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Stay away from here! they gave us a litter of puppies with Parvo and now wont return our calls!
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My wife, who has fostered a lot of animals, had the misfortune to foster a group of six puppies from Penny of Healing Hearts Animal Rescue. From the first contact there were several red flags on the way Penny was running this place. My wife chose to overlook them in an effort to help the puppies that Penny was claiming to try and “rescue”. My wife offered to drive out there to pick up the puppies as Penny claimed they were overwhelmed with all the work. When my wife arrived she explained to them that we do not have much money but are always willing to care for animals that needed it. Penny assured her that they would take care of any vet bills or other things that may happen while we were fostering the animals. They explained that the animals had seen the vet and they would be bringing some medication to us the following day. My wife and two small children brought the puppies home and it was indeed obvious that they needed medication. They were displaying signs of upper respiratory infection and had diarrhea. The very next morning my wife called to verify that they were indeed coming to bring the medicine. She left the first of what would turn out to be dozens of messages.
This is where our nightmare truly began. Over the next 4 days the dogs continued to get worse and we could not get any response from the Healing Hearts Animal Rescue. Penny had insisted that we not take the puppies to our vet if there were issues as they had a vet that gave them a discount. We were not in the position to pay for a vet visit for 6 puppies. Having fostered a lot of animals over the years we were not initially concerned as a lot of rescues start out with these types of symptoms. When we came to the realization that Penny was not going to call us back we decided we would try and find people who would like to adopt these cute little puppies and get them the medical attention they needed.
We were able to find homes for 5 of the 6 very quickly. We had been totally candid with the people we had offered the puppies to but now were feeling bad that they were spending hundreds of dollars to care for these sick puppies. As the puppies went to the vet with their new owners we started hearing that they had worms, ringworms, diarrhea and respiratory infections. Now we started to worry that the whole story of the puppies having been seen by a vet were untrue. Over the next couple of days 5 of the 6 dogs were not showing signs of improvement even though they were getting medication. This is when the concern of Parvo became a real issue. We took the last remaining puppy to the humane society and they confirmed that indeed it had Parvo. Several of the others have been tested and diagnosed now as well. Three of the six have been put down and over $1000 has been spent.
During this whole process- almost three weeks today- we still have been unable to get a return call from Healing Hearts Animal Rescue. We have left over 40 messages!!! In our attempt to contact them via a different channel we looked at Craigslist again and were horrified to find that they had been putting up new postings the entire time. Tomorrow they are planning a “Veterans Day Special” and claim to have a lot of puppies FOR SALE. Do not patronize this place. They are not looking out for the welfare of their animals. We believe that they are just selling any puppies they can find without a real care of their welfare.
Parvo is a very serious and deadly virus. We have had to contact everyone who has a dog that has been in contact w/ the puppies, we have also had to bleach our entire house because that is the only thing that kills the virus. We have also had to take all of our linens and couch covers to the laundry to be disinfected, on Tuesday we are having all of our carpets cleaned w/ a special cleaner. We love fostering animals but now we are unable to have any dogs in our house for the next 6 months…that is the life of the parvo virus …I just think of all the dogs and puppies I could have helped in that time!!!! BE CAREFUL!!!! We live check to check and have had to spend every cent we had to handle this situation. Please beware!!!!!
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