This appears to be a growing trend. Succumbing to relentless lobbying by animal rights groups, legislatures and even judges are forcing pet stores to sell only dogs from shelters. The logic behind these decision is understandable (and, alas, totally flawed): to help find forever homes for animals in shelters and to force notorious ‘puppy mills’ out of business.
Neither will happen. Puppy mills have already gone online (and there is no way you can regulate THAT) and stores will simply stop selling dogs and cats altogether. For two reasons: (1) you can never sell an animal from the shelter for the same price and with the same margin as you can sell a puppy from a puppy mill (and an adult dog is a much, much tougher sell as it is not nearly as cute as a puppy) and (2) no store will want to incur an enormous legal liability if something goes wrong with the shelter dog is sold. Puppies from puppy mills do have problems but from the perspective of a store owner, the dog from the shelter is a total black box. And no sane store owner would want that.
So, alas, these noble activities are a total waste of time.
Pets' Hell 