Puppies with parvo cause NEGA Animal Shelter to shut doors for quarantine

By Mark Berryman, WLHR

The Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter will be unavailable to the public for the next two weeks due to a concern about a recent litter of puppies brought to the facility. Shelter Director Tammy Jourdanais talks about what prompted the closure.

“We just wanted to let the public know we are very sorry for any inconvenience, but unfortunately we had a litter of puppies brought in by a member of the public that presented healthy upon intake and the time they spent with us. We were able to send them to a local rescue yesterday morning and the puppies have tested positive for parvo. Even though they showed no signs while they were with us, the virus is very fast acting. Due to the guidelines by the Department of Agriculture and our veterinarian, we will not be accepting or releasing any animals for a 14-day quarantine period. This will allow us to take extreme caution here to make sure none of our other animals are sick during this time,” Jourdanais said.

Jourdanais then talks about the precautions the shelter is taking and urges those in the community to take precautions as well.

“During this time we will be deep-cleaning the entire shelter. The health and well-being of our shelter residents and animals are very important to us and we take it as our highest priority. Our shelter is very lucky to not have regular outbreaks like this like so many high-intake public shelters experience. We would like to take a moment to again stress how important it is to keep your pets up-to-date with vaccines. If these puppies had been fully vaccinated, we would not be going through this right now,” Jourdanais said.

The shelter director then asks for undersanding as they strive to keep the shelter safe and prevent a widespread outbreak.

“During this time we just ask for your understanding, to know that we are doing everything we can to keep anyone else from getting sick and to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Once again, a 14-day quarantine is in effect for our shelter. No incoming or outgoing dogs or cats at all. We are very sorry for the inconvenience,” Jourdainais said.

Barring any other animals contracting the disease, the shelter will reopen on May 31.