Lawmakers and animal welfare advocates say California should heed the “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 veterinarian records show where dogs entering California were imported from, what their destination was and whether they are healthy enough 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 large-scale 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 cannot support, and the new pets become sick and face costly veterinary bills, The Times’ investigation found.
State Senate Judiciary Chairman Senator Tom Amberg (D-Orange) said he was “appalled” by what the investigation into California’s puppy trade has revealed.
“We clearly need legislation that closes this major loophole,” Amberg said.
Umberg, who owns a rescue dog, said the California Department of Food and Agriculture should stop eliminating import records, which could help Tracing dogs back to puppy mills. The former prosecutor said that’s the first thing the state needs to do to ensure the safety of consumers and animals.
A spokesman for Governor Gavin Newsom said California would keep a close eye on the puppy resale market.
“The Los Angeles Times investigation raises serious concerns about the inhumane treatment of pets,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Garden said. “Governor Newsom has long been an advocate for animal welfare, and the administration is committed to partnering with legislators, advocates and local officials to explore further efforts to close gaps and address this issue.”
Garden declined to say whether the governor’s office would direct Agriculture officials to stop destroying 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 about 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 certificates to county health departments, but they rarely do.
The Times investigation found that county officials are unaware they are supposed to collect the notes, and most counties are not doing so.
Meanwhile, California’s agriculture agency acknowledged that it regularly receives records from other states — and promptly destroys them without review because “the sale and movement of domestic pets is outside of CDFA’s jurisdiction.”
Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and Annette Jones, the California state veterinarian, declined to be interviewed.
In a statement, the agency said it is “reviewing its procedures when certificates of veterinary health are erroneously sent to the agency and is committed to exercising the entirety of its legal authority to hold the despicable and morally reprehensible perpetrators of underground puppy mills accountable.”
The agency acknowledged the current system is “confusing” because the state oversees health certificates for livestock and poultry imports, but counties have to obtain similar paperwork for dogs.
The agency said it notifies other states that records should be sent to counties, but it does not have dedicated staff to forward the 50 health certificates it receives each day.
“We are closely monitoring any additional actions within our staff resources and legal authority,” the statement said.
The agency did not say whether records would continue to be deleted in the meantime.
Jennifer Scarlett, a veterinarian who runs the San Francisco SPCA, said efforts to crack down on the underground puppy market exposed by the Times are being hampered by the state’s failure to keep records.
“If we can’t even see the documents we can’t prove illegal activity,” he said.
San Diego Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, who wrote the law requiring the health certificates, told the Times that the state and counties must work together to make sure each record goes to the right agency.
“We should recognize that the state (agriculture) department should not simply delete records,” he said, adding that doing so ensures that importers who violate the law will not be traced. “This protects sellers.”
Maienschein authored a bill this year that would require any dog sold to an individual in California to have a refundable deposit and, if a broker is involved, the name of the dog’s breeder be disclosed to the buyer. Despite passing unanimously in the state Legislature, the bill failed in the Senate Appropriations Committee last month. The bill was sponsored by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Maienschein said he was not given a reason for dropping the bill. Umberg said now that Maienschein’s term is over and he is leaving the Legislature, they are considering whether they will pursue it.
Brittany Benesi, senior director for state legislation at the ASPCA, said in a statement that a similar bill needs to be introduced next year to “better protect consumers from these deceptive tactics that conceal the source of their animals.”
California became the first state in the country to ban the sale of commercially bred dogs at pet stores starting in 2019, a move taken to prevent shipments from puppy mills into the state. Lawmakers later strengthened the law to prohibit all retail dog sales after questionable rescues were found 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 thousands of puppies without any oversight.
Gary Weitzman, head of the San Diego Humane Society, said it makes no sense that California law puts a burden on importers to submit records of how many dogs they bring into the state, some of whom engage in fraudulent practices.
“The state needs to step in and demand that the counties keep track of these, that these records actually be audited, that they actually be used to prosecute, and that the importers are not basically running the bus, which is what they really are doing,” said Weitzman, who called the findings of the Times investigation “troubling.”
The state requires importers to submit records to the county health department, whether they import one dog or hundreds.
The requirement surprised Assemblyman Heath Flora (R-Ripon), who bought a Cavapoo through a website in 2020. The Times found Flora’s name on Missouri veterinary records for the pup, prompting the legislator to say he had no idea the document he was given was required to be shared with San Joaquin County.
“I don’t think the law is bad,” Flora said. “We want animals that are imported to be disease-free. Plus, when laws are passed and voters don’t know, how can 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, which she said was dyed chocolate brown so the dog could fetch a higher price.
Lozada was saddened to discover that one of the people who sold her the puppy, Trina Kenney, was named in veterinary records reviewed by The Times as having imported 29 puppies from Michigan last year. The records were signed off on by a veterinarian just weeks before and after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge found that the Kenney family was involved in a “disgusting” scheme to sell sick puppies and barred them from selling the dogs.
An attorney for the Kenney family told the Times that the family was complying with an order not to sell the dogs and questioned the authenticity of the travel certificates. The attorney could not be reached for comment about Lozada’s allegations.
Lozada’s puppy, which she named Biscuit, was not found among the thousands of dogs in the Times’ records. Lozada said Biscuit was healthy until recently, after being treated for parasites.
She said they had to put him down a few weeks ago because of his deteriorating health. He was 6 years old.
She said, “People put a lot of trust in a dog when they buy it. I want the law to be stricter and something to be done.”
