Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey Also Keeping Tabs On Pet Health, Wellbeing During COVID-19 Response

Brevard Sheriff's Animal Enforcement Determines Animals at Puppies Plus Being Well Cared For

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA –While there are a lot of things going on in our community concerning COVID-19 our agency also continues to be responsive to other calls for service as well and in doing everything we can to protect everyone in our community.

As such, over the course of the last few days, a great number of our citizens grew concerned over the health and well being of the puppies that were being kept in cages at Puppies Plus in the Melbourne Mall.

The concerns centered around the fact that the mall and retail store are both closed to the public as a result of COVID-19 and that the puppies were not being exercised or cared for because of limited employee involvement.

As a result of a large number of our citizens reaching out to us about the concerns, I personally joined our Animal Enforcement Officer and Animal Cruelty Investigators at the store location Wednesday afternoon to evaluate the health and well being of the puppies and to discuss the store owners protocols regarding exercise and proper care for the puppies in their store.

After thoroughly examining the health and well being of the various puppies at the location, our team determined that each of the pets were well-nourished and appeared to be in good health.

In addition, our team determined that the store owners and employees were not in violation of any state law or county ordinance as it pertained to the health and care of the pets.

The store owner complied with all of our team’s requests and also agreed to properly exercise the pets to ensure that they were well cared for during this critical time.

Although the store owner declined, our agency offered to find temporary fosters for the puppies since the store is unable to operate and their business is limited to online sales at this time.

Our goal was to find suitable temporary foster homes so that the pets could have added playtime and human interaction while our country works through the impacts of COVID-19.

The store owner was made aware that our team will be doing periodic evaluations of the pets throughout this time period to ensure they are maintained properly and readily agreed to make them available for inspection at any time.

I want to personally thank all of our citizens who brought this matter to our attention as it gave us the opportunity to make sure that the pets were properly cared for, while also giving us an opportunity to discuss expected protocols with the store owner and staff as well as establishing some guidelines for them to follow throughout this critical period.

As I always say…”it takes a community to protect a community” and that includes those that can’t take care of themselves – our pets!

– Sheriff Wayne Ivey

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