“I am paying $7,000 for ashes.” This is what a heartbroken woman from Texas told our team in December 2022 about a puppy she’d purchased at a Petland store in Houston the year before. Even though Lovie Langston had asked the shop staff if the puppy was healthy, and been assured that she was, as soon as Ziva came home with Langston she was sick again and again. The Langston family had to move because of all the bills, adding up to many thousands of dollars. On top of veterinary costs, Petland had signed Langston up for multiple loans to purchase Ziva in the first place, one of which carried an outrageously high interest rate that the salesperson never disclosed.
After about a year, Ziva passed away from one last seizure. “We loved her so much in spite of her illness and our restless nights,” Langston said.
We are determined to prevent this from happening to other families. In Houston, we advocated for a local ordinance preventing pet stores from selling puppies and it passed. When we learned that the Petland Bellaire store continued to sell puppies in defiance of the ordinance, our team repeatedly went to the authorities to enforce it. Ultimately an arrest warrant was put out for the owner, and the store had to pay approximately $40,000 in fines.
In mid-2024, the store that sold Ziva to Langston closed permanently. But Petland never took responsibility or paid Langston back the thousands she spent on the puppy’s purchase and veterinary care.
Langston’s story exposes the larger problem of businesses taking advantage of people’s love for dogs to rake in profits to the detriment of animals and the people who fall in love with them. This is why we are fighting the puppy mill-to-pet store pipeline through a multipronged approach—raising public awareness of the wrongs of puppy mills, advocating for humane pet store bills, assisting consumers in lawsuits against unscrupulous pet stores, and fighting for stronger regulations at commercial dog breeding facilities. We are determined to eradicate the kinds of wrongs suffered by Langston and Ziva, and to prevent any further heartbreak.
As our work continues to end the sale of puppy mill puppies in pet stores, we’ve seen declines in three important numbers we track:
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The number of commercial dog breeders: Last year, we confirmed that the number of USDA-licensed commercial dog breeders dropped more than 8% between 2020 and 2024.
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The number of dogs each U.S. Department of Agriculture-licensed commercial breeder keeps: In 2022, we determined that the size of commercial breeders was in decline as well, from an average of 87 dogs per USDA-licensed facility in 2012 to an average of 57 in 2022.
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The number of puppy-selling pet stores across the United States: Fewer than 500 stores in the U.S. still sell puppies. This is down from approximately 900 in 2017. In fact, of the 25 largest pet store chains in North America, only one of them, Petland, still sells puppies.
These declines indicate that tens of thousands of dogs were prevented from suffering poor treatment. As stories like Langston’s start to spread, more people become informed about the dangers of buying dogs from pet stores, and public demand for puppies moves toward more humane sources of pets.
Last year, our actions helped lead to fines or consequences against problem Petland stores:
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Our outreach to law enforcement agencies led to a warrant being served on the Petland in Madison, Tennessee, to force the store to stop offering puppies for sale in compliance with that community’s local humane pet store law.
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The Petland Cicero store in New York chose to close rather than transition to a products and services model, after the state’s humane pet store law went into effect in December 2024.
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Five other Petland stores across four states closed or stopped selling puppies in 2024, and the Petland store in Grove City, Ohio, stopped selling puppies in early 2025.
The crackdown on bad puppy-selling store practices is also spreading to other problem shops:
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Puppy Town in Nevada was issued citations totaling $20,000 this year based on violating the local pet store ordinance we helped pass.
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In January 2025, the Washington State Office of the Attorney General announced that Puppyland was to pay $3.75 million for not honoring health guarantees, offering predatory pet loans, and doing other practices that hurt customers.
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Also in January, a controversial puppy store called Petopia closed in Raleigh, North Carolina, after local animal lovers protested.
In recent years, eight states and almost 500 localities have passed laws to end the sale of puppies in pet stores. Petland lobbied against Detroit’s humane pet shop ordinance, but it still passed unanimously in January. These latest wins show that there are many ways to stop puppy mills, including legislation, litigation, consumer education and grassroots animal advocacy.
Meanwhile, pet stores that do not sell puppies are flourishing by providing supplies and services such as pet food, toys, training, grooming and more to communities. More than 300 such stores have signed letters supporting humane pet store laws over the past two years.
Together we are moving the needle on the proper treatment of companion animals, and this means not treating them as mere commodities to be churned out at cruel puppy mills and put behind glass for purchase.
You can join us by telling Petland to stop selling dogs and spreading the word among your friends and family. If you or someone you know purchased a sick puppy from a pet store, let us know.
