California’s underground puppy trade ‘raises serious alarms’ and demands for state action

Sept. 23, 2024 3 AM PT

A Los Angeles Times investigation found a pipeline of puppies from Midwest breeders that are sold in California as locally bred.
Lawmakers and animal welfare advocates said California must stop purging health records that could help trace dogs back to puppy mills.
A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will take “a hard look” at closing loopholes in current law to address the issues.

Lawmakers and animal welfare advocates say California must address “disturbing” findings in a Los Angeles Times investigation into the state’s lucrative underground puppy resale market, and called on state officials to end the practice of destroying crucial pet import records.

Those veterinary records show where dogs entering California were imported from and their destination and affirm they are sufficiently healthy to travel.

By obtaining those records from other states, The Times was able to detail how some unscrupulous California resellers buy puppies in bulk from mass breeders in the Midwest and rebrand them as locally bred. As a result, some consumers are duped into buying puppies from a commercial dog trade they may not support, and new pets have ended up sick and with costly veterinary bills, The Times’ investigation found.

State Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange) said he was “appalled” by what the investigation exposed about California’s puppy trade.

“We clearly need to enact legislation that closes this huge loophole,” Umberg said.

Umberg, who is a rescue dog owner, said the California Department of Food and Agriculture must stop purging import records that could help trace dogs back to puppy mills. The former prosecutor added that this is the first thing the state needs to do to ensure consumers and animals are protected.

A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom said California will take a hard look at the puppy resale market.

“The Los Angeles Times investigation raises serious alarms about the inhumane treatment of pets,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said. “Gov. Newsom has long been a champion of animal welfare and the administration is committed to exploring further efforts to close loopholes and address this issue in partnership with legislators, advocates and local authorities.”

Gardon declined to say whether the governor’s office would instruct agriculture officials to stop destroying the veterinary records. The documents, called certificates of veterinary inspection, are required by most states when dogs enter for travel or sale. The Times requested those documents from all 50 states and received responses accounting for nearly 88,000 dogs imported into California since 2018.

California began mandating the records in 2014 to protect consumers from buying sick puppies and to track disease outbreaks. Importers are supposed to send the certificates to county health departments but rarely do so.

County officials seem unaware they are supposed to collect them, and most counties aren’t doing so, The Times’ investigation found.

Meanwhile, California’s agriculture agency acknowledged routinely receiving the records from other states — and immediately destroying them with no review because the “sale and movement of household pets are outside of CDFA’s jurisdiction.”

California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross and State Veterinarian Annette Jones declined to be interviewed.

In a statement, the department said it “is reviewing its procedures when certificates of veterinary health are sent to the agency in error and is committed to exercising the entirety of its legal authority to hold the sickening and morally-reprehensible perpetrators of underground puppy mills accountable.”

The agency acknowledged that the current system “is confusing” since the state oversees health certificates for livestock and poultry imports but counties are supposed to receive the same paperwork for dogs.

The agency said it notifies other states that the records should go to counties, but that it does not have dedicated staff to forward up to 50 health certificates it receives each day.

“We are taking a close look at any additional actions within our staff resources and legal authority,” the statement said.

The agency did not say whether the records continue to be deleted.

Veterinarian Jennifer Scarlett, who runs the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said efforts to crack down on the underground puppy market exposed by The Times are hamstrung by the state’s failure to keep the records.

“We can’t prove illegal activity if we can’t even look at the documents,” she said.

Assemblyman Brian Maienschein (D-San Diego), who authored the law requiring health certificates, told The Times that the state and counties need to work together to ensure each record goes to the correct agency.

“Let’s face it, the state [agriculture] department should not just be deleting the records,” he said, adding that doing so ensures that importers who violate the law aren’t detected. “It gives protection to the sellers.”

Maienschein authored a bill this year that would have required refundable deposits to be offered for any dog sold to a person in California and, in cases that involve a broker, would have mandated that the name of the dog’s breeder be disclosed to the buyer. Despite sailing through the state Legislature unanimously, it died last month in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill was sponsored by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Maienschein said he was given no reason why the bill was killed. Umberg said he’s looking into whether he will take it up now that Maienschein is termed out and leaving the Legislature.

Brittany Benesi, a senior director for state legislation at the ASPCA, said in a statement a similar bill is needed next year to “better protect consumers from these deceptive tactics that disguise the source of their animals.”

California became the first state in the nation to ban pet stores from selling commercially bred dogs beginning in 2019, a move intended to thwart shipments from puppy mills into the state. Lawmakers later strengthened the law to forbid all retail dog sales after finding that dubious rescues began selling purebred and designer puppies to pet stores. But in the years since, state and local agencies responsible for monitoring animals coming into California have failed to do so, allowing middlemen to import hundreds of puppies with little oversight.

Gary Weitzman, head of the San Diego Humane Society, said it makes no sense that California’s law puts the onus on importers, some engaged in deceptive practices, to submit records showing how many dogs they bring into the state.

“The state has to come in and demand that counties track these, that these records are actually audited, that they’re actually being used to prosecute, and that the importers aren’t driving the bus, basically, which they literally are,” said Weitzman, who called the findings from The Times’ investigation “disturbing.”

The state requires that importers submit the records to county health departments regardless of whether they import one dog or hundreds.

That requirement surprised Assemblyman Heath Flora (R-Ripon), who bought a cavapoo through a website in 2020. The Times found Flora’s name on a veterinary record from Missouri for the puppy, prompting the lawmaker to say he had no idea he was required to share the document he had been given with San Joaquin County.

“I don’t think the law is bad,” Flora said. “We want animals imported to be disease-free. With that said, when laws are passed and constituents don’t know, how do we hold them accountable?”

Reality television star Evelyn Lozada said more must be done to ensure consumers are protected when buying a puppy. Lozada publicly accused a Southern California family of selling her a sick puppy in 2018 that she said had been dyed a chocolate brown so the dog could fetch a higher price.

Lozada was upset to learn that one of the people she said sold her the puppy, Trina Kenney, was listed on veterinary records reviewed by The Times as having imported 29 puppies from Michigan last year. The records were signed by a veterinarian in the weeks before and after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge found that the Kenney family participated in a “heinous” scheme to sell sick puppies and barred them from selling dogs.

An attorney for the Kenneys told The Times the family has been complying with the order not to sell dogs and questioned the authenticity of the travel certificates. The attorney could not be reached for comment on Lozada’s allegations.

Lozada’s puppy, which she named Biscuit, was not found among the thousands of dogs in The Times’ records. Lozada said after Biscuit was treated for parasites, he was healthy until recently.

She said she had to put him down a few weeks ago due to his declining health. He was 6 years old.

“People really trust when they’re purchasing a dog,” she said. “I wish there were stricter laws and that something would be done.”