TROY – Responding to the howling Facebook masses, Troy’s Board of Aldermen interrogated the owner of a new pet store, two days after giving him a conditional use permit to open it.

Jason Branch and his wife attended the special meeting Wednesday, Oct. 22 as the Troy board had several questions about the pet store they issued a permit to at its Oct. 20 general meeting.

Branch gave a brief description of what O’Puppies will be, once it opens at 16 The Plaza off Highway 47.

“We are looking to run a small, boutique pet store,” he said. “Not a lot of puppies, but that’s what we’re going to specialize in. Puppies and puppy products…you know, dog food, stuff like that. Anything that you would do with puppies. But nothing else. No other animals.”

The questions came fast and furious over the 45-minute meeting and Branch, while nervous, had answers for them all.

Some of the questions were straightforward, such as will you board or groom other dogs, or neuter/spay dogs sold at the store (no to all three).

Other questions and answers included:

• – What’s your plan for taking puppies outside? (Citing health concerns, puppies won’t go outside);
• – Have you applied any other places or have any storefronts elsewhere? (No);
• – What happens to the older dogs you don’t sell? (“They get discounted, clear down to the fact that hey, if we have to find a home, we find a home. It’s not something that you hold on to forever and ever. It doesn’t look good, plain and simple,” Branch said);
• – Where will you be getting your dogs at? (Mostly Missouri, have some breeders in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana);
• – What happens with dogs at night when no one is there? (“The same thing that happens at every vet office in Troy. There’s nobody there, right,” Branch said).

Alderman Rachel Dunard tried explaining the reason for the attention Branch’s request received after approval.

“When it was brought to my attention on Facebook, what this potentially could be, I thought it was worth talking about to see what the actual intent is of this place, what it is going to do,” she said. “Nobody really understood it and then there’s a post on Facebook, which I’m sure you’ve seen. And I received lots of messages … and so to our best ability, it’s our due diligence to find out what’s happening.”

When Branch pressed about the city’s ability to revoke a license two days after its issuance without cause, City Administrator James Knowles explained the board can revoke the permit until the business opens.

“Right now, we’re having a conversation about whether the appropriateness of this is what the board feels comfortable with, or if there should be additional conditions, because this is a conditional use permit,” he said. “It is not issued by right. This is a conditional use permit. So they are determining whether or not there should be conditions upon the use based on the inquiries made by residents.”

Other more detailed questions asked by the board included how many dogs Branch expects to have in the store at one time.

“I’m hoping 20. But I don’t know. We may be at 10. It depends on the market,” he said. “I’m taking an absolute gamble, coming to a town of 14,000 people, I mean, plain and simple, I’ll say it again. Anybody that knows retail, it’s location, location, location, location. And I’ve just rented a place that has been empty for over a decade.”

He also emphasized multiple times the dogs would be smaller breeds, for multiple reasons.

“We’re dealing with smaller and medium-sized puppies,” he said. “I’m a big dog guy. I used to have a Rottweiler and a Doberman, but here’s just the truth: In a pet store setting, those puppies get extremely big and fast. It doesn’t look good. You got puppies … jumping and hitting their head on stuff. But also, if you have a lab, a golden retriever, it gets big enough, it’s going to jump out of its enclosure.”

Branch also expressed some disdain at the social media firestorm and the criticism he endured.

“Do you see what was said on Facebook about me? How much misinformation is said about me,” he asked. “And nobody knew me. I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m being transparent. Because I feel like if you’re trying to hide something, if I’m starting my business that way, what am I doing?”

He encouraged the Board and citizens to give his business a chance.

“I’m just asking for a chance. Give me a chance, though, when we show you that, hey, I have good intentions here, that this isn’t a horror story,” he said. “And plain and simple, you all know, you have the power. If you don’t like what you see, I don’t know what will happen to me. I mean, right? Permit can be pulled.”

Branch said he’s been transporting dogs from breeders to customers for more than 30 years and has seen too many instances of customers getting taken advantage of, demonstrating a need for trustworthy vendors.

“You know how many people get scammed every day, every week on the internet? They get on there, they see all the pictures, oh, this looks perfect,” he said. “And then I started hearing the stories about not only where they get scammed buying a puppy from supposedly this breeder online, then they’re charging them for a transport that’s bogus also. They’re being double-skinned on one puppy. It reinvigorated the whole idea of O’Puppies that, hey, that’s kind of why we wanted to do it.”

Branch also responded to allegations his store would be dealing with “puppy mills,” stating the problem doesn’t rest with the number of dogs a breeder has, but the condition in which they’re raised.

“I don’t care if you have one animal or a million, can you take care of it,” he asked. “I mean, you know, because here we go, if we’re just talking puppies, what about the horse people? What about people that raise cattle? Are you going to tell them, oh, this is the number that you’re limited to … we don’t want you to have any more than this?”

In the end, O’Puppies once again received its conditional use permit by a unanimous vote with three conditions Branch agreed to: All dogs must come from USDA and state-licensed breeders, his store must be licensed by the state and all dogs sold must be micro-chipped.