I recently purchased a very sick puppy from Corners Pet Shop after she received an ""excellent"" rating on her ""Examination Report Card""...
At the time of checkout our new puppy coughed while still in the store. My partner and I didn’t think too much of one little cough as the environment wasn’t very clean. When I mentioned the cough to the cashier she responded “Oh that’s normal. Both her and her brother do it”. The cashier then ran through the paperwork regarding the 13-week-old pup, which included a vaccination record as well as an “Examination Report Card” (on which our new puppy got an “excellent” health score) and continued to tell me they offer a health guarantee and will cover the cost of medication if the pup is found to have minor problems, as long as we were willing to see their veterinarian (Pahle Small Animal Clinic). The same clinic that signed off saying the pup was healthy.
When we got our new puppy home I called for an appointment with our regular veterinarian and took the first available for Monday morning.
Over the weekend the puppy continued wheezing and coughing but we hopefully attributed it to the unclean environment of the pet shop. Her stool was loose if not diarrhea but again, we thought it could just be the transition. She was sleepier than she should have been, playing for twenty minutes to sleep for four hours and her ears seemed sensitive.
We took our puppy (by that point named Maya) to her appointment on Monday morning and the veterinarian diagnosed her with kennel cough; we were prescribed medication to keep Maya from developing a secondary infection. The veterinarian noticed Maya’s sensitive ears, cleaned them, and suggested keeping an eye on them as well as cleaning them with an antibiotic solution every 48 hours to keep from developing more of a problem. By that night Maya’s cough was so strong she spent the night gasping for air and spitting up.
Tuesday morning I picked up a cough suppressant for Maya from the vet and she was diagnosed with Giardia so I also picked up her antibiotic for that.
Wednesday Maya was exhausted from being up all night; the cough suppressant didn’t work, so she was prescribed a different cough suppressant.
On Thursday, only one week after bringing our “excellent” puppy home, Maya was so sick she refused to eat. This means she couldn’t ingest the medicine for her Giardia. After phoning the veterinarian I opted to let her sleep. She slept all day and night and was so exhausted that when I took her outside to relieve herself, she would lay down immediately after… Too tired to even sniff around.
By Friday morning Maya was so sick she vomited up bile. Her kennel cough had begun to subside but she was still not eating so I took her to the vet where they gave her an injection to hydrate her as well as an injection to manage her nausea. I also had to buy a few cans of prescription dog food, which can be easily digested.
This brings us to today. We’ll see where things go from here. Our puppy was supposed to be healthy, and although we don’t find her defective and don’t mind spending the money to take care of her, we worry about all of her friends still at the pet shop. We’ve requested a full blood panel and are hoping everything comes back all right.
Who knows what would have happened if little Maya hadn’t been taken home by us? I don’t think she even knows what it feels like to be healthy! It makes me uncomfortable to know the pet store requested a particular vet (and gave us a “free visit” coupon), the one that deemed Maya “excellent”… I also worry other people purchasing their pets from Corners Pet may be mislead and their animals may not get the care they require. The problems Maya has are very communicable and every puppy in the shop and every puppy visiting the shop are at risk.
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