There were 68 of us at the BarkWorks pet store in Thousand Oaks on Saturday, February 13. We marched back and forth directly in front of the store, inside the mall. BarkWorks has six of the 100 stores in Los Angeles that sell dogs and cats from puppy mills.

IDA, the Companion Animal Protection Society and other groups in Los Angeles are working on legislation with local officials to ban this inhumane animal commerce. This legislation would require that pet stores only show animals from the city’s six animal shelters and rescue organizations, not puppy mills.

During the march a woman approached me and told me about a friend of hers who had purchased a dog from BarkWorks. Shortly thereafter the puppy became ill. She wouldn’t return the dog to the store because by then she had falling in love with the puppy.  So she paid out $4,500.00 to save the puppy’s life. Of course, most puppies in the same situation would not have had such wonderful (and able) guardians to pay for their treatment.

If you live in (or are visiting) Southern California and would like to help with pet store demos, please e-mail Bill Dyer: bill@idausa.org.