NEWS - State orders quarantine at store after dog with parvovirus dies - Wilton Bulletin, March 11

State orders quarantine at store after dog with parvovirus dies
Written by Macklin Reid

A teacup Yorkshire Terrier was put down after unsuccessful treatment for the highly contagious canine parvovirus, a diagnosis which led state authorities to impose a 14-day quarantine on True Breeders, a new “puppy store” on Route 7 in Branchville where the dog had been purchased less than a week before.

“It was heartbreaking. It’s a nightmare. I don’t want anybody to go through this,” said Cheryl Muniz of Wilton, who bought the dog with her husband, Victor, as a present for his mother.

The 14-day quarantine is designed to limit the potential spread of parvovirus, which is regarded as particularly threatening to young dogs that have not had all their “puppy shots” — and is often fatal.

“On Friday, one of our officers received a complaint from a consumer that their dog was diagnosed with canine parvovirus,” Raymond Connors, animal control supervisor with the state Department of Agriculture, said Monday.

“It was confirmed from the veterinarian that that indeed was what the dog had. The officer responded to the store and notified the owner, Christine DiCarlo, that the dog died of parvovirus.”

Canine parvovirus is most frequently characterized by diarrhea that is often bloody, and may be accompanied by vomiting. It is generally viewed as a threat to puppies, although their are a number of variants of the virus in circulation and some can affect older dogs. Parvovirus has been reported recently at dog shelters in Stratford and Fairfield, (For more on Parvovirus, see related story.)

Mr. Connors said the state would allow the True Breeders store to reopen at the end of the 14 days if no dogs there showed signs of the disease.

“The purpose of the quarantine is, if any of the other dogs are incubating the virus, the virus will manifest itself within that 14-day period,” he said.

Cheryl and Victor Muniz bought the dog Sunday, Feb. 28, for his mother, who has a Chihuahua and had long wanted a teacup Yorkie, they said.

“We were doing a good thing for her, and it backfired,” Ms. Muniz said. “That’s the heartbreaking thing about it: My mother-in-law fell in love with her in the two days she was with her.”

They said the puppy, who was named Oprah, began showing symptoms Monday night and was clearly very sick by midweek.

“Wednesday afternoon the dog seemed to be getting worse so my wife took it to the 24-hour place in Norwalk,” Mr. Muniz said. “And they did a bunch of tests and determined the dog had the parvovirus, so we had to leave the puppy there.

“...They did an I-V, they did blood work, they did as much as they could for the puppy, up until Friday,” Mr. Muniz said.

“Friday morning we came to the conclusion it wasn’t getting any better, it was just in really bad shape, and the best thing to do was put it down.”

The puppy’s death was hard Mr. Muniz’ mother, and also on the family’s nine-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter.

“My mother was destroyed,” said Mr. Muniz. “My kids, we only had the puppy a couple of days, but the love was there. This was my mother’s dream dog. I gave my mother the puppy, for it to die a few days later? It’s ridiculous.”

When they told their story Tuesday afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Muniz were still seeking promised restitution from True Breeders LLC for the $1,603 they’d paid for the puppy. The couple also believes the store should reimburse them for the $2,757 in veterinary bills they piled up treating the dog.

Puppy mills

Christine DiCarlo, who opened True Breeders in January, declined to discuss the incident with The Bulletin’s sister publication The Ridgefield Press, but promised a written statement — which had not been received by publication time.

In a interview broadcast Monday night by News 12 Connecticut, the Cablevision news show, Ms. DiCarlo affirmed her intention to pay her customers back.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry,” she said, according to a transcript of the interview provided by News 12 Connecticut. “I will do everything to make it right.”

In the interview, Ms. DiCarlo insisted the puppy had not picked up parvovirus at True Breeders, but had been brought in with it.

“This puppy came in with parvo. It had nothing to do with my store,” she said.

Where the puppy came from — Missouri, according to Mr. Connors of the state Department of Agriculture — adds fuel to the controversy that has surrounded True Breeders since the store opened in January.

A coalition of local dog breeders and activist dog lovers has opposed the store — lobbying local officials to take action, writing letters to The Press, sometimes protesting in the store’s Route 7 parking lot.

Their chief objection has been a conviction the store would be an outlet for “puppy mills” — unscrupulous dog breeders, particularly from the Midwest and Pennsylvania, said to care more about profit than their animals’ health.

Ms. DiCarlo has insisted this is not the case: “I do not deal with puppy mills. I love dogs,” she said in the News 12 Connecticut cable TV interview.

The Missouri origins of the puppy that died are pointed to by Ms. DiCarlo’s opponents as evidence that she has not been truthful about buying puppy mill dogs.

Mary-Jo Duffy of Wilton is the president of the board of directors of ROAR, which runs the non-profit dog shelter in Ridgefield, said opponents had seen a big tractor trailer truck unloading puppies at True Breeders two Tuesdays in a row.

“It’s from Hunte Corporation, based in Missouri, and they are probably the country’s biggest broker of puppy mill puppies,” she said. “She’s absolutely deceiving the public,” Ms. Duffy said of Ms. DiCarlo. “She has a sign in her window that says ‘We do not buy from puppy mils.’ Maybe that’s true. But she buys from a broker who buys from puppy mills.”

Mr. Connors The Press he’d been to the store Monday, and thought the operators were reacting responsibly to the parvovirus threat.

“I was there yesterday, and there was no fecal material on the floors or in any of the holding areas where the dogs are being housed,” he said. “Ms. DiCarlo, the licensee, is using the proper disinfectant for controlling parvovirus, so there’s no need for concern about tracking anything out of the store.”