Bad week for pet store
March 12th, 2010 by admin
On Tuesday, a small group of animal advocates held a loud but peaceful protest outside the Palm Beach Puppies pet store in CityPlace, an outdoor mall in West Palm Beach. The protest itself was not unlike others that have taken place at pet store across Florida. What is notable is that the protest occurred at all.
Today’s Palm Beach Post reported that when activists gathered this week, “they unwittingly made history.” The protest was the first time since CityPlace opened 10 years ago that a protest was allowed to continue, while “security guards and city police stood idly by.”
The relaxed police response came shortly after a lawsuit was filed against CityPlace for refusing to allow public protest. (The suit followed a December incident in which police threatened activists with arrest for wearing anti-puppy-mill t-shirts at CityPlace.) Our hats off to those activists who knew their First Amendment rights and who refused to be deterred by police who appeared not to.
Coincidentally, Palm Beach Puppies was also the subject of attention in Orlando this week. Yesterday, WDBO-AM radio told the story of a woman who purchased a puppy at Palm Beach Puppies’ Orlando location. Shortly after she brought the puppy home, the puppy developed pneumonia (Palm Beach Puppies has refused to pay the woman’s vet bill). Today was part two of WDBO’s investigative report. According to papers that came with the puppy, the animal came from a breeder in Missouri with a history of violations related to “pest control, lack of sanitation, and improper housing facilities.”
Most puppies sold in pet stores in Florida come from puppy “mills.” These for-profit facilities breed dogs by the hundreds with little concern for the health and well-being of the animals. However well-intentioned, buying a pet store animal will quickly result in the animal being replaced by another, and will encourage pet stores and breeders to continue contributing to the pet overpopulation crisis.
If you know someone looking to add a dog to their family, encourage them to adopt from a shelter rather than purchasing an animal from a pet store!