This review is coming after 8 YEARS of telling family and friends to stay away from this place. I never thought about putting my story on Yelp. But after telling yet another friend about what happened with my dog today, I feel that it's time to make this story public. If you're considering buying from Puppies to Go, it may change your mind and, hopefully, your heart. I apologize ahead of time for the long post, but this is necessary.
In 2008, I was outside of my house in Schenley Park near the Gables, when a car pulled up to talk to my former roommate, who was outside as well. They told him that they had found a stray dog, but that they didn't live around the area. So, they were either going to leave him with someone who does live around there so that they could find his owners, or they were going to take him to the shelter. My former roommate decided to take him, but when they handed the dog over to him, we noticed that he was freshly bathed, had a haircut, and was wearing a collar and leash. He didn't look like a stray at all. Either way, we took him, and that afternoon, I took him to Red Bird Animal Clinic down the street to scan for a chip. His chip was registered to this place, Puppies to Go. I called the shop to see if they had a record of who they sold him to, and they said that "after a year, they discard the records." The vet estimated that the dog was about a year old, give or take, so I really don't know if the shop was lying to me. Either way, we put up an ad on Craigslist with his picture and we posted signs, trying to find his owners, but no one responded. After about a week or two, no one had claimed the dog, and I had fallen in love with him. He was a beautiful, blonde cocker spaniel with a really loving demeanor, and I couldn't picture parting with him anymore. We named him "Charlie," and I decided to keep him.
Pretty soon thereafter, we noticed that Charlie had blood in his stool. So, we went back to Red Bird Animal Clinic to have the same vet check him out. Turns out, Charlie had heart worms, stomach worms, an advanced ear infection, and a skin infection! He also had a bite mark on the top of his right ear that looked to be infected. Charlie needed MAJOR life-saving treatment, and the vet had a big talk with me to prepare me for Charlie's death (which he believed was almost certain at this point). I told the vet that I couldn't afford the thousands upon thousands of dollars that it would take to even TRY to save Charlie with the little chances he had. Considering that he knew Charlie was a rescue, and that he knew my circumstances, he gave me big discounts and a payment plan to give Charlie a shot at life. Charlie had to go through weeks, sitting in a cage without movement so that his heart wouldn't get out of control. He went through so many doctor visits, medicines, x-rays, needle pricks, biopsies, stool samples... I can't even tell you how many. But thankfully, after all of that hard work, that vet saved his life. Charlie was exhausted, and so was my pocketbook, but I didn't care. Charlie made it.
I have now had Charlie for 8 wonderful years. He'll be approx. 9 years old in April, and he has a clean bill of health. I said before that the vet saved Charlie's life, but he really saved mine, too. This boy has been a life-changing miracle for me. I always tell people that he fell out of the sky and onto my lap during a difficult time in my life so that I would have someone to look after and love. Without having him during that time period, I really don't know where I would be, but I know my life wouldn't be as good as it is right now.
Looking back, my former roommate and I really believe that the people who were handing him over to us on the side of the road were his family who bought him from this shop. They probably couldn't afford Charlie's treatment, and they probably thought handing him over to someone else was better than putting him down. If our suspicions are correct, I just can't imagine what that family went through with this disgusting place.
This shop has some NERVE allowing its animals to get sick and not caring about them AT ALL, just to be able to sell pure-breds to people who are willing to pay top dollar for them. Each and every time I see the scar above Charlie's ear, I can only imagine other puppies in this infested, dirty, overcrowded kennel, crawling all over each other and biting each other (because that's where one of the vet techs thinks that injury came from).
If you're still reading, thank you for sticking with this post all the way through. And PLEASE, instead of going to horrible, unethical places like this one, PLEASE ADOPT from animal services! My Charlie could've ended up there after starting out at a place like this. Charlie was lucky, but other beautiful, loving deserving animals won't be as fortunate! PLEASE do not support these horrible breeders who couldn't care less about their animals' health!
ZERO stars for this place, if that were an option! read more