Last week, the City of Fort Collins, Colorado passed an ordinance prohibiting the sale of dogs and cats in pet stores. (Or should we say “store” since there is only one operating pet store in the City.) We’ve written our arguments against shutting down and banning retail pet stores before, but they’re worth repeating.
1. There is NO EVIDENCE banning pet stores improves the lives of dogs and cats in large-scale commercial breeding facilities (“puppy mills”).
2. Banning lawfully operated businesses such as pet stores sets a precedent for government impingement on a free market economy.
3. When businesses are driven out of town, sales and property tax collections go down and people lose their jobs.
4. Any breeder or broker that is impacted by the closure of one retail sales outlet will find another. The internet is a far more profitable way to sell puppies and kittens, which many brokers and breeders do today. With the closure of brick-and-mortar stores that sell dogs and cats, the sales simply go underground.
5. Shutting down retail pet stores paves the way for retail rescue, which is exploding. These are rescue organizations that are nothing more than pet stores without the stigma. They import tens of thousands of puppies every year, charge adoption fees of $700 – $1,200, require the adopter to pay for spaying/neutering the puppy and have “no refund” policies. These retail rescues move puppies as quickly as they can, at the highest price they can, without regard to the best interest of the puppies or their adopters.
6. Oh, and THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT BANNING PET STORES IMPROVES THE LIVES OF DOGS AND CATS IN LARGE SCALE COMMERCIAL BREEDING FACILITIES.
With all this as a backdrop, we can say unequivocally that what the City of Fort Collins has done is off-the-charts idiotic. The Ordinance explicitly promotes backyard breeders, taking transparency and consumer protection to zero. These folks are not required to be licensed by the State of Colorado or by the USDA. No inspections are required and the odds of a buyer ever seeing the breeder’s operations are just as low as commercial breeders. It will be no surprise to see the number of puppies and kittens for sale on Craigslist or being sold in shopping mall parking lots or on the side of the road skyrocket in 2025. There is also nothing to stop backyard breeders from OVERBREEDING in response to the increased demand that will come from the City’s endorsement. If that happens, it will show up in the number of puppies and kittens surrendered to local shelters, and the number of them dying.
Banning pet stores does nothing to solve the problem it ostensibly intends to. Instead, it merely shifts the market from a regulated, transparent one to an underground, unregulated one, and incentivizes the worst actors. These bans may make their proponents feel better, but they hurt – not help – the animals who depend on us to do better.
See our full Op Ed here.
You are correct that if you shut down a pet store the commercial breeder will likely find another way to sell their dogs. But, what if it gets a little harder for them to do or is more time consuming than simply dropping off a ton of puppies at a store? What if they breed 1 fewer litter per year? Will that improve the life of the dogs they have in their care? Probably not but it could decrease their output and maybe they’d surrender a breeding female to a rescue to re-home and have a good life. You say that there is no evidence that banning pet stores will improve the lives of dogs and cats in large-scale commercial breeding facilities, but is there any evidence that it won’t? Are there any stats around any of this?
What if instead of going to the pet store someone went to a reputable rescue? Or a shelter! You are really focused on “retail” rescues, but what about the actual good rescues that are trying to help dogs? Rescues are required to spay/neuter, whereas pet stores aren’t. If you are worried about the number of puppies that a rescue dog could produce (even though there are strict spay/neuter requirements for them), why are you not concerned about the puppies that could be produced from dogs bought at pet stores? These are the exact dogs that will be purchased then used as backyard breeding dogs because there aren’t any regulations around spaying or neutering them.
This ordinance doesn’t directly promote backyard breeders. Are there any statistics that back up any of this article as far as where someone will go to get a dog if not at a pet store? Or what happens to commercial breeders if they lose their easy way to sell dogs? Maybe someone will go to a local shelter instead and adopt a dog that’s been waiting for its forever home for months.
Let me start by saying I wish things weren’t the way they are, but the reality is that broad change in the lives of breeding cats and dogs will not change by banning pet stores. Sure, for some breeders it will be a little harder or more time consuming to find another outlet beside pet stores. But the vast majority of pet store puppies come from brokers, not breeders. The brokers are huge, dealing in tens of thousands of puppies per year. They are already successfully selling puppies and kittens online and are sophisticated enough to overcome the blip of banning pet stores. You are correct that there is no evidence banning pet stores won’t improve the lives of breeding dogs and cats, just as there is no evidence that it will.
In a perfect world, absolutely people would go to a reputable rescue or shelter instead of a pet store. But that is an option today and people still go to pet stores. Why? I would argue it is because they are looking for a specific breed of a specific age regardless of where it comes from. People who are looking for an 8-week old pure bred Yorkie are not going to go to a shelter to get a 4-year old Chihuahua/Maltese mix. I volunteer at a local animal shelter and see first hand ALL THE TIME where people are not even flexible on age – they come in looking for a puppy and they do not leave with even a juvenile of 12-months old.
Spay/neuter is a whole other conversation. There are many, many places where there are NO spay/neuter regulations, even for rescues and shelters (e.g., Texas where Colorado retail rescues get most of their puppies). I have worked for four years on Colorado rescue and shelter spay/neuter regulation – and the work is still not done. I think pet store AND backyard breeder puppies and kittens should be sterilized before sale, but I believe it’s premature to take on that battle before we get rescue and shelter regulations locked down.
Backyard breeders are also a whole other conversation. In Colorado, they are totally unregulated, and I see that as an animal welfare and consumer protection issue. The Fort Collins ordinance absolutely promotes backyard breeders:
This Ordinance would not affect a consumer’s ability to obtain a dog or cat of their choice from an animal rescue, animal shelter, or the City’s small, reputable, inhome [sic] breeders.
Sec 4-1 Definitions
Hobby breeder shall mean a person who lawfully delivers, offers for sale, barters, auctions, gives away, or otherwise transfers directly to the public only dogs or cats that were bred and reared on the premises of the person, on which premises a consumer may view the conditions where the dogs or cats were bred and reared, and speak with the breeder directly.
Sec. 4-122. Retail sale of dogs and cats prohibited.
(b) This prohibition shall not apply to lawfully operated hobby breeders, animal rescue organizations, and animal shelters.
I think these are really important conversations, which I intend for my articles to initiate. Thank you.