Another Pet Store Closes Down....

Petworld Closes Its Doors

February 25, 2010, 4:2PM MT
By Sandy Miller, Best Friends staff writer
Another store selling puppies from puppy mills shuts down after peaceful demonstrations, bringing us one step closer to the day when there will be No More Homeless Pets.
For Deb Johnson, last Saturday started out just like many other Saturdays. Johnson, a volunteer team leader with Best Friends’ L.A. programs and Puppies Aren’t Products campaign, was busy organizing volunteers for a peaceful demonstration outside the Northridge Fashion Center, a shopping mall in Northridge, Calif.
The mall was home to Petworld, a pet store that sold puppies a Best Friends investigation had revealed came from puppy mills in the Midwest. Someone asked Johnson why they were out in front of the mall. Didn’t she know? Petworld had gone out of business, the person told her.
Johnson ran into the mall to see for herself.
“When I went up to the store and saw it shuttered, I burst into tears,” Johnson says.
For eight months, Johnson and other Best Friends’ volunteers and staff had held peaceful demonstrations outside the mall. They’d spent hours and hours at tables inside the mall educating shoppers about the link between puppy mills and Petworld puppies. It broke Johnson’s heart to see the puppies — everything from Siberian huskies and Dalmatians to toy breeds crammed into small cages in the store, some with price tags as high as $4,000. People who’d unknowingly purchased sick puppies from Petworld told Johnson how glad they were that Best Friends was helping others avoid the same fate.
“They’d say, ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I bought my dog here two years ago and I wish I would have known,’” says Johnson, who runs a small computer and networking business and has been volunteering with Best Friends since 2008.
If someone told Johnson they were in the market for a purebred dog, Johnson would hand them a list of breed rescues in the area. She pointed out how one-fourth of dogs in shelters are purebreds and directed them to the city-run shelter less than a mile up the road. No doubt some of those people Johnson spoke to, people who’d planned to spend thousands of dollars on a puppy at Petworld, turned around and adopted from a shelter or rescue instead — and saved a life.
And on Saturday, all of Johnson’s hard work paid off.
“I’ve always loved animals and the fact that we can make a difference is so rewarding to me,” Johnson says.
Petworld is one of a half dozen pet stores in the Los Angeles-Orange County area to close its doors in the two years that Best Friends has been educating shoppers about the link between pet store puppies and puppy mills. It was the sister store to Pet Love, a puppy mill-supplied store in Los Angeles that closed in January 2009 after seven months of educational tabling efforts.
A nationwide campaign, a cultural shift
Los Angeles isn’t the only place in the country where Best Friends is making a difference by educating people about the pet store-puppy mill link.
“This closure comes only a few weeks after Las Vegas’ Chi Chi Couture — another pet store at which our volunteers held peaceful demonstrations throughout the past year — closed its doors for good,” says Elizabeth Oreck, manager of Best Friends L.A. Programs and national campaign manager for Puppies Aren’t Products, one of four Best Friends campaigns aimed at reaching the goal of No More Homeless Pets.
“This illustrates the cultural shift we are starting to see in the pet trade. Consumers looking to bring a pet into the family are moving away from puppy mill-supplied traditional pet stores and toward the more humane concept of rescue and adoption.”
Best Friends isn’t out to close pet stores down. It would just like to see the stores adopt a humane model of business.
“Our intention here is not to close stores, but to see them promote a humane model of operations that, rather than selling commercially bred puppies, involves the adoption or sale of shelter and rescue dogs,” says Best Friends co-founder Francis Battista. “We’d like them to become a partner like Woof Worx and we’d like to help them make that transition.”
Jamie Katz opened Woof Worx on Valentine’s Day 2009 in the same spot that used to be home to Pets of Bel Air, another pet store that closed down after Best Friends helped expose the link between its puppies and the puppy mills that supplied them. Woof Worx makes its profits selling pet supplies and services, and the only dogs you’ll find in Woof Worx come from area shelters and rescues. Katz is not only running a thriving business, she’s saving hundreds and hundreds of lives. Best Friends now promotes Katz’s business in e-mails to Best Friends members and donors.
One step closer to No More Homeless Pets
If a pet store employee tells you its puppies come from small, reputable breeders, don’t believe them.
“A good breeder would never sell to pet stores,” says Jen Krause, campaign specialist for Puppies Aren’t Products L.A. Programs. “Good breeders take responsibility for their puppies for their entire lives. They do it for the love of the breed, not for profit.”
And with some 5 million animals being killed in shelters each year because homes cannot be found for them, it is inhumane and irresponsible for large commercial breeders to be mass producing puppies. If we’re ever to reach a day of No More Homeless Pets, this problem must be addressed. That’s why the Puppies Aren’t Products campaign is a major priority of Best Friends. This latest pet store closing shows there is indeed a cultural shift under way in this country.
“Let this be symbolic,” Krause says. “The mindset of the general public has changed. When it comes to buying from a pet store vs. adopting from a shelter or rescue organization, most would prefer to rescue. Today, we celebrate a victory. We are one step closer to our ultimate goal of No More Homeless Pets and that much closer to ending the cruel cycle associated with commercial dog breeding.”
For More Information
See where Petworld’s puppies came from.
Read more about Best Friends’ Puppies Aren’t Products campaign, and how you can get involved.
Learn about the recent closing of Chi-Chi Couture in Las Vegas.
How You Can Help
Adopt don’t shop. Many purebred dogs are available for adoption. Search by breed at Petfinder.com for your next family member.
Help support Best Friends efforts to educate the public about puppy mills and rescue dogs by donating to Puppies Aren’t Products campaign.