Buyer Beware - Puppies for Sale at PetLand Sonterra - WOAI Investigation

Check out this video
A Warning To Puppy Buyers

Thinking about adding to your family? A new little lab or maybe a chihuahua puppy. Before you make a decision that could affect your family for years to come, check out what the News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters found when we took our hidden cameras and went shopping for a puppy.

It is hard to resist taking one of cute puppy home. They are so cute and so lovable.

But looks can be deceiving. The perfect puppy could be hiding something very serious.

Richard Athie describes the first time he saw his 'best friend', Honey. "I saw my dog and I immediately fell in love with her."

Honey, a golden retriever pup, has severe hip dysplasia, a genetic disorder that will eventually leave her crippled.

"They told me the surgery is going to be between $4000 and $5000," says Richard about Honey's visit to a vet.

Richard bought Honey at Petland in Sonterra for $1,000. He even paid for a guarantee insuring the dog's health, but he says it's not much of a guarantee.

"They won't help fix my dog," claims Richard.

Petland is technically complying with its guarantee. The store contract specifically states that genetic disorders are not covered.

Richard is not the only one who is upset with Petland in Sonterra.

"My daughter and I were running Christmas errands and we said 'let's go in and look at the babies."

Holley Pridmore bought one of those expensive 'babies'. A darling toy poodle, named "Riley", that would be a Christmas gift for the family. Little did she know, the puppy was sick, infected with parvo, a potentially deadly virus.

"It crushed me," says Holley. "We had fallen in love with him."

Petland's contract is clear. It reads that if you buy a sick pet you can return it, for a different pet. But by that time, most have fallen in love with their new family member and just want help making the animal healthy.

"I assumed like all the other consumers that go in there that, at the very least, the puppy that I'm paying all this money for has been screened for one of the major killers," says Holley.

Petland's contract states each puppy is checked out by a vet before being sold, but Holley still spent nearly $1,000 dollars to save Riley's life.

Dr. Andy Anderson is the chief surgeon at South Texas Veterinary Specialists. He says, "I would not go to a retail outlet."

Dr. Anderson adds his office sees a lot of sick puppies coming from pet stores.

"Generally, those, in my opinion, are not the best places to buy pets. They often have more disease and they may have very questionable genetics and have orthopedic problems or infectious disease problems," says Dr. Anderson.

So when you want to add a new family member, where do you go? The Trouble Shooters tried a different route.

We checked out ads in the classifieds. We answered a couple of them and what we found concerned us.

At one location, where small dogs were being sold, the owner asked us, "You're not connected to the Humane Society, are you?"

The puppies looked okay but it was what else the owner said that got our attention.

"There's no such thing as cruelty to your own dogs. You can't be cruel to somebody else's dog, but you could eat yours for breakfast if you want to," he said.

At a second location, the Trouble Shooters entered a house filled with puppies, row after row of cages. And in the garage, there were even more dogs. The smell was overwhelming but the dogs looked clean.

We had Dr. Anderson take a look at what we caught on tape.

"As a dog lover, I have a hard time believing they could be getting enough attention and care to address their basic health needs," he says. "I believe these people are doing what they believe to be appropriate to take care of them. I'm not that comfortable having my new family member come from this environment."

So where do the puppies at Petland come from? We talked to a manager there who says Petland does get puppies from private breeders that she says are licensed by the USDA.

Petland refused to do an on camera interview but did send us a statement saying that in the cases of our viewer's dogs, honey and Riley, their owners were offered "another puppy in exchange or a refund in the form of store credit."

Something Richard refused and so did Holley.

Holley's poodle, Riley, did make a full recovery and Holley now volunteers at an animal shelter. She says she now would rather adopt than buy another dog.

Meantime, Richard is still trying to gather the money to pay for Honey's surgery.

A Progressive Periodical Should Not Run Pet-Store Ads

I'm sure you've received quite a few comments about the inappropriate nature of the Petland ads you were running in the Weekly. For a fairly progressive periodical, I surprised you would agree to run an ad that sends the message that animals serve the same purpose as, say, a pair of roller skates. We have too many animals that end up in rescue because a family spontaneously bought them as gifts without fully realizing the responsibility attached to raising a pet. In addition, many dogs and cats come from mills, where the breeding pair will be bred relentlessly, and then often discarded after they can no longer produce litters. We recently took in a Labrador retriever that had bred every heat cycle in her six years of life, and then was found wandering the streets of Mesa. The breeder gave her away after he couldn't use her anymore, and the subsequent owner didn't want her, so she let her go. Companies such as Petland promote this type of industry by running an ad that states that pets make great gifts.

I understand Petland offers counselors, but that doesn't change the fact that many of these puppies will come from irresponsible breeders. In addition, if a customer wants a pit bull and is willing to pay, I don't see a Petland counselor refusing the money. Surely a hip, progressive newspaper such as the Tucson Weekly would not want to promote irresponsible breeding mills, the overflow of unwanted dogs and the possible unhappy existence of a dog that was a cute holiday gift, but when it got too big, was delegated to a chain and post in the yard.

PetLand - Orlando, FL

Kim of Orlando FL (11/14/07)
I purchased a puppy from Petland in Orlando, Florida on 7/2/07. The day we brought her home I noticed she had what appeared to be kennel cough. I got her into the vet and her kennel cough had turned into pneumonia. Petland agreed to pay for all services as they sold us the dog in this condition. Now months later my puppy is still sick and is still being treated by the vet all going back to the kennel cough. She has been on medication since we purchased her.

Last weekend I took her in for a re-check since she was still coughing and to my surprise was informed that Petland was refusing to pay for any further treatment. However, she has never been cured of her sickness that they sold her to me with. I was also never given the option to get a new puppy, one with out any medical problems. I strongly believe Petland is selling puppies that they know are sick for outrageous amount of money and then refusing to finish the treatment agreement they originally agreed to.

I now have a sick puppy that cost over $2000 and now also have to pay for all of our visits and medication. This visit alone cost me $110 and I was informed she would need to be brought back for further medication. I have all the receipts for every visit we have taken her to and all of them show the same exact illness that Petland sold her to us with.

PetLand - Teologia, FL

Michelle of Telogia FL (10/06/07)
My husband and I went to the store and bought a miniature pinscher from the petland in the mall for over $1100.00. The gentleman at the store reassured us that we would recieve our AKC registration papers in a few weeks. Well needless to say, that has been three years ago, and we went to the store more times than I can count and also called many more times. We have always have been assured and promised that they were going to get ahold of the breeder to get my papers. But to no avail have they done so. So my advice if you buy from there: walk out with your AKC papers, and no exceptions....

Cannot get my dog registered so I can breed him with my female AKC registered dog. So I have lost out on 4 breedings and quite a bit of money because of their neglect.

PetLand - Edwards, CA

Kelli of Edwards CA (09/25/07)
I purchased a puppy from PetLand. As we waited for our puppy to be bathed and ready to go home with us, the top kennel door was left open and the puppy which was kennelled with my puppy fell out onto the ground. This was about a 4 and a half foot fall. Someone picked up the puppy and it was placed back into the kennel.

Furthermore, we live 4 hours from this pet store and spent aproximately $1250 after paying for our pet and food, toys, etc. When the registration papers came in to the store, the store manager refused to send my registration papers to me unless I paid a $10 certified registration fee. I don't think it is too much to ask for PetLand to pay the cost of shipping the registration papers to me after spending such a large amount of money in their store.

PetLand - New York, NY

Sheila of Ny NY (09/23/07)
Every time we go into this Petland Discounts store, there is a sick or dying betta fish up for sale. Once, the betta was just lying on the bottom of the cup, grey, with visible fin rot, and I told the employee that there was something wrong with the fish. The employee flat out denied it and said, Maybe he's a special fish.

I was totally disgusted (I have two alive and well bettas at home, so I know a sick fish when I see one) and brought him in back to the fish guy, who literally said, My god, he's dying.

He claimed he would medicate the fish, and took him in back. That was the end of that.

That happened a couple of weeks ago. The most recent incident was that I walked into the store, and there was this blue betta obviously very close to dying. He was upright in the jar (totally unnatural for bettas), was gasping for air, had a bloated stomach, and popping eyes (a symptom of the betta disease Popeye, which happens when the water they are kept in is not taken care of). The water was filthy.

I took him in back to the fish guy, who was this kid who obviously didn't know the first thing about fish. He knew enough to think that the betta was dying, though. I asked him if they would medicate him, and he said no.

Totally disgusted, I decided to try to save him myself, and bought him. I put him in another container with nice, clean water, water conditioner, and aquarium salt.

He died within a half hour.

PetLand - Circleville, OH

Ruth of Circleville OH (09/23/07)
My boyfriend and I purchased a 10-week old english bulldog. We were told the puppy was up to date on all shots and was healthy. As per their guarantee we took the puppy to their vet (North Fork Animal Clinic) within the 4 business days. We were told then the puppy was healthy and looked great. We were given an antibiotic for a small rash on his tummy. We started the antibiotic that day. Later that evening the puppy developed a cough.

The next day, after taking 3 of the antibiotics, we thought maybe he was having a reaction to the meds so we stopped giving them to him and called our vet (who takes care of our other 3 dogs). On Sunday, a normally healthy, super active, super great puppy, would not eat, slept all day, and was hot to the touch.

We immediately called our vet who informed us it was puppy flu and Petland in Chillicothe has been having this problem for about a month. When I called Petland, they said it was an opinion of our vet that there had been no problems. However, they agreed to cover our emergency office call and meds. Our vet even told us that a puppy from there had died from the puppy flu and another from bordatella within the last two weeks.

Luckily we caught ours in time and the puppy should recover. However, we have now infected our other 3 dogs (13, 12 and 2).

PetLand - South Webster, OH

Terri of South Webster OH (08/08/07)
We purchased a 5 month old English Bulldog from Petland in Ashland, KY. When we were ready to take him home, we were informed that he had swallowed a rubber duck, very negligent on their part if you ask me. When I took him to the vet (the one they used) to see what should be done about the duck, it was then that I learned that he had been there for about 3 weeks with a respitory infection and pneumonia and had almost died while in Petland's care. And he would have respitory problems for the rest of his life.

Oddly enough, when I looked at the daily health report and medical records provided by Petland, there was no mention of the illness or vet stay. They lied to us about his health and even gave us false documentation of his health history. I immediatley called the store manager, Brian, but he refuses to talk to me. I am very upset with the service I have recieved from Petland, but more so the conditions they allowed my pet to live in, and then had the nerve to lie to me directly when I asked if he had had any health problems.

PetLand - Danville, WV

Angela of Danville WV (06/25/07)

We purchased a 6 week old shih tzu for $1300 from Petland in May 2005. I noticed that the puppy would drag her hind legs when she walked fast or ran. She also had a wierd smell to her and no matter how many times I gave her a bath she would small like oil and her hair was oily. She was also completely infested with fleas. I took her to the vet 2 days later. The vet informed me that the reason she was dragging her legs was because she was kept pinned up in a cage and did not have enough strength in her legs for her to run, and that she would be ok with time. He then informed me that she had mange, fleas, and pin worms. I was furious. He was furious as well.

I ended up paying over $400 to get her treated. When I called Petland to make a complaint I was told by the manager that Petland guarantees every animal we sell and you can bring her back and we'll refund your money. Well, my children, husband, and myself had already fell totally in love with her. I could not take her back. I told Petland that they needed to at least cover some of my vet bills. The manager tried to say that the puppy caught mange from my house and that the others in the cage with her at Petland did not test positive for mange. I then informed them that the vet told me that it took a few weeks for an animal to show signs of mange once they had contracted it and that we had only had the puppy for 2 days. I did not get any money back on the puppy.

PetLand - Liverpool, NT

Michelle of Liverpool NY (11/14/07)
We purchased a black lab from Petland of Syracuse in February. I brought my kids with me, so the salespeople were aware of their ages (10, 7 and 4). I was assured by the consultant that this breed was a good family dog.

Recently she attacked two of my children, on two separate occasions, causing injury and terror. In both cases, the attack was unprovoked. She has been to training (6 weeks) She has plenty of room to run and gets lots of exercise. She is well taken care of.

After doing some research about the animals that Petland sells, I worried that our dog could have some genetic deficit that casues her to snap. When I called Petland for some advice, the owner, Jeffrey F, would not come to the phone. I was told he would call me back and he did not. He only returned my call after I said that I was putting the dog in the car to bring her to the store.

Once there Jeff explained to me that it was a behavior issue and that we must be training our dog to behave this way. He suggested that I get a personal dog trainer. When I asked about the training that was supposed to be a part of the VERY EXPENSIVE package we got with the dog, he showed me the 1-800 number!!! He sold me a phone number, no real help. This is clearly a dangerous situation, but he offered nothing.

PetLand - Louisville, TN

Janice of Louisville TN (11/18/07)
I purchased a Maltese puppy from the above Petland on 11/10/07, 1:29 PM, according to receipt. The pup was apparently ill as it died while under the care of a veterinarian four days later.

The cost of the Maltese and supplies (foods and a medication to prevent hypoglycemia) recommended by Petland came to a total of $1,260.58. The vet bill was nearly $300.00.

The monetary and emotional cost has been great. When I called Ms. Adams, she expressed no concern about my loss, financial or emotional. She assured me that there was no warranty on the dog, and expressed no intent to reimburse me for selling me a sick dog.