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Two dog groomers from The Fur Room, a business in Singapore which provides a range of services catering to dogs, have been caught on video handling a poodle roughly.

Rough handling poodle

Footage of the poodle's mistreatment was reportedly shot by a woman called Jia Ling, whose Shih Tzu was at the grooming station in front of the poodle, at around 6:26pm on Oct. 23.

According to an Instagram account (@sglostdogs), Jia Ling was trying to film her Shih Tzu's grooming process, when she noticed the groomers' alleged mistreatment of the poodle.

Warning: Graphic description and footage below

At one point in the videos captured by Jia Ling, the poodle slid and fell off the grooming table.

Other rough-handling behaviours, as seen in the videos captured by Jia Ling, included:

1. Tugging on the poodle's tail repeatedly to get it into an upright position
2. Tugging a comb through the fur around the poodle's ears
3. Hitting the poodle's rear
4. Holding the poodle by its lower neck

Jia Ling also recounted that she confronted the groomers, upon witnessing their alleged mishandling of the dog.

However, Jia Ling was allegedly rebutted by the groomers who told her:

"You are not a groomer so you don't know."

Jia Ling said that the groomers tried to defend their actions after they found out that she had filmed them. They told her that the poodle tried to bite them.

According to Instagram Stories by @chloeandchoo, the groomers reached out to Jia Ling after "she (Jia Ling) grabbed her dog and left" The Fur Room.

They allegedly sent Jia Ling a text to "appease" and reassure her that her Shih Tzu was not treated in the same way that the poodle was, and hoped that Jia Ling would not pursue the matter any further.

You can read Jia Ling's account of the incident below:

The Fur Room's statement

Jia Ling's videos have been making the rounds on social media since Oct. 24, and the groomers' behaviour sparked an uproar amongst pet owners in Singapore.

Instagram users have found and identified the owners of The Fur Room, and revealed their identities on the social media platform.

Mothership understands that the owner has since deleted her account, while the groomer has removed her profile picture.

The Fur Room has since uploaded a statement onto its social media platforms addressing the incident.

According to the statement, who is made by a person called Victoria from The Fur Room, an apology has been made to the poodle's owner, "A".

Victoria added that the poodle was "challenging to groom due to his hyper-activeness".

Seeing as "A" was a regular patron at The Fur Room, according to Victoria, the groomers "took for granted [their] familiarity with 'A' and was rougher with [the poodle] during this particular grooming session as he wasn't cooperating with us".

Victoria added that the incident was a "one-off negligence" on its part and investigations are underway.

In response to Mothership's queries, National Parks Board's (NParks) Community Animal Management Group Director, Jessica Kwok said that the incident is being looked into:

"The Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS), a cluster of NParks, takes all feedback received from the public on animal cruelty seriously and is concerned about alleged case of animal mistreatment reported at The Fur Room pet grooming salon. We are looking into the case."

Mothership has reached out to The Fur Room and will update the story once it responds.

You can read The Fur Room's full statement below:

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Top image from Zoe Hannah/Facebook