SC pet store investigated for deadly puppy disease, and animal lovers are worried

The video of a lethargic puppy curled inside a pet store cage went viral on Facebook this week prompting outrage and frustration when animal lovers searched for someone to determine whether it suffered from the highly contagious and deadly parvovirus disease.

“This dog is sick, I have to call someone,” said Jodie Stepp Kee, the woman who shot the video as she petted the pup and tried in vain to wake it.

Kee called the Conway police and a local rescue group, while other local animal lovers reached out to local and state agencies to report a possible case of parvo.

There are no regulations for pet stores in Conway or most of the county, but the police responded to check on the welfare of the animal, only to find it had been sold.

The store owner says the puppy was asleep in the video, but police tracked down the new owner and asked that she send a video of the puppy to make sure it was okay.

The video has been seen, and police say the puppy that is part Yorkshire Terrier, part Shih Tzu, is not sick.

The case is closed for police, but not for animal lovers who say it begs a critical question — where to actually report that pups suffering from parvo are being sold by breeders or in pet stores?

They say it matters, because the virus is readily transmitted from place to place by pets as well as humans on their shoes, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

“Imagine you purchased a puppy with parvo, and unsuspectingly brought it into your home but then returned it because it was sick,” said Christine Zois of North Myrtle Beach, who runs a pet rescue operation.

“They may not be aware that if it’s parvo, those germs will survive and be maintained in the home and car and everywhere that puppy was for a long time, so when they go back to buy another puppy, it’s highly contagious and they could have another sick puppy just by bringing it into the premises,” Zois said.

Unvaccinated dogs are most at risk of canine parvo, as are puppies because they are not vaccinated until they are 4 months old. The survival rate is low and it’s a costly illness to treat.

The Animal Foundation recommends that pet owners avoid places where unvaccinated dogs or puppies could be exposed to the virus, including pet stores and dog parks.

“If you work or spend time in places where you have contact with dogs, change your clothes and shoes before returning home to your dog or puppy,” the foundation warns.

Sharon Granskog with the American Veterinary Medical Association agrees, and says the virus is difficult to kill.

“You can carry it out on your shoes if the surface has not been cleaned well, and it’s a really tough virus to kill — in can live for years and years in the ground and not a lot of disinfectant will kill the virus. Bleach is recommended,” Granskog said. Zois and other concerned animal lovers reported the suspected case of parvo to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), but the state agency does not track parvo cases like it does for rabies.

Neither does the State Veterinarian's office through the Clemson Livestock Poultry Health office.

Robert Yanity, DHEC spokesman, said the reason is because parvo does not infect humans.

There are no reporting requirements by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said spokeswoman Lyndsay Cole, so no state or national numbers are available as to how widespread the disease has affected dogs.

John Goodwin, spokesman for the Humane Society of the U.S., says very few states require parvo reporting.

“We get complaints constantly, especially from people who bought in pet stores,” Goodwin said. “They spend up to $2,000 in some places, then the puppy is sick and they spend that much in veterinarian bills.”

Goodwin says the disease should be reported and tracked.

“It’s true, parvo may not affect people directly, but there’s an emotional toll for people when it affects their pet,” Goodwin said.

Some counties like Los Angeles in California and Cook County in Illinois have reporting requirements, while other states encourage veterinarians to report outbreaks of animal diseases like parvo to the county health department or state veterinarians, Granskog said.

Veterinarians will also reach out to colleagues when a high number of cases are reported, and usually alert the media if a community needs to be made aware and cautious with pets, Granskog said.

Locally, only the City of Myrtle Beach regulates pet store operations. The county, Conway and North Myrtle Beach have ordinances against the mistreatment of animals including lack of medical care.

There are no local parvo reporting requirements.

“We don’t have the personnel if we passed regulations to go in and enforce it,” said Pat Dowling, spokesman for North Myrtle Beach.

“If we find something going on in a store, we can approach it by a different angle — that’s where animal control comes in,” Dowling said.

If someone makes a complaint about a sick puppy, animal control officers can confiscate the pet to see that it gets medical attention, and the city works closely with the Humane Society of North Myrtle Beach, Dowling said.

Conway Police Chief Reginald Gosnell says his officers are still making periodic, unannounced visits at Pet Safari, where the Facebook puppy was videotaped.

“We have not found anything to cause us any concern at this time, irrespective of what we’ve been catching on social media,” Gosnell said.

But Gosnell cautioned that his officers are not veterinarians, and are limited in what they can check for, such as food, water and the animal’s appearance.

“For us being able to diagnose what may or may not be wrong with a cat, bird or dog they are selling, I don’t know that we could do that,” Gosnell said. “But we could look to make sure that the conditions are such that health and well being are maintained.”

“Other than an animal looking lethargic, I don’t know how we would could ever diagnose that anyway,” Gosnell said.

Kee said that she did not inform the owner of Safari Pets, because she didn’t trust the owner to take action.

The extra scrutiny of this particular pet store is because the previous owner, Nicole Renee James, was charged with failure to provide proper care and treatment of animals after 146 dogs were seized from her home in 2015.

The new owner, Ashley Hall, is trying to distance her business from the previous owner and says she has run a clean, trouble-free shop since taking it over in 2015.

If Kee had notified Hall of concerns the dog was sick, Hall says she would have checked on the dog immediately to make sure it was in good health.

Parvo symptoms include lethargy, loss of appetite, abdominal pain and bloating, fever, vomiting and severe diarrhea.

If the puppy had parvo, Hall said she would have contacted the breeder to determine whether the puppy was infected before or after it was brought to the store.

It’s not just tracking the virus outside the store that’s a concern. An unwitting customer could also track parvo into the store after visiting an animal shelter or breeder first, Hall said.

If it was determined that a puppy did have parvo in the store, Hall said all of the pets would have been removed, treated by a veterinarian, and the shop scrubbed.

“It’s so highly contagious, you have to quarantine everything,” Hall said. “You have to completely sanitize the store and treat the puppies to have them completely cured, then there is a time period where we would not be able to sell puppies until the sickness was gone.”

If a dog is purchased at her store and it’s discovered the puppy has any illness, she said customers should bring it back and their money will be refunded.

Since Hall has owned the store, she says she has not had a single incidence of parvo or any other sickness.

“There’s a presumption about the store because of what happened,” said Hall, who calls the previous owner her step-mother, but says the woman was not married to her father.

“So many people immediately believed that video and jumped on there and said a lot of stuff that was uncalled for, childlike and ignorant,” Hall said.

“We try so hard in the store, and my regular customers knew better immediately, so I did not have to defend myself,” Hall said.

If concerned animal lovers took the time to ask about her protocol, Hall said this incident might not have gone viral on social media.

“I don’t think this store was treated fairly, because other stores near this location have never been asked about where puppies come from, and their care,” Hall said.

This story was originally published March 13, 2017 at 6:57 AM with the headline "SC pet store investigated for deadly puppy disease, and animal lovers are worried."