Animal News

Dallas to consider banning sales of puppies and kittens by pet stores

Pets acquired from puppy mills often end up having expensive health issues.

Photo courtesy of SPCA

The city of Dallas has started a conversation about banning the sale of puppies and kittens in pet stores, in an effort to discourage cruel breeding practices.

On December 6, a proposal was presented to the Dallas City Council Committee on Quality of Life, Arts, & Culture. Called the Dallas Humane Pet Store Ordinance, it's drafted by the Texas Humane Legislation Network (THLN), an advocacy group that has been working to pass laws with more humane policies for animals.

Joined by the Humane Society of the United States, THLN made a presentation to the committee to raise awareness and garner support for passage of the ordinance.

"The Humane Pet Store Ordinance will prohibit the sale of puppies and kittens in pet stores and stop hundreds of sick puppies from being brought into Texas from puppy mills across state lines," says Shelby Bobosky, THLN's executive director, in a statement. "It will protect consumers from ending up with unhealthy puppies and illusory practices that lock unknowing Texans into years-long, deceptive financial commitments and high interest rates on top of exorbitant vet bills."

Those "deceptive financial commitments" are the vet bills people get stuck with when they buy a puppy from a puppy mill that comes afflicted with serious and expensive health issues such as parvovirus, distemper, kennel cough, pneumonia, and other respiratory infections.

"Over the years, our THLN hotline has regularly received complaints of Dallas retail stores selling sick or unhealthy puppies," Bobosky says. "We now have an opportunity to end a cruel practice that hurts puppies and unsuspecting Texans simply trying to get a new pet."

The ordinance would also support the dozens of Dallas-based humane pet stores who do not sell puppies but instead partner with local shelters and rescue groups on adoption events. These are the organizations that help find homes for animals that might otherwise be euthanized, since Dallas and Texas continue to have a surplus of animals.

Reputable pet stores — including PetSmart, Pet Supplies Plus, Petco, Odyssey, The Upper Paw, Pet Supermarket, and Uptown Pup — do not sell puppies or kittens.

The chain that's notorious for selling animals is Petland, which has been the target of protests for more than a decade over their practice of selling animals from puppy mills and the subject of repeated investigations including one in August 2019 by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), who charged the Petland store in Frisco with mistreating its animals.

An HSUS investigator took photos and video while working in the store's back room, and found that pets were mistreated, sick, and overcrowded. The investigator kept a diary documenting puppies that had bloody diarrhea, vomiting, sneezing, coughing, or were visibly underweight.

The investigation was sufficiently damning that the Frisco City Council begrudgingly approved new rules regulating the sale of dogs and cats at pet stores. Passed in January 2020, the ordinance is an embarrassing bandaid by the Frisco City Council which addresses areas such as sanitation, veterinary treatment, care, feeding, housing, and record-keeping, but still does not ban sales.

Petland stores in the DFW area have also repeatedly experienced "robberies" of expensive puppies in which surveillance videos show that the suspects seem to know the layout of the store.

In November 2020, San Antonio voted to prohibit the sale of puppy mill animals. Stores can now sell cats and dogs only from shelters, animal rescue groups, or animal control agencies.

More than 370 localities and three states have already legislated similar bans, including five other municipalities in Texas: Austin, Fort Worth, The Colony, El Paso, and Waco.

The Texas House approved a similar bill in April but it did not make it through the Senate, thereby blowing the opportunity to take this humane policy state-wide.

Lauren Loney, Texas State Director for the Humane Society of the United States says in a statement that her organization applauds Council member Adam Bazaldua and Mayor Pro Tem Chad West for their support of the ordinance and looks forward to working with the full city council to ensure its passage.

"The values of Dallas cannot be reflected by continuing to allow the sale of puppies from cruel puppy mills to unsuspecting local consumers," Loney says.

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pet protection

How to protect Texas pets against the dangerous New World screwworm fly

MPhoto by Tran Mau Tri Tam ✪ on Unsplash

Make sure these guys are up on their flea and tick meds.

Two New World screwworm cases in dogs are among more than 30 confirmed instances in Texas and New Mexico, prompting warnings Wednesday, July 8 from veterinarians and humane societies that pet owners need to remain vigilant to protect their animals.

The parasite reappeared in cattle in the U.S. in June, more than 50 years after it had been largely eradicated from the country. The pest is actually the larvae of the New World screwworm fly. It eats live flesh and fluids rather than dead material, as the larvae of most fly species do.

Here is what to know about the parasite, the threat it poses to pets and how to protect them:

Screwworm fly larvae can infest any mammal
The fly's migration north from Panama starting in 2024, and through Mexico in 2025, has agriculture officials warning that it poses a threat to the $113 billion U.S. cattle industry, but the larvae can hatch and breed in any mammal, including wildlife, dogs, cats and occasionally humans.

The problem develops when a female fly lays its eggs in open wounds and mucus. After the eggs hatch, the larvae feed for about a week before maturing, dropping to the ground and continuing to develop into an adult fly.

The American Veterinary Medical Association says newborn animals and animals with open wounds or who have undergone surgery or other medical procedures recently are especially vulnerable. Even a tick bite can host an infestation, Aaron Grady, executive director of the Houston Humane Society shelter, said during a webinar on the screwworm.

Screwworm fly close-up The goal is to stop these flies from successfully breeding. Photo courtesy of Texas A&M AgriLife

Infestation signs include restlessness and bad smell
Animal health experts say pet owners in areas where the screwworm is present — southern and southwestern Texas and southeastern New Mexico so far — should watch their animals closely and examine them for wounds, cuts and bites regularly.

Pet owners should look for any maggots or movement in a wound. Other signs include a foul smell and restlessness or anxiety in an animal, or an animal “hyper-fixating on looking or chewing in a certain area of the body," said Melissa Stansell, a veterinarian at the shelter Austin Pets Alive!

Any one of those is reason enough to go to a veterinarian. The affected animal is likely in a great deal of pain, and that can cause death from shock. The larvae also can cause death if they move into vital organs or by causing infections that turn deadly.

Flea, tick medications can stop an infestation
Humane society officials and veterinarians said shelters across Texas are trying to prevent infestations in animals by giving them prescription flea and tick medications. They recommend that pet owners do the same.

“It will kill the larvae as they ingest the blood and tissue,” Stansell said. “The chemical compositions of those products are what kill the actual larval stages of these flies.”

Veterinarians also can treat infestations and animals can recover if pet owners contact them quickly. Stansell said the treatment could include antibiotics.

“It is only fatal if left untreated,” she said.

An effort to eradicate the fly again is underway
The New World screwworm fly is a tropical species and decades ago would disappear each year when colder weather arrived with the fall or winter.

But state and U.S. Department of Agriculture officials aren't waiting for the weather to turn. They've returned to an eradication method that worked decades ago, breeding sterile male flies and releasing them into the wild. The female New World screwworm fly mates once in her monthslong life, and if her partner is sterile, her eggs won't hatch — causing the population in an area to drop and then disappear.

For years, the only factory breeding sterile flies in the Western Hemisphere was in Panama, but the USDA invested $21 million to convert a site in southern Mexico from breeding fruit flies to recently start breeding screwworm flies. The agency also plans to spend $750 million on a new fly factory in Texas, set to open next year.

screwworm fly pets