By Kaley Martens, Kelsy Goodwin & Jessica Corbett
When the photo ended up on Facebook, animal rights activists took notice. The girl was Elizabeth Carlisle, a 20-year-old employee of an independently-owned Petland franchise in Akron, Ohio, and the photo quickly spread over the internet.
On her Facebook page, Carlisle commented that “[T]he manager took the pic for me. [S]he reminded me that there were people outside as [I] was swearing at them to just hurry up and die but then she was so kind as to take this picture.”
As soon as the photo became public, the Petland corporate office fired Carlisle, revoked the owner’s franchise, had the store in Akron permanently closed and condemned the behavior.
In a statement, the corporate office described the situation as “an isolated incident that is horrific and inexcusable and will not be tolerated.”
“This information is horrifying and in no way reflects the values, policies and procedures demanded of Petland stores,” the corporate office said in the statement. “Petland, Inc. is saddened and outraged at this gross violation of Petland’s animal care standards. It is Petland’s understanding that the employee was instructed to contact the store’s consulting veterinarian, and instead, defied the orders and store policy and acted on her own.”
Carlisle, who later pled guilty to drowning the two rabbits, was convicted of two counts of cruelty to animals, fined $250, and sentenced to six months of probation and 15 days of community service by the Akron Municipal Court.
CONSUMER COMPLAINTS
These kinds of violations have caused concerned consumers to file complaints, and animal rights activists to publicize cases like Carlisle’s, demanding stricter guidelines and harsher punishments.
Pet stores in Illinois are regulated by the Illinois Department of Agriculture, which licenses and inspects not only pet stores, but also animal shelters and animal control facilities. According to Jim Squibb, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Agriculture, the department regularly gets complaints about all three types of facilities, something he noted was typical for any regulatory agency.
Among the most common complaint is calls from consumers, saying that a newly purchased animal became sick. For example, one complaint was registered with the department on Nov. 24, when a consumer alleged the Petland in Elgin sold him a bearded dragon that became sick and died. The complainant also alleged that the reptiles in the store had no heat or water.
While Squibb said the complaint—the only one filed against the store in 2010—is still under investigation and no determination has been made, he also said the department is often not in a position to get involved in many of the complaints, which instead go through the court system.
However, the court system can be tricky to maneuver, especially when the evidence is not always clear and the laws don’t address things like “puppy mills.”
Last year, several people who purchased puppies from Petland and had them become ill filed a lawsuit against Petland and The Hunte Corporation, an animal dealer that sells more than 80,000 puppies a year. In the suit, the pet owners claimed that they had “bought Petland puppies with the understanding that they were ‘bred under safe and humane conditions by a reputable breeder with proper canine husbandry practices.’” The suit alleged that these puppies were actually bred at a “puppy mill.”
An Arizona court dismissed the claims against Petland, saying the plaintiffs had no basis for the suit. In the court documents, U.S. District Judge Daniel Campbell dismissed the claims because Petland “owed no duty of disclosure” of the puppies’ source to the plaintiffs and because the fraud complaints were not “pled with particularity.”
ARE THE PUPPIES FROM MILLS?
Animal rights groups claim many puppies sold at pet stores come from puppy mills.
The Humane Society of the United States says it has documented various problems at puppy mills, including over-breeding, minimal veterinary care, poor food and shelter and crowded cages.
At these mills, conditions are grim, Dr. Robyn Barbiers, President of the Anti-Cruelty Society, said. “Dogs are often kept their entire lives in small cages with no space to move around,” Barbiers said.
Rebecca McNeill, Media Manager for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said that conditions were similar at mills all over the country.
“Dogs are housed in cramped, filthy conditions,” McNeill said. “Puppy mill dogs do not get to experience treats, toys, exercise or basic grooming. To minimize waste cleanup, dogs are often kept in cages with wire flooring that injures their paws and legs—and it is not unusual for cages to be stacked up in columns.”
Yet whether an animal came from a puppy mill is difficult to say, partly because there is no official agreement on what a puppy mill is. While Squibb said the Illinois Department of Agriculture does get many calls from consumers about puppy mills, the term has no legal definition.
“There is no legal definition of what exactly a puppy mill is,” Squibb said, noting that there is no licensing distinction between facilities of a small or large size. “As far as I can tell, [a puppy mill] is a breeder that someone doesn’t like. It’s a derogatory term to smear a breeder.”
Legally, Squibb said that there’s no difference between a facility raising 50 dogs, 100 dogs or even a 1,000 dogs at a time. The Illinois Department of Agriculture’s main concern is how the animals are treated.
That makes it difficult for consumers, like those who sued in Arizona, to complain that their dog came from a “mill.”
ENFORCEMENT WAS LAX
The government agency that enforces the Animal Welfare Act, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Inspection Service’s Animal Care (AC) unit, requires breeders to meet certain animal care standards. Yet before May 2010, the agency was geared towards educating breeders about animal care through optional workshops, rather than enforcement. A 2010 internal audit of the federal agency found that enforcement was lax.
AC inspectors allowed most facilities with violations to continue operating and took little to no enforcement action. In 71 percent of cases where animal welfare violations were found, the inspectors took no action; most of the remaining violators received a warning. In only 3 percent of cases did inspectors issue stipulations requiring changes.
The audit revealed numerous cases where, despite repeated Animal Welfare Act violations, there were no consequences.
At a facility in Oklahoma with 83 dogs, for example, the AC cited the breeder for 20 violations during five inspections between April 2006 and December 2007, including a lack of adequate veterinary care. The inspector noted that three dogs had hair loss over their entire bodies and had raw, irritated spot on their skin, but the breeder was not required to provide veterinary care.
A repeat visit in July 2008 showed another 11 violations, including one where a dog had been bitten by another dog. Because the dog was left untreated for over a week, flesh on the dog’s leg rotted away, exposing the bone, the audit reported. Finally, the inspector required the breeder to take the dog to a veterinarian, who euthanized it. Eleven months later, the breeder had not been fined.
At a different facility in Oklahoma with 219 dogs, AC inspectors found 29 violations during three different visits, including an investigation in November 2007 where the inspector found “five dead dogs and other starving dogs that had resorted to cannibalism.” AC did not immediately confiscate the surviving dogs, and 22 more dogs died before the breeder’s license was revoked.
“We asked why the dogs were not confiscated when the inspector first found the dead and starving dogs,” the audit said. “AC responded that its regulations require that the violator be given an opportunity to correct the condition before any confiscation can occur.”
Dave Sacks, a spokesperson for the USDA, said that since the audit was completed in May, the AC unit has been working to increase enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act.
“One of the changes that came out of that [audit] is that we switched our focus from education to enforcement. In the past, we would work with those breeders that were struggling and try to educate them about how to take care of the animals better,” Sacks said. “We have stepped up training so that all the inspections throughout the country are uniform and all our inspectors, no matter whether they’re in Maine or California, are using the same standards. It’s become a lot more of an open book as to how we are regulating these breeders. This push in the past six months has not been the beginning of our focus on the animals we regulate, but it’s improving it.”
As a result of the audit, the USDA web site now includes a spot to check up on all licensed breeders at www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/inspections.shtml. Anyone trying to find out whether their new puppy was raised under humane conditions simply types the breeder’s name into the database and can view the most recent inspection report.
BREEDERS MUST BE IDENTIFIED
Until recently, though, getting the name of the breeder has been difficult. While Illinois law has long required pet stores to provide customers with information about the breeder, if requested, the law did not state when that disclosure had to happen.
“There were instances where a pet store would provide the information, but not until the sale was final,” Squibb said.
Breeder information allows consumers to verify the conditions of the facilities their pet comes from.
That’s one reason that, as of Jan. 1, Illinois now requires all pet stores and animal shelters to disclose, on or near the animal’s cage, the name, address and identification number of the breeder, along with information about the dog’s age, breed, vaccination record, and more.
The law, known as Public Act 96-1470, was signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn in August and is intended to create greater transparency.
“It’s based on the premise that consumers need to be provided information about an animal’s health history and origin in order to make an informed decision,” Squibb said. “And people have different opinions on puppy mills, so if there’s information provided, it allows consumers to make up their own minds.”