Dying Dogs

Dogs reportedly keep dying after being groomed at PetSmart

By Lia Eustachewich

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Nearly 50 dogs have died after being groomed at PetSmart stores across the country, according to an investigative report Thursday that says the company offered heartbroken owners non-disclosure agreements in exchange for hush-money payments.


Since 2008, 47 dogs in 14 states have died following visits to the nation’s leading pet store chain – and 32 of them came after 2015, when the company was bought by private equity firm BC Partners, according to the nine-month probe by NJ Advance Media.

“I’ll never forget that last look he gave me,” Nick Pomilio said of his 7-year-old English bulldog Capone, who stopped breathing and died last year after he emerged from a PetSmart in a shopping cart because he couldn’t walk on his own. What was supposed to be a 15-minute grooming session lasted nearly an hour.

“You don’t take the dog to get its nails clipped and it winds up dead as a doornail,” the 72-year-old owner said through tears.

Of the 47, 20 of the pups were English bulldogs and “brachycelphalic” breeds — those with short noses or pushed-in faces that can make it hard for them to breathe.

The news outlet found that the startling number of doggie fatalities could be the result of inexperienced trainee groomers who are burdened with meeting daily quotas and rushed in to fill staff shortages.

“When the new owners bought it, they demanded six to eight dogs in eight hours,” Marti Fernandez, who worked as a salon manager at two PetSmart stores in New Jersey from 2006 to 2016, told the outlet. “This is in addition to walk-in clients, the phones are ringing off the hook, you’re meeting with pet parents, doing paperwork. … There’s always pressure to do more dogs.

“It was enough to make me quit,” she said. “I can handle pressure, I can’t handle their pressure.”

Michael Batchelor said PetSmart offered him $140 to cover his vet bill after his Olde English Bulldogge, Gunner, left a grooming at a PetSmart in January with bloodied eyes from hemorrhaging.

In exchange, though, he’d have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and delete a viral Facebook post about the dog’s injuries.

The company told Batchelor, of North Carolina, that it wasn’t at fault.

Batchelor declined the company’s offer.

The exact total of dog deaths after PetSmart groomings isn’t known – the company refused to disclose the number it’s documented since 2008 and did not admit any wrongdoing in any of the cases reported by NJ Advance Media.

In many cases, it’s unclear how exactly the dog died. Necropsies that are performed are often inconclusive and speculative, the report noted.

Jill Ryther, an attorney who’s represented owners in lawsuits against PetSmart, blasted the company’s offer of payments and non-disclosures, which prohibit owners from disclosing anything about the incident, payment and even the existence of the agreement.

“To ask that the entire incident not be spoken about and being prohibited to speak to other people who lost animals, that’s pretty extreme,” said Ryther. “They basically want to erase that it ever happened. … PetSmart is basically buying their silence. That’s what they’re paying for. It’s like hush money.”

PetSmart, which has 1,600 stores in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico and employs 55,000 people, issued a lengthy response to the report, insisting that the safety of pets in their care is a top priority.

“Any assertion that there is a systemic problem is false and fabricated,” the company’s statement said. “We extensively investigate any and every incident, no matter how minor. Our independent team of investigators, many of whom have law enforcement backgrounds, is committed to conducting these comprehensive investigations.”