The owner of a Levin pet store under investigation by the SPCA says abuse claims are baseless slander.
The animal welfare organisation confirmed to Newshub it is investigating Levin Pet World after a social media post on Wednesday was passed onto them.
Since photos, a petition and a lengthy negative post about the store was put on Facebook by Dana Kidd, it's had more than 1500 'likes' and been shared more than 800 times.
In the post, Ms Kidd details what she claims is wrong with the treatment of animals in the store, including "dead" fish, rabbits and guinea pigs living together and the general untidiness of the store.
Many of the comments are disparaging and an online petition to get the store closed has more than 3500 signatures.
But Pet World owner Lucy Carline says she and her husband are offended by the allegations - and say they called the SPCA proactively to give the store a once-over.
When Newshub called on Friday, Ms Carline said the inspector was currently in the store.
"We've called them in so that they can verify that our animals are healthy and everything is the way things should be," she told Newshub.
"We called them to prove that we're running a clean, efficient business that's following the animal welfare guidelines. If we had anything to hide we wouldn't have called them."
She says in their 14 years in business, they've never been convicted or fined by the SPCA.
The SPCA confirmed it received an animal welfare complaint after the Facebook post was sent to them and as per their procedure, and is now investigating.
However, a spokesperson declined to comment on whether they were invited to the store or not by Ms Carline.
They say it is not the first time they've visited the store, but the spokesperson said they investigate anything the public brings to their attention.
Many of the comments on the post are disparaging of the store, but Ms Carline says posts in support of them have been deleted.
The negative campaign against the store hadn't dampened business, with regular customers declaring their support, she says.
She believes many are blindly signing up to the outrage, with some signatories of the petition from overseas and many would not have actually visited the store.
"A lot of them are school kids and are believing this one person who's come in and stirred up trouble and not checking out whether it's true or not," she says.
But it's not the first time the store has been targeted. Around two years ago, another petition circulated calling for the store's closure.
Ms Carline got her lawyer involved to threaten legal action because the claims were "slander" and "baseless". Her lawyer hadn't yet been engaged about this latest post and petition.
She says the fish which were photographed in the tank weren't dead - they were in a quarantine tank being treated for a common fish disease known as White Spot.
Rabbits and guinea pigs also make good roommates and "cohabitate quite nicely".
"And to say that an animal has too much has is baseless sort of stuff," she says.
She wasn't sure who was behind the petition or post, but said she and her husband own quite a few rental properties.
"So it's likely to be tied to someone who's probably been evicted or had to pay reparations for damages or something like that," she said.
Ms Carline says pet stores are also "sitting ducks" for those who don't believe animals should be sold in shops.
"It's just the nature of the business unfortunately."
Newshub.
