In February of my fiance and I purchased an english bulldog from petland. The cast was about 3500 dollars. A few weeks later, we noticed things were just not right with her. She hadn't grown at all.
We took her to several veterinarians and no one could diagnose her with anything. I finally had one of them run a full report on her bloodwork, which cost over 300 dolllars. She was then diagnosed with what is called Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency, which is inherited from the mother. She could not digest any food and was getting no nutrients from it whatsoever.
Before she was diagnosed however, she would have to go to the bathroom several times a day, like 15 or 20 times. She would eat anything from rocks, to other things. Once I actually caught her eating her own feces!
After this disturbing behavior, I did some research on my own and found that this symptom was fairly common to dogs with the disorder. My vet put her on a special diet, and enzymes to help her survive.
This diet is hardly inexpensive! The medicine costs about 150.00 a bottle and lasts a little over a month and the food is about 25.00 a bag. It would be easy for someone to just "put her to sleep" and get a new dog, which was petlands answer.
By this time, we were already attached to her, and of course, paid for all the medications. Petland said they would reimburse us for the bills, but after fighting with them so long and waiting for checks that never came in the mail, we figured it was a lost cause. We are so far in debt already, and can't afford to hire a lawyer to look over our case. We went to petland and demanded some answers. The store manager offered to reimburse us for the total price of the dog, and tired of arguing, we agreed. I am still awaiting this check and am very dissatisfied with how petland is handling this.
During our last visit to petland, we observed many of the dogs there and they looked quite unhealthy. Many of them you could see their rib bones protruding and believe it or not, we saw an english bulldog eating its own feces! And for all the customers to see. It was very sad to actually sit there and watch how these animals are cared for, or the lack thereof I should say. I just want to tell people that they should not buy dogs from petland, especially this one. I never would have if I had known the terrible things going on there.
Our dog is fine now as long as she is on the special medicine and food, this will never go away. It has changed our lives, and put a lot of stress on us financially.
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