Warning to future owners

I hope this serves as a warning for all future first time pet owners - when T+C's are hidden:

I adopted a 3 month old puppy on a Saturday, super fast process, filled in paper work and got puppy after quick check up with their vet. I even bought everything I needed (bed, toys, clothes etc) from wet-nose knowing that its going towards charity. On Tuesday 16/06/2020 was a public holiday I woke up to find blood in my puppies stool. A quick google search told me its an emergency and to take puppy to vet. I immediately took out wet-nose instructions to new owners and it says a puppy which is adopted and is sick within first few days will be treated for free by wet-nose. I tried to call wet-nose numerous times with no-one answering. I went online to find emergency number only to find that and I quote "Emergency – Only for life threatening emergency rescues relating to injured animals or animals in abusive or neglectful situations. 082 677 8086 (This emergency line is not for after-hours veterinary care of your own animals, and will be answered by an Inspector and not a Vet. Should you own animal have a medical emergency, please contact our clinic during office hours or contact a 24 hour Veterinary Hospital.)" Since wet-nose was not going to help I phoned a vet in my area and took the puppy into emergency, after a number of test it turns out she has a parasite in her intestines and needs to be on a number of meds. This parasite is highly infectious to other dogs and even children. So both puppy and my kids needed meds. The visit to vet on public holiday and meds for pup only put me back R1556.30. I called wet-nose the following day and was told to email them. There response was very unsatisfactory saying that it was stress that can caused pup to have blood in stool (something my vet says will never happen its either a virus or parasite) they wanted to see list of meds my pup got - probably so they could treat other pups that were with my pup at rescue. Then they wrote "In an emergency (after hours, Sundays and on public holidays) you must use your own veterinarian in your area and the cost will be for your own account."

The mere fact that vet wanted to know what meds my puppy was on is an indication that it was not merely stress and is something harmful to other dogs at wet-nose. (Of course I attached the invoice- I do have a heart and want to make sure the rest of the dogs are healthy)

I don't know what test their vet does when releasing dogs and I wasn't told if it included full urine/stool/blood works so if they didn't specifically look for this parasite they wouldn't have picked it up by just a general check up. I can just say that it was so quick that I doubt it was an in-depth check.

I am more than happy that I adopted my puppy but am not pleased with service provided by wet-nose especially when guaranteed that if dog is sick within first few days of adoption that wet-nose would treat her. Their emergency instructions are pretty clear that there is no vet services when closed. There are no clear instructions on adoption papers what to do in an emergency when office is closed. The onus is on them as a rescue center to correctly prepare and guide dog owners in cases of emergency knowing that you are not open all the time!

It is very clear that puppy came with parasite from the rescue center and it should have been their responsibility to treat her or incur the costs of treating that parasite since they did not test for it when she left the rescue.

Future owners make sure to ask for a full in depth health check before you adopt a puppy or dog from wet-nose cause if you have the bad luck of dog being sick on weekend or public holiday wet-nose will not come to your rescue.