An article in the Reading Eagle about puppies at a pet store in the Berkshire Mall having parvo sparked a letter to the editor and rightly so.
Apparently three puppies have contracted the parvovirus. The store is open but 25 puppies won’t be shown until Monday as a precaution. The store’s manager, Kim Lechuga says “The public has nothing to worry about.”
What????
Kim Lechuga, manager of Your Pet Center, had to be kidding when she said “The public has nothing to worry about” (“Virus hits puppies at pet center in mall,” Reading Eagle, June 20). Parvo virus is very serious and very contagious. Parvo is very expensive to treat, and often times any dog infected with the virus ends up dying. While in a veterinary hospital, an infected dog must be kept in isolation, and staff members wear protective garments to treat the dogs. A local rescue organization for which I volunteer took in a puppy earlier this month. The dog ended up with the parvo virus. She was admitted to an emergency center, which resulted in rescue expenses of $1,100. The puppy died two days later. Any rescue or shelter will advise people to bleach and disinfect everything in their house where the parvo dog resided and wait at least six months before they get another dog. Any dog in contact with a parvo dog is at risk. Parvo is also showing up in drastic numbers in Reading as pit bulls and Chihuahuas are being overbred and rarely vaccinated before they are sold. Vicky Hoffman Exeter Township