Another Pet Store Goes Out of Business

This time it's Scamps, who used puppy mills as suppliers and sold sick animals to the public.

Good riddance.

Pet Love Closes its Doors in Beverly Hills

This is awesome. (Pet Love is a business that sells animals from puppy mills.)

The Beverly Center, an upscale shopping mall in Beverly Hills, California, has announced it will terminate Pet Love’s lease sometime in the next few months. Best Friends made the announcement at a news conference Tuesday.

“Our work here in Los Angeles sends the strongest possible message everywhere that pet shops are supplied by puppy millers,” said Paul Berry, Best Friends chief executive officer. “If a pet store can be closed down in the iconic Beverly Center, it can happen anywhere in the country – New York, Chicago, Boston and other large metro areas.”

Pet Love isn’t just your average little neighborhood pet shop. It has been a fixture at the high-end, celebrity-filled mall for more than 15 years. Pet Love is to pet stores what FAO Schwarz is to toy stores, says Julie Castle, director of Best Friends’ Community Programs and Services.

Best Friends is an amazing organization. Please do support their work. Not only do they advocate, but they train advocates as well. And this Pet Love is only one of several stores that have closed as a result of Best Friends' Puppy-Store-Free L.A. campaign started last summer.

Humane Society Exposes Petland Practices

This news story slipped by in November. The Humane Society has another great investigation into the shady practices of a corporate giant.

This time it's Petland, who I'm glad to say has no stores in my area (that I know of.) It has about 140 stores nationwide that sell puppies that supposedly come from "good" breeders (are any breeders good? but that's another post.)

Not so, says the Humane Society. Among the investigation findings....

**Despite assurances by Petland staff and on their corporate website that the company knows its breeders and deals only with those who have "the highest standards of pet care," many Petland puppies come from massive commercial breeders in Missouri and other Midwestern states, where hundreds of breeding dogs are packed into cramped, barren cages—often for their entire lives, with no socialization, exercise, or human interaction.

**Many of Petland's puppies are not supplied directly by breeders but are purchased from a "middle man"—large-scale "pet distributors," otherwise known as brokers—showing that the company may not even know who the breeders are or what their standards of care may be like. The investigation revealed that some of Petland's brokers are also buying from puppy mills.

**Documented USDA violations at some of Petland's breeders and suppliers included dirty, unkempt enclosures; inadequate shelter from the cold; dogs kept in too small cages; and inadequate veterinary care. Some of the breeders were found with sick or dead dogs in their cages.

Petco to Decrease Live Animal Inventory

Thanks to PETA on this one, at least that's what PETA says.

Petco says better customer tracking systems are allowing them to devote more space to products than pets. PETA says it's because the organization threatened to go public with the abuses at one of Petco's live animal suppliers.

PETA said it found a Petco supplier, Rainbow World Exotics in Hamilton, Texas, abusing animals in surprise visits from September to November last year.

For example, PETA said, rabbits were neutered using a dull razor; live hamsters, rats and mice were dumped in trash cans; and animals were thrown to the floor in attempts to kill them.

In response, Petco suspended Rainbow, conducted its own surprise inspection, and Rainbow has completed improvements to its facilities, Whalen said.

"Based on their performance over the last month and their continued interest in working with us to improve protocols, we reinstated them as a supplier," he added.

It doesn't seem right to me that Petco would still keep these monsters as suppliers or that there was no way to shut the place down. Neutering rabbits with dull razors?

Now, PETA needs to work on Petsmart too. I hate walking into that place and seeing all the little mice, hammies and other little animals squashed into small cages.

Adopt, adopt, adopt.

Photo by The_Kinkajou.

New California Law Tougher on Pet Stores

Good for California (my home state!)

The state's pet store industry has come under attack by citizens and legislators, with California stepping up regulation and the Humane Society of the United States tracing problems to Midwest puppy mills.

In October, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 1347, the Pet Store Animal Care Act, which imposes stricter standards for the daily care of all animals sold in stores, not just cats and dogs.

The new law also gives enforcement officers the power to ticket store owners for violations. In addition, veterinary care is required for illness or injuries, and procedures for euthanasia are spelled out for the first time.

Photo by the wretched.