If you’re looking to buy a puppy, kitten, or bunny for Christmas, you’ll need to look somewhere other than a typical pet store.

Pet stores in New York are now legally banned from selling those animals. NewsChannel 13 drove around on Monday checking to see if our pet stores were following the law. What we found is that many are already closing down for good. Animal shelters will instead become the primary place to go.

Individual citizens can still breed and sell their animals, but not the stores you’re used to seeing and walking into.

Pet stores in the Capital Region are already responding by going out of business.

“Final two weeks!” reads the sign posted on the outside of Pet City inside Colonie Center. After more than a decade of selling puppies and exotic pets to mall shoppers, they’re turning off the lights.

Other pet shops around Upstate New York and around the state are doing the same.

Pet sales are a major part of their business. Without cats and dogs, turning a profit on pet accessories and some of the more obscure animals isn’t realistic for many of these smaller shops.

The newly enacted law at the center of this change is called “Puppy Mill Pipeline Act.” Its purpose is to encourage people to look for pets at shelters, instead of places used by animal abusers, and others trying to put money above the wellbeing of their animals.

Gov. Kathy Hochul approved and signed the act two years ago.

For these pet stores, they’ve been preparing for this day for a while, even if it might still be a surprise for shoppers walking by their now closed doors.

See how people are reacting, by watching the video of Steve Kuzj’s story.