3-year-old pet dog dies after allegedly being left unattended at Katong groomer shop for over 1 hour

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"Buddy died," were the first words dog owner Tanish Dhillon heard when he answered a call from Pawsome.sg, a pet grooming salon he had sent his dog to.

"I didn't process it at first, I thought it was a joke and everything," Tanish told Mothership.

Pawsome.sg had picked Buddy up from their house for his monthly grooming session on Oct. 30 and they arrived at the salon around 9:14am.

More than two hours later at 11:45am, Tanish received the call informing him of Buddy's death.

What followed was a flurry of panic and desperate attempts to figure out how exactly Buddy, his perfectly healthy 3-year-old poodle, died on their premises.

What happened

Tanish rushed down to the grooming salon, located in Tanjong Katong, where he was showed a 12-minute CCTV footage of Buddy in his last moments.

According to the footage, Buddy can be seen in a cage, starting to cry and whine at around 9:50am.

He can also be seen attempting to get free from the cage, trying to push his head and paws through.

"For 10 minutes, he was screaming and everything. Then I asked [Pawsome]: 'Where were your people?'" Tanish said.

He was told that the staff on-site were following standard operating procedures (SOPs) and attending to other matters at the shop, which also operates as a pet shop on top of their grooming services.

Why did no one attend to Buddy?

"This guy was a big dog. He was like 25 kg. He was really big. So when he barks and he screams, the whole world can hear," Tanish said, questioning how no one could have attended to Buddy.

Tanish also questioned why Buddy was kept in the cage for so long, and was informed that the groomer only comes in at 10:30am.

He was shocked to hear this, as the shop had picked up Buddy way earlier than he needed to be there.

When he asked to see footage of the entire time Buddy was at the shop, they allegedly denied his request after citing an "internal review".

Tanish said that Buddy was left alone in the room for more than an hour before the shop discovered him.

Sent for post-mortem examination

Tanish was told Buddy had "just collapsed" but grew suspicious upon seeing that his front paws and mouth were covered in blood.

He said that Buddy was a healthy and happy dog, who had just gotten his vaccinations done a few months back.

"He was given a clean bill of health," Tanish said.

His sister, Tanya, also relayed her suspicions to him and they decided to halt Buddy's cremation to instead send him to the Centre for Animal & Veterinary Sciences (CAVS) for a post-mortem examination.

The family has also made a police report and is planning to pursue legal action as well.

Huge betrayal

The incident was unexpected and doubly heartbreaking for the family as Buddy was originally bought from Pawsome itself and the family had thought Buddy was in good hands.

He had always went for his grooming at Pawsome, despite their prices being on the higher end, Tanish shared.

"They used to tell me that he will come and meet his brother and all these things, and then they'll play. Then we just felt comfortable with them, because it felt like they cared so much about him," he said.

He thought that Buddy would be taken care of with "love, attention, and respect", but he received none of that, Tanish said.

Pawsome's statement

In a statement on Instagram (an Instagram Story, not a post), Pawsome said that they were "heartbroken" over what happened to Buddy.

"He brought so much joy every time he visited, and our team cared for him deeply.

At Pawsome, every dog is treated with love, respect, and attention - just as we would our own.

One difficult moment does not define who we are or the dedication our team puts into caring for animals every single day."

"We ask for kindness and understanding as our team continues doing what we've always done - providing a safe, caring, and professional environment for all dogs entrusted to us," they wrote.

Tanish said he was appalled by the statement: "That is very callous, very unnatural, that it just seems that [Buddy's death] was categorised as basically an incident, a singular moment."

The shop had also called Tanish on Oct. 31, asking if they had publicised the story online.

When he confirmed that he did so, the shop had asked whether it was because they "didn't do a good job".

Tanish simply replied that his dog had died while in their care.

Mothership has reached out to Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS), Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Pawsome for comments.

Top photos from tanishdhillon683 and lltanyadhillonll/Instagram