PetsMart: Too Many Dogs Hurt---Speak Out About This Now!

I've never done a post like this, but something happened in my community recently which has rehashed some painful feelings for me and I'm so passionate about this issue that I need to share it.

This morning I was reading a local news story about a woman who's dog died after she took it to the groomer at PetsMart (link to article here.)

Here are some excerpts from the article:

"...she dropped River off at the groomer Wednesday and minutes later got a call that something was terribly wrong."

"I just picked him up and I held him and I was just crying. I said, 'What happened to my dog? Somebody please explain to me what happened to my dog,'" said Shorter.

"The champion-bred Maltese died, but when she asked the folks at PetSmart how it happened, she said, they gave her the runaround."(The groomer) said, 'He jumped off the table. Then he said, He fell.' That's when I said, 'Did he fall or did he jump? Because first you said he jumped, now you're saying he fell,'" Shorter said.

"...she immediately took her dead dog to a private vet -- and she says she has paperwork to prove that PetsMart's versions of what happened that day don't add up.

I posted the link to this article on my Facebook page...and within minutes I had the following responses from people:

"Maddison got her first haircut at the one in (hometown) and she was so stressed by it that she had diarrhea for 3 days after!"


"Just getting Sookie's nails trimmed at Petsmart completely freaked her out and she wouldn't let us touch her paws for days - it was the (hometown) one too! Thankfully we found a very patient home groomer down the street from us that's fabulous. That's so sad about Lulu though, poor thing."

"I took Sicily to her first hair cut there. She came back with very bloody red eyes that are signs os asphyxiation or head trauma. Thank god at the time I was working at a vet hospital. PetsMart are THE WORST for grooming. I have heard of ...so many cases I don't understand why they are not out of business. They don't even care with us after bringing the vet papers and talking to the highest person there all they did was giving us a gift card!!!! We didn't want a gift card all we wanted is for them to stop torturing animals, that apparently. Oh yeah now she hates grooming and nail clipping. When she does get it I have to be right next to her holding her. I'm so sad for that poor lady."

"I think they have a box drier that they put them in and sometimes it dehydrates the dog too much. We had one at ours that died that way."

"I went in there for food for Goose a long time ago and walked by the window where they grrom dogs....the lady was yelling at the dog! I was mortified!"

...and now I'll share my personal story. I actually wrote a letter  to PetsMart and filed an official corporate complaint about my experience:

When Lulu was about 6 months old, we took him to a PetsMart in my hometown to get his first "real" haircut. Previously, I had been grooming him at home without any issues---I was able to cut his nails, brush his hair, cut his hair on his entire body on face.
His hair was getting long and he had some matting so we decided to take him to PetsMart to be groomed by a professional (and I use that term very loosely, as you can tell by the above comments from others who have horror stories about their experiences at PetsMart).

We took our dog there and they said he would be fine. I left them my cell phone number and told them to PLEASE CALL ME IMMEDIATELY if anything isn't going right and we would come get him.

Lulu was my first dog. I had NO idea how long grooming takes.  THREE HOURS later they called me (I had called in the meantime to ask how it was going) and told me he was done.  When I got him back, it was like his personality had changed. Suddenly he was fearful, snappy and displayed aggressive/protective behavior when touched in certain areas, as I mentioned above.

I was so frustrated I just cried and wondered what happened. We obviously never took him back there.  It took us years of behavioral training to even get him to the point where he will allow us to brush him and I am also able to cut the hair on his face and ears---but he will not allow anything on his body to be trimmed so we have to take him to the vet to be sedated and have his entire body shaved so his matting doesn't get out of control.

I feel devastated and guilty to this day that I trusted PetsMart to take care of my dog. They clearly man-handled him and hurt him and made him feel like he had to protect himself from how they handled him.  What used to be my friendly, approachable, loves-everyone dog was now a fearful dog who didn't trust anyone except the people he lived with and saw very often. 

WHY DIDN'T THEY CALL ME? I wonder this all of the time...if he was having a hard time with the grooming, they should have STOPPED immediately and called me and told me to come and get him.  BUT THEY DIDN'T, and he ended up being traumatized for hours.  I will just never forgive myself for that---but moreso, I can't forgive PetsMart for their disgusting negligence.

It's not just my experience that concerns me---it's the countless people I've talked to in real life and on Facebook that have expressed their own horrible experiences with PetsMart groomers.  I am NOT saying they are all awful people who abuse dogs---I'm saying there are far too many horror stories---and they always happen at PetsMart---and it needs to stop.  I hope that if your dog has been a victim of PetsMart groomers, that you speak out and send the company a letter.

Oh---and if you're wondering, PetsMart did write me back---offering me "free lessons" to "help with his aggression."  Thanks PetsMart, but my dog is scared for life--and I certainly don't want to take him back to the very place where this occured. We have worked privately with a behaviorist and although he has has some improvement, I know it will never get to the point where he can be groomed normally. Animals are instinctual---if something happens once, and it was awful, they aren't going to submit themselves to it again without a fight.

Ugh. I am just SO frustrated. How can this be happening?  PetsMart needs to review their entire dog grooming policies and procedures. There are simply too many dogs suffering because of this irresponsible company.

I have not bought anything at PetsMart since this happened.  We buy our food from the vet and our dog toys at Target.  I simply can't support a company who thinks it's OK to submit a scared little dog to 3 hours of terror.

Do YOU have a PetsMart story to share (good or bad?)  Have you ever had a horrible pet-related experience somewhere else?  Let me know in the comments below.
Thank you for reading---and remember---if anything happened to your dog while being groomed at PetsMart---WRITE to them---and give your pet the voice they didn't have. You can email PetsMart at customercare@petsmart.com.

Please email them about the news story above and tell them it's NOT acceptable for people's dogs to die minutes after dropping them off to be groomed!

xoxo,

Veronika.