Attorney General Phil Weiser sues PetSmart for trapping dog groomers with deceptive training program

July 29, 2025 (DENVER) – Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing pet care retailer PetSmart after a state investigation found it trapped dog groomers into illegal contracts that required them to stay with the company for years or risk paying thousands of dollars.

“PetSmart lured prospective dog groomers with promises of ‘free’ paid training, only to trap them into staying with the company, even if they wanted to find a better job somewhere else,” said Attorney General Weiser. “No worker should be put in the position of finding out they might owe thousands of dollars for training that was promised as free once they want to leave their job. I will continue to fight for workers and won’t hesitate to take companies to court if they break the law and deceive workers.”

“Free” training was anything but

PetSmart, which has 16,000 stores nationwide, including 35 in Colorado, operates a program called Grooming Academy, which offers training to entry-level employees to become dog groomers. From 2021 to 2022, the company had significant turnover among its groomers. To help encourage more employees to sign up for Grooming Academy, at times the company offered $500 cash stipends to those who completed the program and to managers who enrolled them. To keep trained stylists employed, the company used training repayment agreement provision contracts, or TRAPs, that deceptively locked workers into their jobs by threatening them if they left with legal action to recover thousands of dollars for training that workers were initially told was free.

To promote the training program, PetSmart advertised Grooming Academy as training that was “FREE,” “PAID,” and included “free tools.” These ads and internal promotional materials were misleading. Despite promoting the program as free, the company knew it was asking trainees to sign TRAPs that required them to stay on the job at least two years or repay $5,500 in training costs, or $5,000 if the trainee turned down a provided toolkit.

Bad information, worse training

The state’s investigation found that the company presented these contracts to employees after they were already enrolled in Grooming Academy. Employees had the contracts presented to them during shifts, on breaks, or even in the process of grooming dogs.

The contracts required employees to repay the costs of the training and tools whether they left voluntarily or involuntarily. Even if the employee left after a full year working at PetSmart, they would still owe 50% of the training costs. This amount was not prorated, meaning an employee who left after 11 months would owe the full amount, and an employee who left after 23 months would still owe 50%.

Investigators found many employees were dissatisfied with the training, tools, and work environment PetSmart provided. Former employees reported training sessions were inconsistent, overcrowded, provided little one-on-one instruction, and even lacked enough dogs. Despite these concerns, groomers stayed on the job longer than they wanted out of fear of being forced to repay the training costs.

Collecting on low-wage dog groomers

If employees who left PetSmart before their second anniversary of starting Grooming Academy did not pay within 30 days, the contracts said the company could file a civil lawsuit including the amount owed, fees for collections and attorney costs, and interest at the “highest rate permitted by law.” For the groomers, who all earned relatively low wages, a $2,500-$5,500 lump sum was very difficult, if not impossible, to pay.

PetSmart sent nearly two dozen former employees to collections after they left. Even after Colorado law regarding TRAPs changed in 2022, the company still enrolled one associate in a TRAP contract in violation of the new law.

Attorney General Weiser is asking the court to declare that PetSmart violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, to bar the company from illegal practices outlined in the lawsuit, to forbid the company from collecting on any money owed from existing TRAPs, to pay fines to the state, and to pay the state’s legal costs.

Read the lawsuit filed today in Denver District Court (PDF).

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