By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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CHERRY VALLEY — Furry Babies, a pet store that displayed puppies for sale in cribs on its retail floor and faced controversy over its breeders, has closed its CherryVale Mall location.
The interior of the store was empty on Saturday and its gates were closed. It’s unclear if the store will reopen. Its Google listing says it is permanently closed, and its Facebook page now directs to a message saying the content is not available.
Calls and messages left with Furry Babies Inc. ownership over the weekend were not returned. We’ll provide an update if we hear back from them. CBL Properties, which owns the mall, said it is unable to discuss agreements with its tenants.
Furry Babies Inc. still operates stores in Aurora, Lombard and Portage, Indiana. The CherryVale location had been in operation since 2009, according to its website.
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The CherryVale location was recognized for its nursery-like retail floor with purebred and hybrid puppies for sale in colorful cribs.
The pet store chain had faced accusations that it sold unhealthy and mistreated puppies bred by puppy mills, and online petitions called for the closure of several of its locations. The company, along with its Rockford-based owner, was sued in LaSalle County by five families in 2013 over those accusations. The lawsuit was settled in 2016, with Furry Babies agreeing to verify the source of each puppy and verify that the breeder had no Animal Welfare Act violations on its last USDA inspection, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
Furry Babies has said it carefully vets its breeders and that all puppies have been raised in humane conditions. It said it uses all United States Department of Agriculture-licensed breeders who are regulated and inspected.
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In 2021, Illinois passed a law put forward by state Rep. Andrew Chesney, a Republican from Freeport, that was designed to protect animals from puppy mill breeding. The law prevented pet shops from selling from certain breeders and went into effect in February 2022.
Furry Babies called the law “deeply flawed legislation targeted at closing small businesses.”
“When a ban is implemented as to where consumers can purchase a dog, you only further harm our dogs, promote puppy mills, increase illegal importation and encourage the black market,” the company wrote in an open letter to customers on its website. “By implementing breeder standards that address all areas of a dog’s care and further regulate businesses that source dogs from breeders, we eliminate puppy mills.”
Another new law went into effect at the start of this year that tweaked existing law to prohibit financial agencies from purchasing or making a loan secured by a retail pet store for the sale of dogs or cats. Supporters of the law said it would prevent predatory loans and curtail demand from expensive and disreputable breeders.
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas