Want to buy a healthy puppy? Washington pet stores are blind bet. State must fix this

Melissa Blake of Tacoma has a pair of rescued German Shepherds, Jericho and Chloe. She’s a foster parent for medically challenged dogs. She volunteers for Puget Sound animal-welfare organizations.

Last but not least, Blake is part of a growing movement fighting the exploitation of dogs and dog-buying customers -- a problem that runs rampant in America’s puppy mill industry, enabled by too many retail pet stores.

Now Blake and other animal-rights champions are out of patience, frustrated that lawmakers have been so slow to properly regulate the commercial sale of dogs in Washington.

The only thing the Legislature could agree on in the just-concluded 2021 session is a feeble, stripped-down version of a pet store bill that initially went much further.

Crafted after months of negotiations, the original proposal required stores to provide detailed dog breeder information so customers can make informed purchases. It also laid out stringent conditions for out-of-state breeders, consistent with what in-state breeders already follow.

What the Legislature adopted, and Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law April 16, is a pale shadow of the original.

House Bill 1424 will prohibit stores from selling cats. That part was uncontroversial, didn’t draw howls from the feline crowd.

It also will prohibit any new pet store from selling dogs. That part was very contentious, as it allows retail dog sellers to stay open, and possibly expand, while lacking any consumer-awareness provisions or protections against squalid kennels, confined spaces and mistreatment of puppies trucked in from out-of-state breeding farms.

“If you’re doing it the right way, the humane way, there shouldn’t be an issue,” Blake told us last week, exasperated by the gutting of HB 1424.

“We’ve been working on this for three years. I understand this is government; this is the way it works. But to have it slashed down to a couple sentences?”

The legislator who did the slashing is Rep. Steve Kirby, Pierce County’s senior House member and chair of the Consumer Protection & Business Committee. Kirby said it was the best he could do this year, given the implacable interests on both sides and an inability to bring people to the table.

The Tacoma Democrat blames what has become a favorite scapegoat among politicians: COVID-19.

“You can’t negotiate something that has this much emotion tied to it over Zoom,” Kirby told us. “The two sides are just so far apart.”

Maybe so. But the problem with passing an anemic bill is that it creates an illusion the Legislature did something to protect dogs and dog buyers, when in fact it did very little.

Kirby’s judgment also has been questioned by animal-rights advocates, in light of $5,250 in contributions he received from pet stores while running for reelection last year. The bulk of that cash, $4,000, came from the owners of Puppyland, a Puyallup pet store at the center of activist complaints.

Puppyland opened a second storefront in Renton and has sought other locations.

We wouldn’t go so far as to disparage Kirby’s integrity. But the optics of accepting campaign donations from pet stores, then using his clout to protect them, are naturally going to draw criticism.

Ashly Dale is a Puyallup resident who’s led protests against Puppyland for contracting with Midwest suppliers, notorious for breeding 40 to 60 puppies a week. Dale leads the Washington office of Bailing out Benji, a nonprofit that researches and investigates the commercial breeding industry.

Her group also takes complaints from families coping with sick or deceased puppies, or dogs with undisclosed hereditary conditions, as well as predatory lending by stores that set up payment plans.

“For those Washingtonians who unknowingly bought a puppy raised in cruel, inhumane conditions, and their puppy suffered or died as a result, it’s truly heartbreaking and can be financially devastating,” Dale said in testimony to legislators.

One could argue that breeding restrictions in the original bill were written too narrowly and might need fine tuning. Puppyland owners Justin and Kayla Kerr told lawmakers that size limits and other constraints would make it untenable to obtain puppies, inevitably driving them out of business.

But keep in mind that the Legislature passed minimum standards for in-state breeders way back in 2009. Dan Paul, Washington director of the US Humane Society, said it’s common sense to apply similar standards to out-of-state breeders.

The most imperative part of the original bill, in our view, was the consumer-protection section. It would’ve required full disclosure at retail stores, including federal inspection reports. Breeder license numbers would be prominently posted on a dog’s enclosure and in all advertisements.

Most people buying a car today wouldn’t think of closing a deal without a Carfax report. Why should it be different when you buy a dog, the starting point of a much more intimate bond?

Kirby says HB 1424 is a placeholder; he said he intends to work on more comprehensive rules.

One idea pitched by Kirby and the Kerrs would create a “lemon law” (here we go again with the car analogies), giving dog owners legal recourse if their pet gets sick. But does Washington really want to fill small-claims courts with these cases?

No thanks. State leaders should be proactive, not reactive, about looking out for the wellbeing of dog owners and the four-legged family members they cherish.

State leaders have chased their tails for years on how to regulate pet sales and crack down on puppy mills. Meantime, cities such as Gig Harbor, Olympia and Lacey have done it independently.

No more placeholders, no more excuses. Anything less than decisive action in 2022 will be tantamount to “the dog ate my homework.”

News Tribune editorials reflect the views of our Editorial Board and are written by opinion editor Matt Misterek. Other board members are: Stephanie Pedersen, News Tribune president and editor; Matt Driscoll, local columnist; and Jim Walton, community representative. The Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom and does not influence the work of news reporting and editing staffs. For questions about the board or our editorials, email matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com