Animal group pushes for pet sale ban

By Matthew Hoekstra - Richmond Review

Published: July 24, 2009 2:00 PM

Luke and Logan must have been pretty proud of themselves.

A woman selected the two Persian cats, at $900 each, to be her new
pets‹until she realized caring for them wasn¹t as simple as Fancy Feast
commercials suggest.

Three days later, the royal white cats found themselves wearing their usual
snobbish grins inside the Richmond Animal Shelter. Their brief courtship
with their owner over; they had been surrendered to the shelter.

The Richmond Animal Protection Society, which operates the shelter, sees the
scenario play out often. Unless the owner coughs up the information, the
society can¹t prove where the animals originally came from.

But Christie Lagally believes more often than not, animals surrendered to
the shelter, or otherwise abandoned on city streets, come from pet stores.

³People usually pay thousands of dollars for these animals, and within a
year or two years they find the dog is unmanageable and they bring it into
the shelter,² said Lagally, the society¹s education co-ordinator.

The society is pushing for a ban on the sale of all dogs, cats and rabbits
by pet stores in Richmond. Meanwhile Richmond City Hall is examining tighter
restrictions on pet stores.

Lagally said pet stores don¹t do enough to educate their customers, house
their animals in less-than-favourable conditions, source puppy mills and
encourage impulse buys.

³They¹re not thinking, ŒDo I have a yard?¹ ŒWill this dog grow up to be a
100-pound dog?¹ It¹s an impulse buy.²

Buyers also forget they¹re not necessarily getting what they think they¹re
getting.

³You¹re buying a puppy, and of course that puppy turns into a giant dog, a
yappy dog or a dog that bites people. So most people who are surrendering or
abandoning their pets after they¹ve bought them from a pet store don¹t know
what that dog is going to be, what it¹s going to be like and what kind of
care it¹s going to require.²

Instead, Lagally said people should buy pets from the animal shelter, which
has most animals a pet store does: rabbits, gerbils, chinchillas, dogs, cats
and others. If the shelter doesn¹t have it, Lagally said reputable breeders
are a good second option.

But the founder of the Pet Habitat chain of stores‹including the 30-year-old
Richmond location‹believes he¹s being unfairly targeted.

³My staff are trained and we do educate the consumers,² said Ernest Ang, 62,
who insisted buyers are interviewed and provided with information about
their potential pet purchase.

³I don¹t think people would spend $2,000 just for impulse buying from our
store. I don¹t see that at all,² he said. ³And we won¹t sell a puppy to
someone without a background check.²

Pet Habitat puppies are imported from certified U.S. breeders and go through
a series of inspections and health checks before they¹re offered for sale,
said Ang.

Ang added all puppies come with a health guarantee, a free veterinarian
checkup and an imbedded microchip for future identification purposes‹the
first pet store in B.C. to make that a policy, he said.

Ang said Pet Habitat also promotes dog licences, encourages neutering or
spaying and also advises customers to sign up with a certified animal
trainer.

The real problem, Ang said, are puppy mills, which sell inexpensive
cross-breeds that encourage impulse buying and lead to untamed ³vicious²
animals. Prohibiting pet stores from selling animals would be a boon to
puppy mills, he suggested.

³It would just drive this legitimate business underground, and who¹s going
to benefit?²

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