Pinellas County leaders weighing new regulations for pet stores

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Joy Smoak and Kristen Rodricks bought their puppies on the same day from a pet store in Pinellas County two years apart. The women have eerily similar stories.

"My husband and I purchased our dog on April 1, 2022, just an April Fool’s joke on us," Smoak said.

In less than 24 hours, both of their new puppies were very sick.

"She was very calm. I thought I was going to be up all night with her. She slept the whole night. I thought, ‘we've got the jackpot of all dogs,’" Smoak said. "Saturday morning I went to go wake her, and she would not wake up in her crate. Her eyes were completely bloodshot and her eyeballs were rolled into the back of her skull. She was limp."

"We brought her home and she was so calm," Rodricks said. "A little too calm."

"The next day we noticed some gagging and hacking," Rodricks said.

Both said they brought their dogs to an emergency vet, where they tested positive for several sicknesses, including parasites and respiratory issues. They said the store told them their puppies had a clean bill of health when they bought them. The store also offered them just a few hundred dollars in reimbursement and offered to take the dogs back, the women said.

"She's two years old. She still has health complications. We were told we could give her back and get a dog up to the cost of what we had paid for her, and, one, there's no way I was taking back this puppy that my two children had both fallen in love with, but I had fallen in love with. And all I could think was, ‘if we give her back, she's going to die,’" Smoak said.

Pinellas County’s Animal Services Director, Doug Brightwell, talked to the Board of Commissioners on Thursday about possible new regulations for pet stores in the county.

"We are working on some recommendations internally within our department for improving some of the pet store standards," Brightwell said.

He said all six of the county’s pet stores are inspected annually. They issued eight citations for three stores last year, but all were for paperwork-type violations, not for animal welfare.

"We like to make sure that businesses have a chance to do well in this county, but we have a standard and, you know, the Sheriff’s Department provides services, and they have a standard themselves of excellence, and we demand that of them. We want to demand the excellence here," Commissioner Dave Eggers said, talking about the pet stores.

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Brightwell talked about regulations and laws already in place. The Pet Lemon Law says consumers have 14 days to take their dog to the vet after buying it, and if the vet says it was sick when they bought the animal, the consumer then has two days to let the store know. They can return the animal, keep it or exchange it and get reimbursed.

Pet dealers also have to give consumers written notice of their rights at the time of purchase, including the animal’s health history. Commissioners called for stores to have even more transparency.

"There's no reason why a lot of that identification can't be put on these cages or crates, so that the residents can see what should be there or maybe what isn't there. I think it's fair, and the more that we open that up to transparency for our residents shouldn't be a bad thing," Eggers said.

"We’re talking about doing a service for our residents, the ones who are buying these animals, so it doesn’t have to be legally defensible to say, ‘step it up and do things that are right.’ So, that partnership, that ability to stay in business in this county is predicated on that, in my opinion," Eggers said.

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The animal services director said they’re working on strengthening repercussions for stores not following the rules, improvements to how dogs are housed at the stores and looking to add a buyer education program.

They’re all ideas Smoak and Rodricks say are necessary.

"I think it's really great that they're talking about a higher standard, and that people will hopefully take more responsibility keeping the retail, the six retail pet stores that are left in this county," Rodricks said.

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"I was excited to hear what some of the county commissioners were proposing and are wanting to require. Ultimately, I'd like to see the six spots that we have open shut down in Pinellas County," Smoak said.

Several surrounding counties don’t allow the retail sale of dogs. Pinellas County leaders talked about banning the retail sale of dogs in 2022, and there’s a moratorium preventing any new pet stores from selling dogs in Pinellas. County leaders, though, decided not to outright ban it, saying that they worried it could facilitate a black market on dogs.

There’s no timeline right now for when the possible changes discussed at Thursday’s meeting may be implemented.

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