Nanaimo politicians are looking for more information about the issue of animal sales in pet shops.
The Nanaimo SPCA wants welfare standards for animals and a ban on selling puppies, kittens and rabbits in pet stores, seeing it as a way to cut off supply from puppy mills.
There’s only one store in Nanaimo that sells puppies and the owner of Paws n Jaws, Barry Bender, has said the store doesn’t get puppies from puppy mills and prefers an alternative option from the SPCA that would allow puppy sales with rules and regulation. The SPCA has also offered an option of only adopting bylaw suggestions for animal care.
Puppies are 40 per cent of the pet store’s total sales before tax and the business would not be able to carry on without puppy sales, Bender said.
Paws n Jaws started a petition last week about allowing the store to continue to offer puppies for sale, which Bender said has 344 names.
Council approved a motion by Coun. Bill Bestwick, which asked for staff to return with options for council to consider at the next earliest opportunity.
“The sentiment that I’m hearing from the countless e-mails that we’re receiving is there needs to be some form of compliance as it relates to puppies, kittens and other pet sales in retail outlets,” Bestwick said.
Coun. Bill Yoachim said down the road he would be supportive of regulation of some sort and part of that would be knowing the background of puppies.
Coun. Ian Thorpe assured Bender that council was not, at that point, considering a ban on puppy sales at the store; it’s received correspondence from the SPCA suggesting alternatives, but has not yet debated or endorsed any of them. He supported Bestwick’s motion, saying it’s a topic of interest to citizens of the city, so many are pet owners and interested in pet welfare and the issue applies to not only puppies but kittens and other small animals and he’d like to make sure it extends to other animals.