One sick pup cured. One $9,473 bill for struggling college student.

• A puppy gets sick with deadly parvovirus soon after purchase%2C and store refunds cost of dog.
• Cost of the dog%27s care amounts to %241%2C000 a day for a college student already in debt.
• Muffin%27s case shows the lengths to which owners go to treat puppies they instantly love.

The story goes like this.

Student, 20, buys sweet pet-store puppy.

Nine days later, puppy gets sick.

Student, sister and mom vow to make pup well.

And so, after eight days in a veterinary hospital, Muffin, 16 weeks old and a little worse for wear, rallies. Score one for a spunky tan-and-white terrier mix in her battle with parvovirus, a deadly canine disease that attacks the intestinal tract and can cause lifelong heart problems.

The not-so-happy ending is the veterinary tab: $9,473, carried by said student who already has $30,000 in car and college loans.

Though it's not what she signed up for when she bought a puppy to share with her sister, Geniene Arnold of Wappingers Falls doesn't regret a thing.

"No matter how much I hate having these bills," she said, "I do not, for one second, regret what they were used for, because my little Muffin survived."

Arnold, a paralegal student at Dutchess Community College who hopes to return to the University of New Haven, learned firsthand what animal welfare advocates say are the risks of buying a dog produced by an industry they refer to as "puppy mills," as reported in the Poughkeepsie Journal March 29. The breeding farms produce, ship and sell some 2 million puppies a year, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Muffin, born Jan. 2 to a Missouri breeder and trucked to New York by an Iowa broker, was bought March 25 from Puppies & Kittens, a store in Wappingers Falls. She was hospitalized April 5 after suffering severe diarrhea and losing blood the day before. At points, Geniene, her sister Meghan, 19, and her mother Bernadette Smyth did not know if the dog would live through the night — she would not eat for a time and moved her head only slightly at the sound of Geniene's voice — or how they would continue to fund her care, which has been paid for under a credit plan. Arnold said she has asked the store to cover her veterinary bill.

Store owner Rick Doyle, who forgave the loan for the pup's $899 purchase price, declined to answer questions for this article, maintaining the Poughkeepsie Journal was aligned with animal welfare groups and against puppy stores.

In a previous interview, Doyle maintained he has dealt with good breeders for 30 years and his rate of sickness in animals — about 2 percent, he said, with 230 dogs sold in a recent month — is very low. His veterinarian, Dr. Jay Weiss, confirmed he finds few sick dogs on store arrival, although he said it cannot be known if dogs are incubating illness that will manifest later.

Muffin, like other dogs that became ill, was certified in sale documents as having "no known disease or illness." Parvovirus has a four- to 14-day incubation period, so Muffin's exposure — usually from contact with another dog's feces — could have occurred before or after sale.

Few protections

Officials of the Dutchess County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say they have no legal authority to take action against pet stores when animals get sick after purchase, even though they may be harboring illnesses related to the way they were bred and handled. Parvovirus killed another puppy last October after purchase from the store, while five other store customers also purchased dogs that got sick soon after, medical and sale records provided to the Journal show.

In other developments:

• The Puppies & Kittens store was deemed "non-compliant" in a special inspection April 8 by the state Department of Agriculture and Markets, conducted after a complaint was filed with the agency by Arnold's mother. Because the violation was deemed "critical," involving a dog treated for a week for upper respiratory infection without seeing a veterinarian, the store was given seven days to correct the problem, and it did so, according to state records.

• Fifteen Dutchess County legislators signed a letter, written by Legislator Joel Tyner, D-Rhinebeck-Clinton, calling on county and state officials "to work with us to change current animal welfare state/county law" governing the sale of puppies; the state's pet "lemon" law, for example, requires reimbursement only up to the purchase price for sick dogs though vet bills can go higher. Tyner said he is researching an ordinance passed in New York City — which bans puppy sales involving breeders with high-level violations and from all brokers — as a possible model.

That's a change Geniene Arnold can support.

"There can be more protection so that people, like me, don't have to fall victim to purchasing sick puppies and ending up with a huge vet bill when all is said and done," she wrote in an email.

Previously, Doyle, a dog enthusiast who said he once won a Westminster Kennel Club competition, criticized vets who charged high prices for pneumonia care, maintaining it should cost no more than $50 to treat. He also said he offers buyers free care at a vet that provides services to his store; however, that vet was not open when Muffin, who needed 24-hour care, became sick the day before Easter, said Smyth, Arnold's mother.

The cost to care for the Heeler-Jack Russell mix — about $1,000 a day — shows the lengths to which owners will go to save pets with which they instantly bond. As Arnold put it, "I fell in love with her the moment I walked in the door." Two other customers amassed bills of $5,000 and $7,000 each to treat puppies for pneumonia — sums Doyle maintains dog owners choose to pay.

Six-page bill

Muffin was treated at VCA Animal Specialty and Emergency Center in Wappingers Falls, a 24-hour care center to which vets refer seriously ill animals. Dr. Justin Nowowiejski, a critical care clinician who attended to the pup and confirmed her diagnosis, said parvovirus cases require high-level care: an isolation ward because it is so contagious; intravenous fluids and medications, and sometimes nutrition through a feeding tube. Muffin's bill, provided to the Journal, runs six pages and includes charges for tests, nebulization, catheters, radiology reports, nasogastic tube placement and assorted medications.

Arnold hopes, with help from her family, to pay off the credit bill quickly — the first year is interest-free — by working extra hours and perhaps landing a paralegal position when she graduates next winter. She currently waitresses at a local restaurant and tutors at Dutchess when time allows.

"I don't think anyone who invests in a puppy expects to be in the hospital with a pup fighting for their life shortly after purchase," said Arnold. On April 8, the fourth day of hospitalization, Arnold texted a photo to a reporter showing a listless Muffin in a cage with monitors and IV bags affixed outside. "(T)he only movement coming from her was to turn her head when she heard my voice," she wrote.

The dog has clearly turned a corner though. "She is very playful," Arnold said. "I try my best to keep her calm but she always gets very excited and then has to stop to cough, but her cough is getting better."

As for Puppies & Kittens, the store's high-level, or critical, violation on April 8 marked the first time in 13 inspections since 2011 that the store had failed a state review. The Yorkshire terrier in isolation then was cleared for sale the following day by a veterinarian, according to a follow-up state Agriculture & Markets inspection report on April 16, and it was sold.

Dutchess SPCA Senior Humane Law Officer Kim McNamee called current law "irresponsible" in protecting pet buyers and suggested imposing a quarantine period of perhaps two to three weeks, "to allow these incubation periods to pass."

"That's bad for business," she said, "but we're talking live animals."

Reach Mary Beth Pfeiffer: mbpfeiff@gannett.com; 845-437-4869. Twitter: @marybethpf