Otherwise healthy two-year-old dogs generally don’t drop dead with elevated body temperatures, and that’s what happened to the beloved Golden Retriever of a woman in Virginia while the animal was at Petco for a routine bath and grooming. The dog’s owner claims that a store employee left her pet for too long in a heated dryer cage, but Petco now says that they don’t heat dryer cages for safety reasons.

Dogs do have higher normal body temperatures than humans do, which is what makes them nice to cuddle with. The owner of this dog, Colby Jack, says that a veterinarian explained to her that the dog’s body temperature was higher than normal even 45 minutes after his death, which made the vet suspect heat stroke.

Petco has released a statement about this incident, saying that they’ve suspended the employee who was in charge of the dog who died, and explaining that while they use dryer cages, those cages aren’t supposed to be heated.

Here’s Petco’s full statement on the situation, which was sent to TV station WTVR.

All of us at Petco remain deeply upset by Colby’s passing. We have strict protocols in place to ensure the well-being of pets in our grooming salons, and we take it very seriously when those protocols are not followed. The groomers involved have been suspended while we complete a thorough investigation, and we are in contact with the pet parents and coordinating with local Animal Services to understand what happened in this terrible situation. It’s important to know we do not use heated dryers in any Petco grooming salons, and we can confirm there was no heat used in the drying process during Colby’s groom, but other details are still being investigated. Our thoughts continue to be with Colby’s family at this difficult time.

The dog’s owner wants to press charges against the store if possible, and is angry that the store let her dog suffer and die. “It sickens me that they can let something like this happen,” she said in an interview with TV station WTVR. “How could he not suffer? He was in a cage for God knows how long.”

Petco says ‘no heat’ used in cage dryer that family claims killed golden retriever [WTVR]

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