Pet leases leave some feeling scammed
Thinking about giving a puppy or kitten as a holiday gift? If so, animal welfare advocates advise that you make sure the recipient is eager and ready for a pet, and they strongly suggest sourcing the animal from a shelter or a rescue group.
If you are determined to get one from a breeder or a pet store, you might want to doublecheck you are actually buying the fluffy little bundle and not leasing it.
Pet leasing is a fairly new industry, and it is getting growing scrutiny from lawmakers and animal organizations such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They say it is a predatory practice for pushing expensive puppies on people who cannot afford them and do not always understand they are essentially renting an animal for months.
This happened last year to Natalie Sullivan of Brooklyn, N.Y. She and her roommate had been thinking about getting a pet, and they were being deliberate about it all until they fell for a tiny black French bulldogBoston terrier mix at a pet store. The friends could not afford the puppy’s $1,450 sticker price, so they decided to take up a store employee’s offer of a “payment plan,” Sullivan said. They would pay about $123 every month for two years, according to the contract, which Sullivan shared with The Washington Post.
Once they were home, Sullivan reviewed the paperwork, and a sinking feeling set in. The documents indicated that although the puppy, which they had named Jane, now lived with them, they were not her owners — and they would not be for at least two years, when the lease ended. At that point, the women would have already paid nearly $3,000, but buying the dog would still require a final payment of about $266.
“It was a very absurd concept to me,” said Sullivan, 24, who works in television casting. “How do you lease a dog?”
Jennie Lintz, the puppy mills campaign director for the ASPCA, said interviews with lessees and online customer complaints suggest that pet store employees or breeders often gloss over the terms of the lease — either because they do not understand them or because they want to make a sale.
Even if the contracts might be legally sound, Lintz said, they are ethically troubling, in part because the person caring for the puppy has no ownership rights.
California and Nevada this year passed bans on pet leasing, and the ASPCA is lobbying other states to do the same. The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer information blog recently warned about the practice, noting that people who lease pets can still be on the hook for payments even if the animal dies.
Once she realized what she and her roommate had agreed to, Sullivan decided to dip into her savings and buy out the contract. Additional fees meant that she and her roommate ended up paying nearly $1,800 for Jane, a sum she says she is “still reeling from.”
Jane now lives in suburban Philadelphia with the roommate’s parents, where she has lots more room to romp than she had in Queens.
“She is actually an awesome dog,” Sullivan said. “But I learned a very big lesson.”