release the frogs into the wild, but putting non-native species into area waterways and habitats can wreak havoc on local ecosystems.

The continued sale of Frog-O-Spheres poses a clear threat to these vulnerable animals. Please add your voice to those of people who are demanding that Brookstone stop selling live animals once and for all.

Posted by Jeff Mackey