Pet store owners accused of illegal vet care, torturing an animal, Nevada DA says
Nevada pet store owners face felony charges after prosecutors accused them of illegally providing veterinary care to animals, including one sick dog who died.
Last week, a grand jury indicted Michael Schneider and Leilani Tau-Schneider, who own Puppies Plus in Reno and Puppy Love in Sparks, on five felony counts of practicing veterinary medicine without a license and one count of felony torturing or killing an animal, the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release Wednesday.
The charges came after a two-year, ongoing investigation into the owners, prosecutors said.
The pair’s illegal actions ran from May to October 2017, according to prosecutors, and included “routinely performing or instructing their employees to perform various veterinary techniques on the dogs in their store without a consultation from a licensed veterinarian and, in one instance, failing to provide appropriate veterinary care to a sick dog, which resulted in its death.”
The District Attorney’s Office described the conduct as “a troubling pattern of mistreatment of dogs by the owners of Puppies Plus and Puppy Love, which is explained more fully in the details of the Indictment.” Prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for a copy of the indictment from McClatchy news group.
Puppies Plus did not immediately respond to a message requesting comment, which was left Wednesday on the phone number advertised on the store’s website.
Prosecutors said that if “anyone has any additional information about Puppies Plus or Puppy Love that they believe may assist in this on-going investigation, please contact Washoe County Regional Animal Services at pets@washoecounty.us.”
Puppies Plus, the Reno pet store, has a two-star rating out of five on Yelp after nearly 100 reviews. Customers complain of sick puppies that required costly medical care after purchase — some as recently as this summer.
This story was originally published September 4, 2019 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Pet store owners accused of illegal vet care, torturing an animal, Nevada DA says."
