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Petland Commentary/Controversy Continues Right Here
My posts about Petland have received quite the feedback recently… (to see all posts, enter “Petland” in the Search Box on the bottom right of this page). Some people are – surprisingly enough — supportive of the company. I cannot reveal their names, but not surprisingly, ALL the supporters are employed by Petland. Gee, what a surprise.
These few comments I wanted to share (don’t mind the misspellings and such, people type fast when they are mad or fired up about something!) because I want to know what you guys think…:
From Jess on the post “Petland Customers Concerned About Puppy Mills:”
“PETLAND IS A JOKE! THEY SELL POOR HELPLESS DOGS WHO ARE SO SICK THEY BARELY MAKE IT WHEN YOU GET THEM HOME!
WHY DO I KNOW? We bought a St. Bernard and she was so deathly sick after getting home she also passed it on to our chocolate lab.
Then two friends of mine purchased English Bulldogs and one of them suffered on life support for weeks then finally died. The new one they (Petland) replaced it with also suffered for almost a month. The other girl hers suffered with the same thing — all had kennel cough AND ALL HAVE HIP DISPLASIA!
Ours in which petland wants to back down on their word of covering the cost so which is in our hands now. Money isn’t the issue — watching my dog suffer is a huge problem.
I will not stop until they are shutdown for good. They are a joke! So Abbey when you watch a dog suffer like we have and its your own –then tell me Petland is a great place!”
“Abbey” had left an earlier comment on that same post defending Petland, FYI, and actually tried to turn the blame around on the poor Humane Society (HSUS). I don’t care how controversial HSUS is — they have done more for animals at the national level than any other organization. Anyhow, this is what Abbey said:
“If you have concerns about Petland stores, come visit one. We will be happy to show you around, and show you how the animals are taken care, particularly the puppies. We at Petland do our best to make sure people get health, happy, well socialized puppies. And this means we only purchase from repitabule breeders. If we find a breeder that is not, we expose them and add them to our Do Not Buy list. And if you are getting the information from the HSUS, please take another look at the information. The puppies and kennels shown in the HSUS video, with the name Petland at the top, have no realtionship to Petland what so ever. The HSUS knows this, but the refused to correct it. Also, you may want to take a closer look at the HSUS itself. They are a fundraising machine that is not associated with any local humane society. And the money that goes to the HSUS rarely goes to animal care. The raised millions to save the animals after Hurricane Katrina, but not very many were rescued. Look deeper into some of the things they have said and you will realize they want to take away all rights to own animals of any kind. Are these the type of people you are willing to believe? Please take a closer look at Petland and the HSUS and decide who is on the right side of the issue.
So finally, one more commenter left this intriguing comment on the post:
“I am a dog groomer in the state of Missouri, the puppy mill capital of the United States. The puppies we get in are half retarded! That is a serious statement. We had one lady bring her $1500 Yorkie in for training and after 2 sessions with the dog the trainer told her she would be better off spending her money on a vet because their was serious damage to the dog’s brain. It makes me mad that the “breeders” or should I say “manufactorers” of these puppies produce them like they would an apple farm. The more apples, the more money, the better for farmers. The more dogs, the more money, the better for farmers. But they are living creatures! Different story. The problem is the farmers don’t know it is wrong because they are being backed by the USDA. They are not educated on dogs and do not see this as wrong. They see this as part of their livestock. I think we need to set up educational groups just for the farmers.”
Finally, I’ll leave you with one more comment defending Petland and personally attacking ME and my “research.”
“Lauren,” commenting on my post about Petland pulling out of the pet expo (if that’s not a sign of a guilty conscience by the way than I don’t know what is…), had this to say to me, to which I responded back in the comments section.
“I actually worked with Petland and for a fact they do not sell puppies from puppy mills. You guys have no proof at all. Instead of speaking against something you know nothing about, figure out the truth!”
Interesting viewpoint she has, so I replied with a ten item long list of proof of undercover investigations, former employee reports, and more.
Anyhow, so after reading these comments and the back and forth about Petland, how do you feel? Should we as animal welfare advocates keep up our fight to rid our country of one of the most horrible purveyors of dog abuse.
Smiling Associate w/ Petland Drowned Puppies
Finally I will leave you with this, to the left: a picture of an Akron, Ohio Petland store employee smiling after she drowned and killed two puppies. (See story here.)
What can we do? When will this madness stop? How can we all come together to get rid of this God-awful business once and for all? And how can we shut down the mills that they come from once and for all?
We’re in for a tough battle folks, but there is strength in numbers. And if enough of us join the fight, we can win it. Let me know what you think in the Comments.
** For recent info on Petland allegations and investigations, check out these links:
http://www.humanesociety.org/search/search.jsp?query=petland
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27822309/
This one gave me goosebumps…
These people just don’t get ‘it’
And that is sad – maybe they need to live the life these poor animals did and/or didn’t get the chance to…
Oh!! That is terrible! How could anyone drown a puppy?… or drown anything! It hurts mom lots!
Rabbits were drowned, not puppies. No less horrible, though. Then she bragged about it on facebook.
Another thought… if Petland wants people to believe they don’t sell puppies from puppy mills, where’s the proof? If I was running a business and was being accused of something that wasn’t true, I’d do everything I could to prove the allegations wrong. All Petland does is make the same old tired statement that their puppies come from USDA breeders and that they have Humane Care Guidelines for their breeders. Anyone ever see Petland’s Humane Care Guidelines? I’ve never been able to find them. Petland has no valid defense, so they take the low road and try to discredit the HSUS with their ridiculous statements.
Thanks for taking on this subject. I can’t understand why any company would let themselves in for so much bad press.
I visited Petland when a franchise opened near my home and I have to say the employees didn’t seem well informed. Whenever you asked a question about one of the dogs they had to go look in a book in order to answer you. And they didn’t have a clue about what size pinch collar to get for Fenris; even after I told them the DOG TRAINER I was using said to get the small they kept trying to push the extra large spiky thing on me. I haven’t been back and now that a PetSmart has opened up nearby I won’t have to patronize Petland. For awhile they were the only pet store nearby, and I didn’t want to drive out of town every time the feed store/grocery store didn’t have a pet product.
Also with so many animals in shelters and rescues I just think it is better to adopt rather then buy one of Petlands overpriced pooches.
Hope she has fun in jail. Grrrrrr.
I recently drove by a protest in front of a Petland Store and so I wanted to find out what this was all about so I Googled and found your site.
I’m truly saddened by your experience with your puppy. But from what I’m reading you are using quite a large brush when painting all these stores with the same black paint.
I’m curious, is it a requirement that Petland Store owners only buy from puppy mills? If not then how do you know every store does?
Or are you saying there are no responsible breeders out there? That would be a sad bit of news as well.
To me I would much rather deal with a store where I have a chance to know the owner than buying some puppy out of the back of a magazine or off the internet where I have no way to check them out.
I’ve never bought a puppy from a Petland but I have from breeders and believe it or not they have their problems too. I purchased a puppy from a breeder whose grand dame was an AKC world champion and guess what? The puppy had the Parvo Virus and died.
So here’s my last point. Whoever is doing this protesting, writing blogs, etc. Why don’t you take the Petland person’s offer up and visit their store. Check them out before you condemn them?
If you’re truly wanting to do what’s right for puppies then work with this company to improve their efforts, don’t just go after them for vengeance which is what you are doing here by your won admission.
So you must realize you’re never going to put this company out of business so if you are truly concerned then be part of the solution.
Whether you agree with their statements about the Humane Society or not, they’ve reached their hand out to you. So are you going to bite it or take it and help create a solution?
P.S. On your picture about the puppies being drowned. Why didn’t you mention that Petland revoked the owner’s franchise license and the store was shut down. Show me any franchise business that doesn’t have any problems and I’ll tip my hat to you.
In response to Gene… I’ve been following Petland for the past two years and can tell you, they aren’t interested in any kind of dialogue to address the protesters’ concerns about their stores. In spite of overwhelming and undeniable evidence that they stock their stores with puppies from puppy mills (also known as commercial breeders), they claim the protesters are misguided, blame the HSUS for picking on them, and carry on with business as usual. If they have nothing to hide, why don’t they go public with all their breeders’ information so these places can be investigated and their reputation restored? They don’t because it would only hurt their reputation more. They know the general public would be appalled to see the conditions in which the breeding dogs live. Most people understand that it’s cruel to keep dogs in a cages for life and force them to have litter after litter until their bodies are worn out and they are killed. Wouldn’t be good for business to show people the truth, now would it? Thanks to the efforts of animal activists and animal welfare organizations, the truth is out there and it’s just a matter of time before Petland changes its ways or goes out of business. I don’t feel sorry for them one bit.
This is a reply about what “Abbey” had to say about Katrina pets!
I’m a Katrina survivor and know “first hand” *ALL* the help that the HUMANE SOCIETY provided to the pets! Before making such a statement,one should know what they are talking about!!! Those people went beyond the call of duty to save our pets and for someone to say such a thing,obviously has no clue of the facts!!! before pointing the finger outward on the innocent ones (ACTUALLY TRYING TO HELP PETS)…turn that finger around!!!
P.S. I “have” visited a Petland in southern,Ohio and i would “NEVER” GET A PUPPY MILL PUPPY FROM THEM!!!
Petland truly makes me sick. Before I was thinking of getting one from there, and now I’m glad I didn’t. The cages their in are so small, and I’ve seen some eat their own poop. Which is why I only want to adopt from shelters, from people who care about animals and do what it takes to make them healthy. And to those who defend Petland, you obviously don’t care about animals.
Dogs eat poop. This is a fact of life, sorry. My pups ate theirs too till I taught them not to.
Those drowned puppies are rabbits. Sorry, typo nazi here.
Petland DOES make me sick. The one in my neighborhood is full of employees that know nothing about animals and the poor creatures looked so sick that I sanitized myself and everything I had with me when I got home to protect my pups.
You do realize that those are bunny rabbits in the “drowned puppies” picture. Right? And I personally have had no trouble with my Petland. Maybe some other stores are messed up, but it’s a franchise, so each store is individually owned.
The Petland in my town barely has any problems with their pets, and I’ve bought a few from there and my pups are still healthy now. My yorkie and peke-a-poo were perfectly healthy when I got them and I was shown their health records before I even purchased the dogs so I knew what vaccinations they had received and what vaccinations they still needed to get.
Furthermore, I know for a fact that my Petland sends any dogs with luxating platellas (not sure how to spell that) back, which I’m pretty sure is that “hip displasia” your commenter was talking about. I was interested in a maltese but was told that the puppy had a grade 2 luxating platella so she was being sent back to her breeder. I was still able to play with her, but the store wouldn’t sell me the dog unless I knew the problems she had.
So I have to say that I don’t agree with trying to get rid of Petland. I’d much rather buy my dogs from a clean, organized, and healthy store than some person’s barn. I like knowing that my puppy is watched carefully and given her shots before I take her home. And I appreciated all of the effort that my Petland puts into raising their puppies.
If you look at the photo at the bottom close…………they are rabbits not puppies….If the person who wrote this couldn’t even make out puppies from rabbits who to say that this whole thing isn’t false?????
Yes it was discovered after posting that those were rabbits but the main takeaway isn’t the picture…its that Petland buys from puppy mills….