SAGINAW TWP, MI — An exotic pet store in Saginaw Township is continuing to violate the Animal Welfare Act by flouting court orders and allegedly providing federal officials with sketchy records of its animals.
U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith on Tuesday, March 10, granted emergency motions filed by the federal government seeking to enforce a temporary restraining order against K&M Pets LLC, which operates Custom Creatures Pet Shop at 2750 Bay Road, Suite 4.
Goldsmith on Feb. 27 had issued the order against the business, prohibiting it from engaging in any activity regulated by the AWA and requiring staff to allow inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to enter its facilities during business hours to conduct unannounced inspections and examine records.
Federal officials, though, argued K&M failed to comply with three aspects of the order. Specifically, the business has continued engaging in AWA-regulated activity and has not provided accurate lists of its facilities or the animals in its care, officials alleged.
K&M’s founder, Kallan L. Hohman, opened Custom Creatures in April 2022. Hohman in April 2024 applied to the USDA for a Class B license to purchase, resell, and exhibit animals regulated through the AWA at the Bay Road shop and at another location in Lapeer County. The USDA approved the request the following month.
In motions seeking the restraining order’s enforcement, Deputy Principal Assistant U.S. Attorney General Adam R.F. Gustafson described K&M’s noncompliance with the AWA as “chronic.” Gustafson filed a complaint against K&M on Feb. 24.
The following day, the USDA received formal notice that K&M’s Class B license to purchase, resell, and exhibit animals regulated through the AWA had been canceled.
APHIS officials’ last thorough inspection of the Bay Road store before the complaint was filed occurred in August 2024, during which they found 18 violations. The violations’ severity led officials to suspend K&M’s AWA license for 21 days.
Click here to read the entirety of Gustafson’s complaint, minus the exhibits. The inspection reports can be accessed on APHIS’ website here.
Hohman has not responded to MLive’s requests for comment.
Since the suspension ended, K&M on 11 occasions between September 2024 and January 2026 refused to allow APHIS officials to inspect its facilities, animals, or records, the complaint states. During a final attempted inspection on Jan. 23, officials noted “concerning conditions” in the store’s public areas, including a sloth “exposed to harsh drafts of negative 22-degree Michigan winter weather” and two prairie dogs in an excessively dirty enclosure.
Undercover APHIS officials visited Custom Creatures on Feb. 26 and saw AWA-regulated animals were still there, such as two hedgehogs and a ferret described as having “no will to live.” Not present, however, were the sloth and prairie dogs, along with sugar gliders, a species of marsupial the store had advertised for sale shortly before the complaint was filed against it.
K&M was officially served with the temporary restraining order on the morning of Feb. 28. Two days later, Hohman sent officials an animal inventory and some disposition records. He also sent a document stating the Bay Road address was the business’ only site, omitting a second location in Lapeer, officials allege.
Hohman was a day late in sending the documents, as Judge Goldsmith’s order required him to do so within 48 hours.
APHIS inspectors on March 3 inspected Custom Creatures and reviewed disposition records. They discovered K&M transferred the sloth to one of its employees on Feb. 2. Questioned about this, the employee said he had not purchased the sloth but that it was at his residence, which he shares with Hohman.
The same employee said the two missing prairie dogs were his and Hohman’s personal pets, that he had brought them to the store in January to “get them out of the house,” and that they had not been offered for sale, officials wrote.
Inspectors spoke with Hohman on the phone, who said his business did not have a written program of veterinary care or formal arrangements with an attending veterinarian. The inspectors asked him to provide his business protocols regarding veterinary care, as well as the acquisition and disposition records of the sloth and prairie dogs, and other animals including an armadillo, skunks, kinkajous, wallabies, capybaras, and hedgehogs.
Hohman sent officials the records, though there were discrepancies in them. For example, the disposition records did not account for the hedgehogs undercover APHIS operatives saw in the store on Feb. 26, nor the prairie dogs, armadillo, or sugar gliders. The sloth, prairie dogs, armadillo, and sugar gliders were not included in Hohman’s inventory either, officials allege.
Hohman on March 7 provided officials with an updated inventory and certificate of veterinary inspections from 2025 and 2026, officials wrote. He was again a day late in doing so.
The orders do not prevent K&M from operating as a standard pet or pet supplies store. Saginaw County Animal Care & Control Director Rachel Horton said her office is in communication with the USDA and is monitoring the situation.
