LA Times front page on Puppy Market 11/12/24

Angelenos:

With the election over, animals are back on the front page of the Los Angeles Times! Today’s front page article, by Melody Gutierrez and Alene Tchekmedyian, is titled, “State to Save Filings on Puppy Market: California stopped throwing out records that shed light on an illicit trade after a Times investigation.”

It opens with:

“California has stopped destroying records that contain key details about the state’s underground puppy market after a Times investigation found that some unscrupulous resellers import hundreds of dogs from the Midwest with little oversight.

“Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, confirmed that the records the agency receives are now being preserved, but offered few other details about how the state will use them.

“’We have no staff that’s dedicated to this, so we’re a little bit hamstrung right now, but it’s not because we don’t want to be a part of the solution,’ she said in a brief interview this week.

“In California, all dogs brought into the state for resale require a certificate issued by a federally accredited veterinarian listing the animal’s origin, destination and verification they are healthy to travel. The agriculture agency has long received those health certificates from other states by mistake — the records are supposed to go to county public health departments — and, in recent years, made it a practice to immediately scrap them.

“By obtaining the health certificates from other states, The Times found consumers who unwittingly purchased expensive dogs from resellers posing as local breeders. Many dogs were sourced from out-of-state puppy mills, leaving some new owners with sick pets and costly veterinary bills.

“Following the investigation, lawmakers and animal advocates called on the state agriculture department to stop ‘destroying evidence’ that dogs are illegally being imported into the state, prompting the agency to reverse course.”

The LA Times deserves numerous letters of appreciation for its stand on this. If you have not yet sent one, hopefully with a strong pro rescue message, please don’t pass up the opportunity to speak for animals which is provided by this front-page story.

I send thanks to Elaine Livesey-Fassel for making sure we don’t miss anything going on in the Los Angeles Times.

Yours and all animals’,
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch