Targeted kennel gets more scrutiny

HARRISBURG - The state Attorney General's Office is investigating whether a Lancaster County kennel operator - one of the largest dog sellers in the state and the focus of legal action dating back almost two decades - has violated a 2005 court-ordered consent petition.

The agreement, which settled the largest Pennsylvania consumer-fraud case involving pet sales, required Joyce and Raymond Stoltzfus, at the time operating as Puppy Love Kennels, to identify their kennel in all classified advertising either by name or as a licensed kennel.

The provision was included so that consumers could fully research the kennel, which has a history of selling sick or defective dogs and misrepresenting them as healthy.

An Inquirer review found that scores of classified ads placed with The Inquirer and at least four other newspapers and Internet sites after Dec. 10 failed to identify the business, now known as CC Pets L.L.C., as required under the agreement.

After learning of the violation, the Attorney General's Office sent a "demand letter" to the Stoltzfuses' lawyer in early July, asking for copies of every ad placed since the 2005 agreement.

Reached by phone last week, Joyce Stoltzfus referred calls to her lawyer, Michael Winters, who said: "My understanding is that my client believes she is in compliance with the agreement." He declined to comment on any other issues.

Winters has given the Attorney General's Office the ads, which will be reviewed, Kevin Harley, spokesman for Attorney General Tom Corbett, said Friday.

The Stoltzfuses could face penalties of up to $5,000 per violation. In The Inquirer alone, the fines could exceed $200,000. Ads placed by CC Pets ran without identification in The Inquirer from Dec. 10 to Jan. 20, when the newspaper pulled them after learning of the kennel's history.

When asked why agents were not monitoring the ads, Harley said the office relied on consumers to come forward with potential violations.

"We don't have the resources or the manpower," he said. "We have hundreds of agreements."

By mid-July, after the demand letter was sent, the ads again included "CC Pets" or "licensed kennel."

The Stoltzfuses, who have run the Peach Bottom kennel for more than 25 years, have a long history of legal troubles with the state.

In 1997, Attorney General Mike Fisher filed an injunction seeking to close Puppy Love Kennel under the consumer-protection act, alleging it misrepresented that the puppies it sold were healthy and purebred.

Commonwealth Court found for the defendants, saying the state failed to prove the dogs were sick at the time of sale. A lawsuit filed at the same time by the Attorney General's Office led to the first consent agreement in 2000, and fines totaling $35,000.

In 2003, Fisher sued the Stoltzfuses, contending they had continued to sell sick dogs in violation of the 2000 agreement. Two years later, that suit resulted in the largest consumer-fraud settlement involving pet sales in state history. Under a consent petition filed by Corbett, the Stoltzfuses paid $75,000 in costs and restitution to 171 consumers who had bought sick dogs.

Corbett said at the time that the public could be assured that the Stoltzfuses would have to comply with the strictest consumer-protection standards imposed on a kennel.

CC Pets sold more than 2,000 puppies in the last year, most of them costing hundreds of dollars.

The Attorney General's Office has logged 58 complaints about the kennel since 2005, including one from a Cape May County couple suing the kennel and its veterinarian, Tom Stevenson, on allegations of consumer fraud and conspiracy.

Bob Yarnall Jr., a former dog breeder from Chester County and founder of the American Canine Association, said that statistically the number of complaints was very low, and that unsatisfied customers were entitled to get their money back through the state's "puppy lemon law."

"I think we'd love to see it be zero, but puppies are like babies and at times can get sick," Yarnall said. "That's why we have a puppy lemon law, and that's why we support it."

Animal-welfare advocates, though, say the repeated violations and continued sale of sick dogs should be reason enough to close the business.

"The attorney general is dragging his feet," said Bob Baker, an ASPCA investigator who has worked in Pennsylvania for 27 years. "Clearly, there is no follow-up, and the consent decree is meaningless."

Harley said the attorney general "has to work within the parameters of the law."

"We tried to put them out of business in 1997, but the court ruled against us," he said. "If there are violations of the consent petition, we will file a contempt petition and ask the court to provide sanctions, and if we have the grounds to shut them down, we will ask the court to do so."

Customers coping with the financial and emotional costs that come with the purchase of a sick dog want action now.

Jennifer Campbell of York bought a $600 boxer puppy in July from CC Pets for her 5-year-old son's birthday. Shortly after, her vet diagnosed coccidia, a contagious parasite condition, and pneumonia in the dog. When she learned it would cost thousands to treat the diseases, she surrendered the dog to a Good Samaritan the family had met in the veterinarian's office.

When she filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office, Campbell said, she was thinking of her heartbroken son, who wondered if his new dog would have to "go away, too."

In the space on the complaint form asking what she wanted, Campbell said, she didn't write "money" but rather: "The only thing that is acceptable to our family is that you have the kennel shut down."