Animal welfare advocates are organizing a protest at a Knoxville pet store after a viral Facebook post showed images of lethargic-looking dogs in cribs with grated cage bottoms.

The Puppy Zone at 8235 Kingston Pike has come under criticism in the past by rescue groups and former employees and customers.

But the owner vigorously denies that animals have been mistreated, and the Knoxville Police Department said its frequent inspections have found no cause for concern.

The latest criticism began with an online posting by Misty Lawrence, who said she was in town from Nashville visiting her daughter when she saw the store's "PUPPY SALE" sign and looked up some Google reviews.

"They were very sad and alarming," Lawrence wrote. "We decided to go and check it out and see for our selves."

Lawrence described the smell of urine and feces and several animals in each of the grated cages.

Police find no problems

Knoxville Police Department officers visited the store the day after Lawrence's Facebook post.

"The dogs were alert, they were being fed and had no apparent health issues," KPD spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.

DeBusk said KPD has received numerous complaints about the store and has been visiting and inspecting it twice monthly for a couple of years.

Join:Get unlimited access to Knoxnews.com for as little as 99 cents a month

During the visits, officers check that the dogs are alert and check the cleanliness of the cages and water bottles.

"We've found nothing that has created an issue whatsoever with the dogs," DeBusk said. He said KPD takes the complaints seriously, but no one has ever agreed to testify in court.

The protest is planned for Saturday, Sept. 15. More than 800 people have expressed interest online, and more than 100 have said they will attend.

Former employees raise welfare concerns

Store owner Steven Glatz has continually said the dogs at his store are healthy.

But former employees have voiced a variety of concerns about how the animals are treated.

A photo Lawrence attached to the Facebook post showed what appeared to be a pressure sore on one dog's hind leg.

Aryn Click, who worked at Puppy Zone from 2015 to late 2016, said she recognized the injury.

"Dogs would get those sores on their bodies and on their paws from being on the grate in the crib all the time. We weren't supposed to let them out to play or run around," she said.

She and another former employee, Alycia Lafar, also described adding bleach to rabbit feeders filled with water. They said the owners told them the addition of bleach would keep the water clean enough for multiple dogs to use without spreading disease.

"We were told we could not put bowls of water in there, and the dogs had to drink out of the rabbit feeders," Click said.

A third former employee, Amanda Gross, said she was fired for pushing the owner to take a gravely ill puppy to the veterinarian.

"(The puppy) was so sick he couldn't move his back legs or walk or anything," Gross said. "I was holding him and trying to get him cleaned up because he was laying in his vomit and (excrement)."

Allegations of selling sick dogs

In the past, customers have accused The Puppy Zone of selling sick dogs.

Olivia Christian bought a husky puppy from The Puppy Zone in 2012. She named it Hercules, and the 17-year-old girl quickly bonded with her dog.

Within days, the dog became lethargic and could not keep food down. She took the dog to two veterinarians and found out it had intestinal bleeding, distemper and a parvovirus. It died about three weeks later.

She said Glatz offered her another puppy, then a refund when she would not take a second dog.

Lafar and Click said they were told there was a disease outbreak at the store before they were hired, but Glatz insisted that such an outbreak never happened.

Rescue group receives sick, deaf Danes

Karen Dypolt, who runs the nonprofit Great Dane rescue called Dames for Danes, said that in 2013 she and some affiliates raised money to purchase a Great Dane from The Puppy Zone and take it to the rescue.

"It was the last one of its litter and it was left in a crib close to the shop window in the sun," she said. "He was lethargic and not moving like a Dane puppy will normally, so we felt we needed to rescue it."

Once purchased, Dypolt said, the dog was taken straight to the veterinarian.

"He was absolutely full of parasites," she said. "He had a bloated belly and demodectic mange."

A few years later, two deaf Great Danes were dropped off at the rescue after being purchased from The Puppy Zone, Dypolt said.

Puppy mill concerns

Animal welfare advocates have targeted the store for years over suspicions it receives and sells animals from inhumane breeding establishments where sick animals or animals with hereditary conditions are common.

Glatz denies purchasing animals from such puppy mills. He said he buys dogs from local breeders as often as possible but goes out of state occasionally.

He declined to disclose the identities of the breeders he receives animals from to the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee. "I'm not willing to give that information," he said, citing proprietary considerations.

"I don't really care what their concern is, our puppies are healthy," Glatz said. "I'm not going to disclose information on breeders that I have worked diligently to find."

He added the breeders "don't like to be in the face of the public."

Click, one of the former employees, said the store staff told customers the dogs came from reputable breeders.

"But these dogs would be in awful condition coming in," she said. "Most of the time they would come in before they were even supposed to be weaned, probably between four to six weeks."

She said she bought her first dog from Puppy Zone and it was sold younger than the normal weaning age. "It has a lot of behavioral issues as a result."

DeeDee Collins Pratt, a local boxer breeder, said she chose not to sell to Glatz.

"(He) contacted me a few years ago wanting to buy every litter of boxer puppies he could get from me for a low price, and wanted to take them at five weeks, before they were weaned from their mother, so he could give them a certain kind of shot," Pratt wrote on Facebook.

She said Glatz told her he did not want papers for them because he wanted to use his own registry.

Disputes over breeds, papers

Glatz has been in multiple disputes over dogs he said were purebred, according to former employees.

On Yelp, Google and Better Business Bureau's website, several people have complained they were told they were buying healthy, purebred dogs and would receive registration paperwork soon, only to find their dogs were sick, of mixed breed, or a different breed altogether.

Click said Glatz sold dogs as whatever breed they looked like, and customers frequently disputed the dogs' pedigrees once they grew older. Several complained they could not get ahold of Glatz to talk about the breed or get their registration papers.

The papers Glatz gave Dypolt for the Dane she rescued came from "Champion Pet Registry," a dog registry service owned by Donald Glatz, Steve Glatz's brother.

Donald Glatz also owned a retail pet store called The Puppy Stop in Orlando, Florida, with his wife, Victoria.

"This family appears to be very involved in the dog brokering business," Dypolt said.

Regulation of retail pet sales

The state of Tennessee requires inspection for licensing of animal dealers, and puppy mills with more than 20 unsterilized dogs must maintain a license with the Department of Health.

Retail pet stores must be licensed by the state agricultural commissioner and are up for inspection each year.

Will Freeman, public information officer for the Tennessee Department of Agriculture,

said in an email that "anyone who sells 25 or more dogs or cats per year is required to have a cat/dog dealer license. TDA recently took over licensing of this program.



"We do not currently have record of Puppy Zone being a licensed dealer," Freeman said. "We are sending an inspector to the store to determine if Puppy Zone meets the threshold to require a license, and if so, to make sure management takes the necessary steps to comply with the licensing requirement."

Under the Animal Welfare Act, retail pet stores are also supposed to be USDA licensed.

The Humane Society of the United States says being USDA inspected does not mean a business or a breeder is not a puppy mill.

"Current USDA regulations ... require only minimal standards of food, water and shelter," the organization's website said. "But many USDA facilities have been found in violation of even these minimal standards."



