Trademark, Animal Cruelty Concerns Stoked By Chantilly Pet Store

CHANTILLY, VA — The owners of Woofie's, a pet services company with locations in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, are preparing to file a trademark lawsuit next week against a new Chantilly pet store, Woofys, over its use of a similar business name. As they were investigating the ownership of the new store, the owners of Ashburn-headquartered Woofie's also learned that the new store's manager is one of the former managers of the Fairfax City Petland, which was shut down last September over alleged animal cruelty practices.

The storefront for Woofys, which says on its website that it will specialize in selling purebred and designer puppies to customers, has been up for several weeks at the Chantilly Crossing Shopping Center near the intersection of Route 50 and Route 28. Contractors are doing work inside the store getting it ready to open in a few weeks.

With the name of the soon-to-open store already up on the outside of the building in the shopping center, known for the Costco store that anchors the retail area, people have been contacting Woofie's, confused about the similar names.

"People have been reaching out to us saying, 'I didn’t know you were opening up a site in Chantilly,'" Amy Reed, co-founder of Woofie's, told Patch. Since the name went up on the storefront, Reed has been busy telling customers and friends that the location is in no way affiliated with Woofie's.

Woofie's trademark attorney sent a cease and desist letter on Feb. 11 to Woofys and the owners of the Chantilly Crossing Shopping Center demanding the company stop using the Woofys name at the store and on its website. Neither the store owner nor the shopping center owner responded to the cease-and-desist letter, Reed said.

According to Reed, not only is Woofys allegedly infringing on its trademark, the new store is creating potential confusion in the Northern Virginia marketplace. "Their business is about selling designer dogs so it is completely conflicts with our core values as a company and our commitment to working with animal shelters and rescue groups," she said.

The manager of Woofys, Ayman Koshok, said in an email to Patch that he disagrees with the trademark infringement claim made by the owners of Woofie's. "This absurd allegation has no merit," Koshok said.

The owner of the Chantilly Crossing Shopping Center, RPAI Chantilly Crossing LLC, had not responded to Patch's requests for comment on Woofys moving into its shopping center at the time this article was published.

Founded in 2004 as a pet-sitting and dog-walking company, Woofie's expanded its services in 2011 to include mobile grooming. The company now has a fleet of seven vans that provide pet grooming seven days a week, with mobile pet care franchises in Ashburn/Lansdowne, Leesburg, Reston/Herndon and South Riding/Aldie.

On its website, Woofys, the store in Chantilly, says its sale of puppies will involve "USDA-licensed, humane breeders and distributors." Woofys also says it will offer "simple, puppy financing options for qualified applicants" so customers don't have to worry about "paying everything up-front."

The business model is "in such conflict with what our business is all about," Reed said. "As they say on their website, they are about selling designer dogs. They have financing plans. They have return policies. They are treating these living, breathing animals like they are objects," she added.

During their research into Woofys, Reed and her colleagues learned that Ayman Koshok, a former manager of the Petland store in Fairfax City who is facing animal cruelty charges, is one of the managers of the new store in the Chantilly Crossing Shopping Center.

Last September, the Fairfax City Police said an investigation revealed Ayman Koshok and his brother, Kareem Koshok, who were managers of the Petland store, failed to provide proper care for animals under their supervision. The police became involved in the case after the Humane Society of the United States conducted an undercover investigation into the Fairfax City Petland store.

An undercover video made by HSUS revealed that more than a dozen dead rabbits were found in shopping bags in a freezer at the pet store. The two brothers were arrested last September and charged with three counts of animal cruelty. The two are scheduled to go to trial on the three animal cruelty charges in early April.

Koshok said in the email to Patch that he is "innocent of any wrongdoing" in his role as a manager of the Petland in Fairfax City and is confident he "will be acquitted once the legal system is allowed to take its course."

John Goodwin, senior director of the Stop Puppy Mills Campaign at the HSUS, told Patch he finds it "incredibly problematic" that one of the former managers of the Fairfax City Petland would be managing a new pet store that sells puppies.

Even before the 2019 closure of Petland, the store came under scrutiny for its treatment of animals. In 2013, Kareem Koshok and a man who bought a dog named Ty from the Fairfax City Petland store that died 13 days later filed lawsuits against each other. A judge threw out both lawsuits because the complaints did not list the proper name of the parent corporation that the Koshok brothers had set up to operate the Fairfax City Petland.

Ty's death was the second publicized death of a puppy after being purchased from the Fairfax City Petland in a span of months in 2013 . In another case, a dachsund puppy named Snoopy died of parvovirus, a deadly virus that attacks an animal's digestive system, just 36 hours after being brought home, despite the puppy being given a "clean bill of health" by the store's consulting veterinarian, just as Ty had been given.

"When we started doing research about them, we were completely horrified to find out about their past. The animal cruelty charges and their arrests," Reed said of the Koshok brothers. "I could not think of two people who are less qualified to be in the pet business and handling animals. The fact that they are trying to leverage our name to do it, I'm beyond speechless."

Last month, the City of Fairfax enacted a new ordinance that requires pet shops in the city to obtain a permit before opening an operation to sell companion animals in the city. The ordinance, enacted due in large part to the HSUS undercover investigation of the Fairfax City Petland, made Fairfax the first Northern Virginia locality to join more than 300 other municipalities across the nation in tightening pet store regulations.

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