Sending your dog to the groomer shouldn’t be a death sentence. But this is reportedly what happened to two beloved dogs after visiting Healthy Spot, a pet store and grooming franchise with 20 locations in the California.
Now two women, Tamara Margolis and Aimee Tully, are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Healthy Spot that alleges the company uses a “conveyor-belt style approach to dog grooming” that ends with “serious injuries and deaths of innocent, vulnerable dogs, devastating their owners” (via Los Angeles Times).
Margolis alleges that she dropped her four-year-old Maltipoo, Charlie, off for grooming. The next call she received from Healthy Spot was to inform her that Charlie was dead from strangulation by noose used to tether dogs during grooming sessions. Here’s what allegedly happened.
A Trip To The Groomer Ends In Tragedy
Twenty-six minutes of Charlie’s time at Healthy Spot were captured on video surveillance, and it was horrific.
According to the report, Healthy Spot employee placed Charlie on a grooming platform and looped a green lead around his neck. As he struggled and squirmed against the noose, the groomer tightened it to a point where Charlie was unable to lie down.
The groomer then “pulls Charlie’s tail straight up to lift the dog’s hind quarters off the table,” making Charlie soil himself and start either “yelping or gasping for breath.”
Two healthy spot employees then rushed Charlie to a nearby veterinarian who pronounced him dead. When Margolis arrived at the animal hospital, Charlie’s body was still warm.
“I sat there for, like, hours hugging him,” Margolis said. “I knew this was the last time for me to be physically with the dog.”
‘It’s Awful And Heartbreaking To Watch’
Another plaintiff named in the the class-action suit, Aimee Tully, alleges that she took her ten-year-old rescue Pomeranian, Noel, to Healthy Spot for a bath and received a call from the manager a few hours later asking her to meet them at the vet due to “small cut” on Noel’s tail that was “bleeding a lot.”
It wasn’t a small cut. Noel’s bones in her tail were crushed, forcing her to undergo emergency surgery to amputate “nearly five inches” from her broken tail. Video surveillance footage shows the groomer “aggressively” brushing Noel’s tail.
Tully claims that Noel, who was once playful, hasn’t been the same since. “She’s terrified when I take her to the vet. I groom her at home. It’s awful and heartbreaking to watch,” Tully said.
Healthy Spot Responds: ‘We’re Being Extorted’
In response to the allegations mentioned in the lawsuit, Healthy Spot released the following statement:
“Our Healthy Spot family is heartbroken by Charlie’s death and by the injury sustained to Noelle under our care. These were two very rare cases… Our industry-leading training and grooming practices prioritize safety above all else, which is reflected in our record of serving hundreds of thousands of pets and loyal customers.”
However, in a video posted on their company website, Healthy Spot CEO Andrew Kim and co-founder Mark Boonnark, accuse Tully’s daughter of starting a “smear campaign” against them in an effort to extort $300,000.
In the video, the pair state that they “are proud of the business we’ve built.” They claim they would “cover any veterinary expenses associated with the pet’s injury – now and in the future.”
According to Kim and Boonnark, Tully’s attorney contacted them and threatened to use Tully’s daughter, social media influencer Riley Tully, to “‘blast’ Healthy Spot on social media unless we agreed to make a large cash payment to them separate and apart from the costs of their dog’s veterinary care. They asked for $300,000.”
“A smear campaign on social media has been targeting our company and our team over the past week,” they wrote on their website. In the video they added, “It was clear that they were seeking to weaponize the platform of the pet owner’s daughter – who is a social media influencer with millions of followers,” they said, “We were being extorted.”
Was The Video ‘Selectively Edited’?
Healthy Spot doesn’t just claim they are being extorted; they also claim the video footage of their groomers killing and injuring dogs was obtained for nefarious means.
In an emailed statement to Los Angeles Times, Healthy Spot spokesman Nathan Miller stated that the company records all grooming sessions, but claims the footage detailed in the lawsuit was “stolen” and “selectively edited.”
He added, “We are deeply concerned about methods and motivations of the attorney who filed.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney Gary Praglin, who met with Kim and Boonnark at Healthy Spot headquarters, explained the lawsuit in the simplest terms: “Thousands of people have had their pets groomed at Healthy Spot. We don’t know how many of their dogs have been harmed. This lawsuit seeks to get them to change their grooming policies so they aren’t harming dogs anymore.”
What You Can Do To Protect Your Dog & Report Abuse
Here at DogTime, we feel that it is imperative to choose a groomer just like you would your dog’s vet. Use care and rely on recommendations. If you feel put off by your experience, then don’t hesitate to shop around for another option.
For steps to finding the right dog groomer for you, please click here.
How do you go about reporting suspected animal abuse at a professional pet groomer? During a 2015 interview with Good Morning America, PETA’s senior vice president of communication Lisa Lange stated (via ABC News):
“Start by telling the owner of the establishment. Report it to the police because every state has a cruelty to animals statute… And then, of course you could always file a complaint with the state veterinarian. Basically, tell everyone. Don’t let a groomer get away with this.”
Have you had any negative experiences with a dog groomer? What steps did you take to ensure that it never happened again? Let us know in the comments!
