The principal and sole instructor of a dog grooming school — Beauty Paws International — allegedly berated and threatened his students.

In a video sent to Mothership, a man is seen yelling at his students, grabbing one particular student's belongings and throwing them out of the room.

In the video, the man — identified as Roy Tan — can be heard demanding that his student "get out" of the shop. Tan also shouted in Mandarin: "What kind of attitude is this?"

When we reached out to the victim in the video, she told Mothership that Tan scolded her because she refused to use a different method to groom the dog as it was already getting impatient after being practiced on for while.

She said that Tan yelled at her: "Why are you crying? Did your parents die?"

The police confirmed to Mothership that a report was made about the incident in the video.

Recurring behaviour

The victim said that she was a student of Tan's for a year and a half. She added that for most of the time that she was Tan's student, he never scolded her and thrown her stuff before, but to the same intensity as what can be seen in the video.

However, she added that Tan has a reputation for having a bad temper, and would often scold his students for various reasons.

She said in mandarin: "He would scold them [because they did not groom well] and threaten to not let them go for their examinations."

Another ex-student of Tan's corroborated this.

Nicholas (not his real name) said: "Yeah, so, sometimes, he would, you know, mood swing, and then the emotions will just um, get very angry suddenly, and then after that he can be very nice, so it's kind of like a roller coaster emotionally, kind of thing."

"And then sometimes it's maybe the mood of the students. If the student's mood is...he doesn't feel it's right, then he may, you know, step in and get a little angsty over there," he added.

Nicholas explained that Tan had a very "traditional" way of teaching, likening his approach to a martial arts master.

"You know like master, you know like, you go to learn kung fu from this Shaolin temple for example. Then this master, the disciples have to greet the master you know, treat the master like in a certain way. And they have to respect him...[he is a] very traditional guy," he said.

No need accreditation to teach

According to the Singapore Kennel Club (SKC), there is currently no need to get accredited by any government agencies to conduct grooming lessons.

However, they said that SKC has a system of recognising various establishments that have a dog grooming syllabus aligned to international grooming regulations and standards.

Up until Sep. 25, Beauty Paws was one of these establishments on the SKC website.

People who are interested to become groomers will often sign up for classes conducted by these appointed establishments, and these establishments will send them for SKC certification exams.

On Sep. 25, SKC removed Tan as a director and grooming judge of the club, and removed the accreditation of his grooming school Beauty Paws.

Allegedly mistreats dogs

The contributors of the video also told Mothership via email that Tan allegedly housed more than 20 dogs in his shop and occasionally mistreats them.

When we went down to the shop at 479 Geylang Road, where the incident took place, Tan appeared to have already cleared out most of his things and the dogs that were housed there.

Two men at the shop, who claimed to be Tan's business partners, also told Mothership that he did house around 20 dogs in the shop.

One of his ex-students also shared a picture purportedly of his Lengkok Bahru outlet.

The same ex-student also said that he previously saw Tan throw a dog in a fit of anger.

He said that he has reported the treatment of the dogs to the Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS).

When approached for comment, AVS said that they have been alerted to the feedback and are looking into the case. The spokesperson said: "AVS takes all feedback received from the public on animal cruelty seriously, and will look into the cases reported."

AVS also encouraged the public to come forth with any form of evidence they may have of any cases of animal cruelty.

When we contacted Tan on Sep. 28 to ask about the allegations, he said that he was currently at the lawyer's office, and he is "not going to comment about anything at all, for now."

According to 8 World, Tan said that this whole situation has created a lot of hurt for him.

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Top image adapted contributed by Mothership readers.