Henderson mayor suggests pet stores sell pound puppies

A modest proposal to limit the retail sale of dogs, cats and rabbits to three existing pet stores in Henderson and prohibit any new stores from engaging in the trade won unanimous support from the city council Tuesday and raised the specter of an innovative approach to the animal overpopulation problem. 

Mayor Michelle Romero suggested using the ban on pet store proliferation as an opportunity to get homes for shelter pets and free up space in the kennels, while generating income for the existing pet stores, should they abandon their current business model of procuring puppies from breeders. 

Under the ordinance, an existing pet store that is sold would not be permitted to sell animals.    

“Does the city have partnerships to sell puppies from the shelter?” Romero asked Henderson Animal Control Administrator Danielle Harney during Tuesday’s city council meeting. 

The shelter partners with rescues to find homes, Harney responded, but not with the three existing pet stores, which are “allowed to sell a 10- or 12-week-old puppy” with the expectation the owner will have it spayed or neutered at a later date. “You can’t always depend on the purchaser of that pet to follow through with the law.” 

The Henderson Shelter impounded 225 puppies under six months old last year, almost twice as many as the previous year, Harney told the council. Unlike pet store puppies, all shelter animals are sterilized before adoption, Harney noted. “Unfortunately, as it stands, pet stores don’t spay and neuter any of the pets that they sell.”  

A goal of the ordinance is to reduce animal overpopulation, which has wreaked havoc in local shelters.

Romero encouraged the council to pass the ordinance, which would prohibit the sale of animals at the grandfathered locations should the businesses be sold. She suggested revisiting the issue in six months to consider conditions that would allow the pet stores to be sold “with some changes in how they source their animals.” 

Harney told the council she would want the process to be affordable to the public, so that in the event “they wanted a $90 maltipoo puppy they could get one instead of having to pay $9,000.”  

A Petland employee told the council that although there is no cap on interest rates in Nevada,  “we’ve decided to cap the interest rate at 39%. While other payday loans are up to 600%, the average interest rate is about 29%.” 

Petland owner Diana Kirkland told the council that adoptions alone “won’t satisfy demand.”

“Basically, there’s always going to be a consumer need for wanting choice in what kind of puppy they want,” Kirkland said in a phone interview before the council meeting. She says she was aware when she purchased Petland of the zeitgeist in which local jurisdictions and states are outlawing the sale of puppies, many of which are sourced from questionable breeders.  

Rebecca Goff of the Humane Society of the United States called the ordinance “a step in the right direction,” but urged the council to phase out the sale of the animals at pet stores. 

Goff also challenged Petland’s assertion that it doesn’t purchase puppies from puppy mills, known for squalid conditions, puppies born with congenital defects, and dogs that spend their lives breeding.

In June 2022, the USDA reported 324 dogs at a puppy mill in Nebraska that supplies dogs to Petland Henderson, Princess Puppy and Las Vegas Puppy Store. Fourteen dogs were euthanized for grooming issues or lack of buyer interest.

Another puppy mill in Iowa that supplies dogs to Petland Henderson received 12 citations from the USDA in March 2023.  

Kirkland told the Current she has not considered embracing a different business model, as other pet stores have done, focusing on food and supply sales, grooming, and boarding. “85% to 90% of our business is puppies. So no, we would like to continue with the current model.”

As pet overpopulation has worsened, municipalities in Southern Nevada and elsewhere have enacted bans on pet sales or enhanced regulation. . 

Kirkland told the Current the pet sale business isn’t contributing to animal overpopulation. “Most of the animals that we sell do not end up in shelters,” she said, but was unable to provide any evidence.

Lori Hereen, executive director of the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) told the council her organization took in 1,500 owner surrendered animals last year, and 20 percent of those were less than a year old, including a $4,500 bernedoodle dropped off with the receipt from the puppy store. 

“You can find purebred dogs on any day if that’s what’s important,” Hereen said.