Airdate: June 18, 2007
By Jeff Burnside and Scott Zamost

There's a major development in our investigation into Wizard of Claws, the South Florida pet seller that was the subject of an NBC 6 series last year. The world's largest animal welfare organization announced it is filing a class action lawsuit.

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The allegations in the lawsuit filed by the Humane Society of the United States mirror what we found in our four-month investigation "Puppy Heartbreak."

As NBC 6 reported in February 2006, hundreds who bought from Wizard of Claws claimed their dogs suffered through severe illnesses.

"I'm angry at the guy, angry at the guy for giving me a sick dog," Taylor Kimball told NBC 6 last year.

That guy is Jim Anderson.

"We buy the best of the best. We buy the premium," Anderson said last year.

Anderson runs Wizard of Claws in Pembroke Pines.

Our four-month investigation found Anderson got some of his expensive puppies from Midwest breeders -- what experts call puppy mills -- where our hidden cameras caught dogs packed in cages.

We confirmed 275 unhappy customers in 34 states, Mexico and Canada. Most claim dogs quickly became sick. Some died.

A new class action lawsuit from more than 100 complainants was filed, alleging a pattern of violating Florida's animal and consumer protection laws, saying Wizard of Claws sold sick dogs and misrepresented their origin.

"We really want to take action against this store because they have continually defrauded customers and duped them into thinking they were buying puppies that came from a good healthy puppy breeder," said Stephanie Shain, of the Humane Society of the United States.

Lawyers planned to serve the lawsuit to Anderson at his home in Fort Lauderdale. Off camera, Anderson didn't seem concerned by the new lawsuit, and repeated his earlier claims that the NBC 6 investigation was full of lies and distortion.

Wizard of Claws now operates several other Web sites under different names.

HSUS hopes the lawsuit sends a message across America about the little-known pipeline from puppy mills to pet stores nationwide.

"It's almost 100 percent," Shain said. "I mean, there's no way we can say 100 percent, but I have yet, in my experience, to see a pet store selling puppies that do not come from puppy mills."

The Florida Attorney General's Office, which also sued Wizard of Claws, as a result of our story told us it is actively pursuing that suit seeking to shut down the business.

For more information or to join the lawsuit, visit www.humanesociety.org/puppymills.