Pets Alive

My husband and I were so excited to adopt a puppy from the Pets Alive Middletown shelter. We did not receive any medical records when we adopted the puppy. The volunteers said they would email them to us that day, which they didn’t. Within 20 minutes of leaving the shelter, the puppy demonstrated symptoms of an illness (explosive diarrhea). He continued having explosive diarrhea for the next two days. He ate all his food yet appeared lethargic and did not want to go for walks. We had a vet appointment at our local animal hospital within 48 hours of adopting the puppy. In the mean time, we kept calling the Pets Alive shelter for the puppy’s medical records, with no response. The puppy continued to have explosive, foul-smelling diarrhea in the vet’s waiting room. Our vet could not believe that we were not given any medical records. He instructed us that the puppy was in very poor health and recommended immediately bringing him back to the shelter for treatment. Returning to Pets Alive, my husband met with Janet Pirog (Vet Tech) and Karen Lieberman (Executive Administrator) to discuss the puppy’s condition. An agreement was reached where they would treat the puppy and we would pick him up when recovered.



Over the next few days we received updates on the puppy’s condition from Janet. After unsuccessfully reaching her by phone, we began emailing her. The email was intercepted by Kerry Clair (Executive Director) who stated “we will not be getting the puppy back”. She refused to speak to us on the phone and told us if we entered the Pets Alive property we would be asked to leave. In the end we would up losing our money and losing our dog.



Overall, we followed the stipulation in our contract which stated to contact Pets Alive if the animal was found to be ill. We followed their direction on how to proceed from there. Then 3 days later we were told that we would never see our dog again. Had we been told that up front, we never would have released him to them.



This shelter takes on more than it can handle. There are lots of volunteers and they can’t keep track of all the dogs. Therefore they are selling sick dogs to good people. I would not recommend adopting from this shelter. There are lots of other reputable shelters in the area. No one should have to go through what we went through.

Had a great experience adopting our dog here. Amazingly caring organization. Commits to all their animals for life. Completely no-kill!

Caring staff. Great facilities. Wonderful animals.