I need to speak to you briefly about a situation regarding a pet store in Burnaby. I went there about twelve days ago and had a look at the puppies. While I was there I saw a puppy - a Husky/German Shepherd cross. His hair was falling out and I asked to hold him in order to feel his stomach. He had no hair on his back-side due to the worm infestation. His tummy was bloated and he had never received any vaccination or deworming. At that time he was ten weeks old. The store clerk bargained with me after I started to examine the puppy and inquiring after the dogs health. The price started at $400 and he dropped it down to $200. A couple came in soon after with a kitten they had puchased from him and at that point he took a needle from beside his cash drawer and opened a big case full of different medicines and gave the kitten a vaccination behind the cash desk!! He wore no gloves and I DO NOT REMEMBER HIM STERILIZNG ANYTHING OR IF THE NEEDLE WAS EVEN A NEW ONE! I do not recall if he removed the needle from a package. It was a truly upsetting experience. He handled the puppies with no care, & when I asked to hold the puppy, he handled the dog by the hair. After that, I went home and asked my boyfriend for his bank card so I could purchase the one puppy I held. I just felt that nobody was going to buy a puppy that looked that sick. My boyfriend and I have now got him back to health and he, of course, is going to need a little more time to fully recuperate. We did try to buy the little girl dog that was there, but we did not have enough money and she did not look as rough as this guy. When we took him to the vet, we found out he had never had his vaccination or his series of deworming EVER!. He lost his hair due to stress and his hair on his bum due to the worms. The dog was sold to us with absolutely no documentation except for a debit receipt!! It was like buying a package of cigarettes or something! Our vet has been extremely helpful by giving treatments and check-ups for next to nothing in order to help him. As of today we found him a home with a single gentleman who is moving to 100 Mile house with property, so I will meet him this afternoon and my boyfriend knows him fairly well and feels confident that they will be a perfect match. I have phoned a few numbers, like the SPCA who didn't care at all and just gave me attitude. So, this is my last chance with you and I hope to get some help soon! I did call the pet store today and he will be getting small dogs in there. If this same situation happens to these small dogs, they will surely die because they are too little for this sort of neglect! Please help! I would love to keep rescuing dogs but I just don't have the resources. It just becomes very costly depending on the severity of their illnesses. As a side note, if there is this kind of support out there, I would really like to do this for a career - checking out facilities, pet stores, breeders, etc. for wrongful practices and mistreatment. Please contact me as soon as possible because this store needs to be investigated immediately before any other animals have to suffer! Thank you very much for your time and I hope something can be done about this horrible situation.

AAS replied with advice and support. We urged this young woman to write the Mayor and Council of the City of Burnaby urging it to adopt bylaws to prevent the worst excesses of pet store cruelty. We have sent the following letter to the BC SPCA.
----- Original Message -----
From: Animal Advocates Society of B.C.
To: SPCA - NADINE GOURKOW, Companion Animal Welfare Co-ordinator ; SPCA - LORIE CHORTYK ; SPCA - John van der Hoeven, Director of Field Operations ; SPCA - Douglas Brimacombe - CEO ; SPCA - Cindy Soules
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 7:11 AM
Subject: Fw: PET STORE ABUSE !!

June 19, 2001

BC SPCA,
Provincial Office,
Vancouver, BC

Please inspect this store for incidents of animal ill-health and poor animal husbandry.

Please also inform us if the BC SPCA has any standards specific to the keeping of animals in pet stores, and if it does not, will it be drafting standards in the near future?

We look forward to your earliest response.

Yours truly,
Judy Stone,
President,
Animal Advocates Society of BC