By Carole Raphaelle Davis Author of The Diary of Jinky, Dog of a Hollywood Wife
Pets of Bel Air, the Los Angeles pet boutique that sells puppies to Hollywood's elite, including Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, is now embroiled in a class-action lawsuit which claims the store defrauds customers.
The lawsuit, filed by L.A. attorney Wayne Kreger, states that customers of the store relied on false advertising, which claimed that the stores did not obtain their dogs from puppy mills. Dogs born in substandard conditions in puppy mills are often sick and suffer from congenital diseases. Now that class-action status has been approved by the court, Pets of Bel Air has been ordered to provide Kreger with pertinent information regarding the almost 800 participants in the case.
The participants include individuals who purchased dogs from Pets of Bel Air, which became sick within 15 days. "I'm hoping now that they realize the gravity of the situation," said Kreger in a phone interview. "This practice of using puppy mills and passing the puppies off as healthy dogs is something that I want to bring to an end."
Pets of Bel Air denies selling puppy mill dogs or sick dogs, but has battled an image problem since the undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States in 2007 revealed that puppies in the store were supplied by puppy mills. In its investigation, the HSUS released undercover footage of a Midwest puppy mill linked to the store. The breeding dogs in the video, which can be seen on the HSUS Web site, were crammed into wire cages in factory-like conditions. The HSUS also uncovered Pets of Bel Air employees deceiving customers by claiming that the puppies are raised by private breeders.
Buoyed by the growing anti-puppy mill movement around the country, local grassroots organizers joined larger animal welfare organizations Best Friends Animal Society, In Defense of Animals and Last Chance for Animals to stage a siege around the store. The protest is now in its fifth month.
Ben Harding, an activist who has been participating in the rallies in front of the store, was in the courtroom when the lawsuit was expanded to class-action status. "Customers who shop at this store do not get what they paid for," he said. "They expect an animal that will be healthy "¦ not one that's sick and sometimes dead in a week. If this were a car dealership selling Volkswagens that ran for one week and died, the store would've been shut down years ago." "This case is part of a growing national movement to stop puppy mill abuse and make sure its perpetrators are held accountable in the courts," said Jonathan Lovvorn, council for HSUS.
Jana Kohl, author of A Rare Breed of Love and a guardian of a puppy mill survivor was pleased to hear of the lawsuit.
"One by one, these vendors of cruelty will pay the price for the torture they're perpetuating, until eventually they all go out of business," she said. "They are the lowest of the low, as guilty as the puppy mill owners themselves, for promoting legalized torture."
Kreger isn't merely leading the legal charge; he is also one of the plaintiffs. "My wife and I are dog lovers," he explained. "We bought a little Chihuahua [at POBA]. He [weighed] like a pound. We took him home and within days he became very sick. We took him to our own vet and he said the dog had Parvo. We spent two weeks and almost $10,000 to save him. We took him home and watched him die. My wife was holding him in her arms and he died."
Class action lawsuits are notoriously expensive to defend and this one will surely put extraordinary financial pressure on Pets of Bel Air. In fact, POBA's sister store, Puppies and Babies (also in Los Angeles) closed its doors in October 2008. For Kreger and other plaintiffs, money is not the object. "This is personal for me," said Kreger. "I'm going to be the puppy mill industry's worst enemy."
