Sickly puppies are being bred and sold at exorbitant prices to working-class customers in Ohio, explosive new lawsuits and public records reveal. State officials have thus far refused to intervene with the ongoing animal cruelty and financial scam, marking a rare recent win for the president of Ohio’s state medical board and the state’s leading anti-abortion organization.
That there’s a direct link between dying puppies, a health oversight board, and the anti-choice movement is a prime example of Ohio’s notorious corruption and the cynicism of far-right politics.
At the center of the bizarre triangle is a conservative lobbyist named Mike Gonidakis. A close confidante of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, Gonidakis is the president of Ohio Right to Life and an anti-vaxxer serving his third term on the state medical board, which he led as president during the height of the Covid pandemic. One of the state’s busiest influence peddlers, he splits his time lobbying for healthcare clients, emerging cannabis monopolies, and Petland, one of the nation’s largest pet store chains and the only one that still sells puppies.
Gonidakis focuses on government regulation for the Ohio-based company, which has assembled a long record of abusing the lax oversight laws that its anti-choice, pro-hydroxychloroquine man in Columbus has been central to getting through the legislature. When Grove City passed ordinances that barred pet stores from selling puppies in 2016, Gonidakis rallied Ohio Republicans to pass a preemption law that nullified the ban and prevented other local governments from interfering with Petland’s right to peddle congenitally doomed dogs.
To ensure its passage, the bill was larded up with all kinds of other provisions, including a ban on beastiality, establishing the outer limits of Ohio Republicans’ tolerance for animal abuse.
Two years later, Gonidakis was able to intercede on a grassroots campaign to enact far more stringent rules via a ballot initiative by cajoling Republicans into passing a law that contained enough loopholes that the company’s animal cruelty could persist.
In January, three heartbroken and aggrieved dog owners filed lawsuits against multiple Petland stores and the company’s corporate parent, alleging that Petland employees coerced them into purchasing dogs that were born with severe disabilities and diseases that caused them to suffer physical impairment, extreme pain, and unmanageable incontinence.
Last week, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published a follow-up report that found at least 36 similar cases of gravely ill puppies being sold to unsuspecting buyers since 2019. The Humane Society said it fielded over 100 complaints from dog owners dealing with such a nightmare situation that year alone.
When the paper asked reps for the state Attorney General and Agriculture Commissioner whether they planned to look into the epidemic, each responded that they “had no basis to mount an investigation.”
Many of the owners were forced to foot enormous veterinarian bills and watch in despair as their tiny canine companions writhed in pain and convulsed with sickness before dying.
In one case, a crestfallen owner was left with no choice but to euthanize her Jack Russell terrier puppy, which had been originally bred at a puppy mill despite Petland’s promise that it was from a more ethical, small-scale breeder. Others were all but paralyzed, their bodies underdeveloped and sight stolen by genetic deformities and diseases, all compounded by neglect.
The preemption law was such a success for his client that Gonidakis formed a 501(c)(4) with the diabolical name Citizens for Responsible Pet Ownership, which handed out campaign donations and sought to get laws protecting retail sales of puppies introduced and passed in other states.
In 2016, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed what would soon become known as a “Petland bill” into law, tossing out anti-puppy mill ordinances in Phoenix and Tempe. Bills were also introduced in Wisconsin, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, and Florida, among other states, but none of them ultimately led to any signed law.
It wasn’t for lack of spending, either; GOP state Rep. Wilton Simpson, who introduced the bill in Florida, received $125,000 from Petland alone. It was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who later learned to love pre-emption laws.
The sting of defeat followed Gonidakis home to Ohio last fall, when the state’s voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution. At least this “pro-life” Republican still gets to oversee the painful death of puppies, I guess.
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