At All Pets Club in Branford, this holiday season has been marked by the death of two puppies inside its walls as well as protests outside its gates.
The two puppies, a German shepherd and a Schnoodle (a cross between a Schnauzer and a Poodle), died some time within the last two weeks of Parvo, a highly contagious virulent virus that usually spreads rapidly among puppies. Parvo does not spread to humans. (Click here for information on the virus.)
All Pets Puppies in Pen.
As a result of the deaths, the remaining 50 to 60 puppies, expensive breeds and cross-breeds, are under quarantine for two weeks, according to the store’s owner, Jerry Pleban.
In addition, Pleban said he had cancelled his scheduled puppy delivery to the store at 379 E. Main St., this month.
“We are not looking to create another problem; we are looking to solve the problem,” he said in an interview. The next shipment will be in mid-January.
The quarantined puppies are still visible behind a glass enclosure in their pens at the back on the store. They have not been removed from view. On the glass All Pets posted a letter to inform customers that the puppies “have recently been exposed to a virus.”
The store does not identify the virus as Parvo. Nor does it tell its customers that the puppies contracted the Parvo in the store. Nor does the letter say that the puppies are not for sale, though an employee did tell an inquiring customer he could leave a deposit.
The Eagle has also learned that two other puppies purchased at All Pets Club within the same time frame recently died of Parvo at a veterinary practice in Guilford. They were treated at the hospital but did not survive. It is not known how many other families purchased Parvo infected puppies.
Meanwhile, for the third time in as many weeks, about 15 members of a newly formed group, CT Citizens Against Puppy Mills, picketed Sunday outside the store. The group began its picketing campaign last month. The protestors said many families had purchased puppies over the years at All Pets only to discover later serious physical and genetic problems. Families have told us they have spent thousands of dollars in subsequent vet’s bills. The protestors brought their children and dogs to the store on a sunny, frigid afternoon.
They held signs to discourage patrons from entering the store. Some protestors standing near the parking lot alerted customers about the virus and told them not to take their dogs inside. Kathy Abate (pictured above ), whose story was recently published in the Eagle, was there with a new sign. Another sign read: “Honk if you Care.” Many motorists driving along East Main Street honked.
Pleban downplayed the controversy now underway at his store, saying the puppy deaths were isolated incidents. “We had a little virus that ran through, and we have been watching it and talking with our vets and everything looks like it is under control,” he said.
Placing Blame
“Well, there are different types of strands of Parvo, and we are not sure exactly what we are dealing with. We stepped up the procedures of cleaning and made sure the nature of the staff was doing their utmost care and followed procedures so there is no cross-contamination. We are not sure where, why or how it came to be”
First Pleban blamed his customers: “People can go to a pound or a shelter and come in and play with a dog down there and then come into our facility and bring in viruses.” Parvo is transmitted via feces, which could adhere to shoes.
Later in the interview he stepped back from blaming his customers, saying that the Parvo most likely came from within.
Then he turned to his staff. “…The only thing we could have done better is that we could have been keeping a better cleanliness program, making sure the staff was meeting and exceeding company standards and I think that is where we kind of lacked a little bit … not sure again where it could have came from.”
Finally he blamed an errant pipe. “We also had a drain backup in our puppy pens two weeks ago so it is possible they could have been contaminated from that, too. We are not sure.”
Raymond Connors, the chief of the State Animal Control Division at the Connecticut Department of Agriculture, said in an interview that he had not received any complaint or call from a veterinarian about puppies dying of Parvo at All Pets Club in Branford. He spoke to the Eagle on December 14, the same day that All Pets posted the letter in its store about a virus.
Connors told the Eagle that “we would need confirmation that a veterinarian had examined the animal and confirmed that the animal did have Parvo. And then the state veterinarian would make a determination whether to quarantine the facility” for 14 days. He said such quarantine is rare.
While Connors himself may not yet have received veterinary confirmation of the Parvo, it appears that Todd Curry, the state animal control officer assigned to Branford, knew about it.
The Parvo crisis is believed to have started the first week of December. Pleban told us he had been conferring daily with Officer Curry. At some point a decision was made to quarantine the current bunch of puppies and to stop new puppies from being shipped to the store until Jan. 19, effectively shutting down the Christmas operation.
Prices vary but these puppies may sell from $500 to $2,750, the cost of the Bulldog pictured here. Pleban said the shut down of sales could mean a loss of $100,000 but that the money didn’t matter; only the puppies mattered.
He identified the veterinarian investigating the Parvo as Dr. Marcus J. Suppo, who, it turns out, runs the Animal Primary Care Center within the walls of the All Pets Club in Wallingford. He appears to be the Club’s primary veterinarian. “We have done a necropsy (an animal autopsy) and sent tissue samples out,” Pleban told us. Presumably the final results will be sent to the state so that a record may be established.
“We have done what we have to do. We take everything very seriously. We have been selling puppies for many, many years. We don’t like to see anything happen but when it does we have to be responsible and solve the problem quickly,” Pleban said.
Publicly Denying The Crisis
Over the weekend few All Pets customers understood the seriousness of the situation.
Employees gave customers a variety of explanations about the letter posted on the puppy pens. One employee told a customer that one dog got sick. Asked if it died, he said no. Another employee told a customer that the dogs were being examined by their vet and would be available for sale Sunday. That, too, was untrue. Another employee told a customer that a dog got sick. “Oh, a dog that came into the store from the outside?” The employee didn’t say otherwise.
On Saturday the letter telling customers not to enter the store with their pets was not posted outside the store and several customers brought the pets into the store, not knowing of the quarantine. We asked Pleban why there was no sign posted outside. Nor was there an employee at the door informing customers of the virus and telling them not to enter with a pet.
Pleban said he believed the letter was posted on the outside door on Saturday. “Yes, it was there when I walked in at 6:30 this morning.”It was not there at noon Saturday.
On Sunday the letter announcing the virus was posted on the front sliding door. It says in part: “We also ask that you refrain from bringing in your pets at this time as viruses can spread and we want to protect your pets as well as ours.” This cautionary sentence was found in the sixth and seventh line of the letter. As a result, there were several dogs in the store, brought in by their owners.
Pleban said that despite the warning in the letter “there is no health issue. There is no epidemic of any time of this disease. We have had isolated cases in here. We are not sure exactly what transpired but we are taking every precaution that is possible …to eliminate any future problems.”
Asked to name the breeder of the German shepherd puppy that died, Pleban changed the subject to note that the puppy’s litter mates were doing just fine. “We are not sure what transpired. We have worked very hard to fix the problem.”
Might the puppies have developed Parvo en route? Pleban said: “We have our own transportation system. It’s always a possibility. Again you just never know.” In the end, he did not disclose the name of the breeder.
He said that the puppies in his other stores, in Southington, Wallingford and North Windham, were fine and urged customers to visit those stores.
That’s not what young Audrey ( see photo below) was telling potential customers as she held her sign up.
All Pets Club was chosen by the protestors because they say it sells puppies from puppy mills, a charge Pleban denies. The puppy mills produce purebred and so-called designer puppies under deplorable conditions. They have operated under these conditions for decades with some state oversight but not much. Until Sunday Pleban had not disclosed to the public the names of the out-of-state breeders he selects.
However, earlier this week one of the Branford protestors filed a complaint alerting the state to the absence of breeder identification. Pleban has now changed his disclosure system. The breeders are now named in a letter posted Sunday on the puppy pen. The letter announces the Jan. 19 puppy shipment. The kennels on the list include several well- known puppy mills in other states.
The dogs in puppy mills are caught up in a never-ending cycle of breeding and confined to small cages without access to fresh air and sunlight. Puppies are taken away from their mothers and shipped out as young as six weeks old. How they are transported is also an issue. And whether state or federal regulations are sufficient is yet another issue.
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Just as a matter of journalistic ethical clarity . . . this piece is <i>heavily</i> slanted and should be labeled as opinion or editorial.