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The country's leading pet retailer is allowing customers to visit its Sunday grooming salons as part of a package of changes designed to reassure customers that its grooming is safe.
PetSmart announced the Open Houses in February as part of a survey conducted by NJ Advance Media that documented dozens of cases of dogs dying during or shortly after their toilet.
The investigation, released Thursday, revealed that the company had offered payments to homeowners, sometimes for a few hundred dollars, in exchange for confidentiality agreements. He also detailed allegations of inadequate training of groomers and intense pressure to increase profits.
Read the full survey, "Groomed, then Gone"
PetSmart, which operates more than 1,600 stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, is fiercely defending its security record and has admitted no wrongdoing.
"As a company of pet lovers dedicated to the health and happiness of all pets, we sympathize with these families in mourning," the agency said in a statement Thursday. "Nevertheless, we are not aware of any evidence suggesting that PetSmart's services caused the death of these pets."
During the investigation, the company announced that it would improve dog checks before grooming, install cameras in grooming areas and revise its training procedures.
PetSmart also announced that tours would allow "pet parents to meet their local groomers, discuss the specific needs of their pet, visit their local salon and answer all their questions". The visits will take place from 10 am to noon in all its stores.
"We maintain the highest standards in the industry, but we are by no means perfect," the company said in a statement. "That's why we are always exploring improvements to these standards."
Following the death of Scruffles in December, an English bulldog trained at PetSmart in Flemington, tens of thousands of people turned to social media and customers shared stories of injury or death.
The move gave impetus to the NJ Advance Media investigation, which has documented 47 cases in 14 states since 2008, where families claim to have taken their dog for grooming and killed him for or shortly thereafter.
This number, however, is hardly a definitive account of deaths.
No state currently requires all individual groomers to hold a license, so there is no standard training applied, lack of transparency in safety records and little public accounting when things go wrong. Therefore, it is impossible to know how many dogs die after grooming.
Read the full survey, "Groomed, then Gone"
When deaths occur, it is rarely clear what has happened.
Some pets may have unknown medical conditions that endanger them, or they may die of natural causes, old age or for any other reason beyond the groomer's control. Although PetSmart did not address specific cases in his statement, he stated that these issues were considered important factors in many of the deaths identified in NJ Advance Media's investigation.
Even when an autopsy, the equivalent of a human autopsy, is performed, it is often inconclusive and speculative. Cases are hard to prove and, since pets are generally considered legal property, there is little financial incentive for owners or lawyers.
When cases go to court, they are often settled and result in confidentiality agreements. In many cases, the company has offered out-of-pocket payments to pet owners, especially those who have talked openly about social media, in exchange for signing confidentiality agreements.
According to a copy of a three-page PetSmart non-disclosure agreement obtained by NJ Advance Media, signers are prohibited from disclosing anything about an incident, the payment received or even the existence of it. # 39; agreement.
In addition, the agreement also states that those who sign are prohibited from discussing their experiences on social media.
Sophie Nieto-Munoz can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her to @snietomunoz. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Alex Napoliello can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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