Spokane Valley pet store picketed over dog dispute

A Spokane man and some of his friends picketed Evergreen Pet Shop Wednesday to protest its sale of a dog he felt was misrepresented.

The 5-month-old Airedale that Ray Harper’s fiancee, Caroline Lemus, bought at the Spokane Valley store Saturday was presented as a healthy, registered, purebred dog, he said. When the couple took the dog to a veterinarian two days later, they found out it possibly had distemper and couldn’t be bred.

Harper showed up on East Sprague Avenue Wednesday morning to warn potential customers, he said.

He isn’t the first customer who has been unhappy with the pet store in recent years. According to the Better Business Bureau, nine complaints have been filed against Evergreen Pet Shop in the last three years. Eight of those remain unresolved.

“That’s abysmal,” said the BBB’s Zan Deery. “When you see a group that has been this non-responsive, there’s a huge problem somewhere.”

Most of the complaints have been that Evergreen Pet, which has been in business for 30 years, misrepresented its products, Deery said.

The pet store has faced customers in small claims court twice in recent years and won their cases both times because of the sales contract customers must sign, Evergreen Pet Shop owner Barbara Snow said. In Harper’s case, he and Lemus took the dog to a Spokane veterinarian on Monday and discovered that not only was he sick, the dog had only one testicle, with no hope of the other one dropping, preventing him from being used for breeding purposes.

“These people need to know they can’t get away with this,” said Harper, as he held up a picket sign that read: “You’ll love the sterile breeding dogs.”

Snow offered to refund Harper’s fiancee the $430 she paid for the Airedale if they returned the dog, which they named Axel. Harper and Lemus countered with a request that Snow chip in for vet bills to care for the dog, because they’ve already grown attached and don’t want to return him.

Snow said she wouldn’t compromise. And the contract Lemus signed when she bought the dog says the business doesn’t have to.

The couple expects to have to pay about $1,500 in vet bills because the dog will have to undergo a special neutering process due to the testicle that won’t drop.

Deery, of the BBB, said many of the complaints filed with the bureau on Evergreen Pet involve dog sales.

“The product issues are people complaining about the quality of their dogs and their health. A lot of people are asking for monetary compensation for having to take the animals to the vet or for emergency services,” she said.

“We are not always saying the customer is always right,” Deery added. “Customers are responsible for reading the contract.

“The way a better business bureau system sees this (the situation with Evergreen Pet Shop) is as a problem with how the sales are being represented.”