Unless the puppies they sell are from a local animal shelter or rescue organization, it’s generally a terrible idea to buy them from pet stores. For one thing, they were probably obtained from puppy mills — large, overcrowded breeding facilities where dogs are often kept in miserable conditions without enough food, water or veterinary care.
For another thing, it’s not only the puppies that are sick. Nearly 100 people that bought them have become ill with infections that are resistant to common antibiotics.
Two months later, the number of confirmed cases has risen to 97, and they’ve now spread to 17 U.S. states, according to a Dec. 13 outbreak advisory from the CDC. Twenty-two people have been hospitalized.
Petland was determined to be the probable ground zero for the outbreak when stool samples from store puppies tested by the CDC contained Campylobacter that was closely related to that in samples from the sickened people.
The CDC along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) and several states are currently investigating the outbreak.
FoodWorld 