Minnesota Puppy Store Sourcing

When looking to buy a puppy, it is extremely important that families make sure they aren’t supporting a cruel or inhumane facility. Unfortunately, in the pet industry, there is an alarming lack of transparency about where puppies are born before they arrive at their forever families. Because of the secrecy, it is easy for customers to get scammed into buying puppies that originated from subpar facilities. Those purchases often result in high vet bills and sometimes even the death of a new puppy. 

Pet stores play a big part in enabling subpar facilities to stay in business. According to our 2025 research, 36% of the licensed breeders who supplied pet stores nationwide in the last three years had state or federal violations. For these reasons and more, it is so important that families do their research before they buy! 

We recommend that families start their search to find a humane breeder here. If you are planning to buy from a breeder directly, a pet store, or online, please make sure to look into the breeder to ensure that your puppy’s parents aren’t living a substandard life. 

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Below you will find a list of Minnesota puppy stores and the noteworthy facilities that they source from. To view the facilities they source from, click and explore the Airtable link below the pet store.

*USERS NOTE* To access each pet store’s profile after clicking on the Airtable link, you will either click on the store name (mobile) or click the blue ‘expand’ icon when you hover over the name (desktop) 

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Fairbault Animal Center- 1818 Grant St, Fairbault, MN

** Few records have been found of Fairbault Animal Center buying from out-of-state breeders and brokers. According to their website, they have puppies available, which leads us to assume that they may be sourcing locally more often than out-of-state. 

https://airtable.com/appQXaAEVkvVDOFCZ/shrDsrXyOBX5o6wbT

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Four Paws and A Tail AKA Pet Ranch Inc- 120 Northtown Drive NE, Blaine, MN

** Of the 20 breeders we identified selling to Four Paws and a Tail in 2024, 16 have received federal violations or state non-compliance in the past five years. 

2 of the breeders were unlicensed, and 2 of the breeders have a cancelled USDA license at the time of this report being released. 

https://airtable.com/appQXaAEVkvVDOFCZ/shrHGQ6iEKmKtUcxi

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Pets N Fish- 1524 S Cedar Ave, Owatonna, MN

** No records have been found of Pets N Fish sourcing from out-of-state breeders or brokers. They occasionally have litters for sale at their store, so it is assumed they get the puppies locally.