My boyfriend and I purchased a three month old Boxer puppy from Shake A Paw in Hicksville on Saturday, August 16. We were desperately looking for a puppy and fell in love with Roxy the moment we saw her. We were on a budget and the store owner seeminly helped us by knocking off a hunderd dollars. He warned us that most dogs that come from this store have kennel cough. Sure enough, that same day, we saw her hacking up a lung running the yard. I made an appointment with the affiliated vet service and took her the next day. They provided medicine for her and she seemed to be okay.

When then had to travel that day to upstate New York and took a long car ride with the puppy. It concerned me that she slept most of the way but I figured it was because she was just a puppy and needed rest. When we got home, a family friend asked if she was from a puppy mill. We said no, assuming she wasn't. This family friend, who worked in animal shelters for over a decade, stated that her front paws were shifted inwards and that it was a common sign of puppy mills (being kept in cages too small). Roxy stopped coughing and continued to be the adorable puppy she was. I noticed she wasn't gaining as much weight as I expected her to. She was eating the food Shake A Paw gave us as well as the correct portions. She was also going to the bathroom several times a day which I thought might be abnormal. Still, we assumed it was just her adjusting to her new life with us.

On Friday, September 5, my boyfriend's mother called me and said that Roxy had thrown up a bit. The first two times, her vomit just contained dog food. The rest of it was that normal dog foam vomit. Our first concern was that maybe she ate an outdoor mushroom or something of the sort. Since it was late, we just let her get it out of her system. Roxy vomited all night about once an hour. First thing the next morning, Saturday, September 6, we brought her to the vet. She collapsed on the scale. She weighed 20 pounds when we first got her and she only gained three pounds in three weeks. In the examination room, her temperature was high and her gums were pale. We expressed that we assumed she ate something. Suddenly, our puppy started twitching. Minutes later, she had an epileptic seizure. We were so shocked because we did not expect it to be that bad. The vet told us that she was keeping her until that following Monday and that Roxy would be on IVs to try to flush out whatever was in her system.

Later that day, I called to check up on her. The vet said that she had another seizure but was on medication and was urinating and resting comfortably. She said her bloodwork came back and revealed that her liver was fine (if she ate something poisonous, her liver enzymes would be bad) but her glucose was very low.

The next morning, Sunday, September 7, I called to see how Roxy was doing. They vet notified me that my puppy did not make it through the night. She said that she had absolutely no proteins in her system and that her intestines were bad and she was hemorrhaging; blood was coming out of her nose and mouth. My boyfriend, his family and I were devestated. Our perfect four month old puppy was gone and we only had her in our lives for three short weeks. There is no reason this should have happened.

Heartbroken, my boyfriend started searching puppy mills online. Everything the sites said matched up with Roxy. She was sent from Oklahoma, had various health problems and was sold in a big puppy store. It is not fair that my boyfriend paid for a puppy that was not healthy or obtained correctly. We fell in love with our puppy and we can't believe she is gone. It is not fair to these dogs and to the people who adopt them. We won't stop until Shake A Paw and other pet stores like theirs are no more.