Post by megan on Oct 18, 2013 8:51:36 GMT -5
Http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/nyregion/at-day-care-for-dogs-a-surprise-choke-collars-that-can-kill.html?_r=0
To begin with, the Bryants are not suing.
They are, however, talking.
Peanut, the family’s 3- or 4-pound Yorkshire terrier, was found strangled on Sunday morning, hanging from a strangle collar and leash in the back of a van operated by a fancy kennel.
“When you make the O.K. sign with your index finger and thumb, her neck wasn’t as big as the circle,” Carolyn Bryant said of Peanut on Thursday.
Peanut and Sweetie, the family’s French bulldog, spent quite a few days and some evenings at the TriBeCa outpost of Biscuits and Bath, which has eight locations in Manhattan. Besides day care and boarding, dogs staying with Biscuit and Bath can get manicures, hot oil treatments and organic lunches. “You’ll wish you were your dog,” the company’s Web site says.
Although you may not want to ride in the back of the van. All the dogs there are in double choke collars, a security precaution, the company says on its Web site, intended to give their owners “peace of mind.” Ms. Bryant said she did not know about it and called it “terrible, barbaric.”
In addition to the two dogs, the Bryant household includes two turtles, two fish and a peaceable reptile called a bearded dragon, named Beardie. And a 9-year old boy, Thaddeus, and a husband, Del Bryant, who often traveled in his job as president and chief executive of BMI, which collects royalties for songwriters.
Because Ms. Bryant was often unable to take out the dogs at night, the family trained them to use pads in Thaddeus’s bathroom.
During the day, Ms. Bryant said, she was uneasy about bringing Peanut out for walks because she was so small that she could be easily stepped on.
The family is getting their penthouse ready for sale, as they are planning to move to a farm in Tennessee when Mr. Bryant retires next year. “We love animals,” Ms. Bryant said, explaining that when real estate agents were showing the apartment, the dogs were often sent to Biscuits and Bath. Last weekend, Mr. Bryant was in London on business, so Ms. Bryant decided she and Thaddeus would visit her mother in Connecticut. The dogs would stay at the kennel on Saturday night.
Ms. Bryant said she regarded many of the workers at Biscuits and Bath as conscientious and caring. They could be counted on to give Peanut her medicines, including an Eastern herbal potion that she took for a collapsing trachea, which apparently is a common affliction of tiny dogs.
The Bryant dogs were dropped off on Saturday afternoon by the family baby sitter. Their stay cost $75 per dog for 24 hours, Ms. Bryant said.
At breakfast with friends on Sunday morning, she said, she got a call from a manager. “She said Peanut had stopped breathing and was in the emergency room and the I.C.U., and they were working on her,” Ms. Bryant said.
She loaded Thaddeus into the car. “I was driving like a madwoman back to the city,” she said.
Along the way, there were more phone calls, including one with the manager of Biscuits and Bath who told her to assume that Peanut was dead. Ms. Bryant said she and Thaddeus began to pray aloud.
The company said its management was not available to discuss Peanut.
It turns out that on Sunday morning, Sweetie and Peanut were being brought back to TriBeCa from the Biscuits and Bath place on West 13th Street, where they had spent the night. The dogs were leashed by “slip collars,” also known as choke collars, which tighten when the dog pulls. Then their leashes were hooked onto the walls of the van. Other dogs were picked up.
“Some of the other dogs were anxious and active in the back, and managed to get tangled with the patient,” according to a report from Fifth Avenue Veterinary Specialists. “When the driver turned around, he saw the patient hanging by his strangle collar. The pet was noted to not be breathing. The driver said he attempted chest compressions and nose to mouth breathing.”
Fifth Avenue Veterinary has 21 vets, and all the major specialties; it appears that since the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, a poodle there could have more immediate care in a medical crisis than a person. Peanut was intubated and given medicine to try restarting her heart, but it was over before she got there.
At the hospital, Ms. Bryant said, the doctor tenderly brought her Peanut, choke collars still attached.
“People have said to me, ‘Why are you not pursuing a lawsuit?’ ” Ms. Bryant said. “I don’t believe in the negative energy of that. I don’t want any other dogs to go through what Peanut did.”
She is in the freezer, awaiting burial at the family’s home on Shelter Island.
They are, however, talking.
Peanut, the family’s 3- or 4-pound Yorkshire terrier, was found strangled on Sunday morning, hanging from a strangle collar and leash in the back of a van operated by a fancy kennel.
“When you make the O.K. sign with your index finger and thumb, her neck wasn’t as big as the circle,” Carolyn Bryant said of Peanut on Thursday.
Peanut and Sweetie, the family’s French bulldog, spent quite a few days and some evenings at the TriBeCa outpost of Biscuits and Bath, which has eight locations in Manhattan. Besides day care and boarding, dogs staying with Biscuit and Bath can get manicures, hot oil treatments and organic lunches. “You’ll wish you were your dog,” the company’s Web site says.
Although you may not want to ride in the back of the van. All the dogs there are in double choke collars, a security precaution, the company says on its Web site, intended to give their owners “peace of mind.” Ms. Bryant said she did not know about it and called it “terrible, barbaric.”
In addition to the two dogs, the Bryant household includes two turtles, two fish and a peaceable reptile called a bearded dragon, named Beardie. And a 9-year old boy, Thaddeus, and a husband, Del Bryant, who often traveled in his job as president and chief executive of BMI, which collects royalties for songwriters.
Because Ms. Bryant was often unable to take out the dogs at night, the family trained them to use pads in Thaddeus’s bathroom.
During the day, Ms. Bryant said, she was uneasy about bringing Peanut out for walks because she was so small that she could be easily stepped on.
The family is getting their penthouse ready for sale, as they are planning to move to a farm in Tennessee when Mr. Bryant retires next year. “We love animals,” Ms. Bryant said, explaining that when real estate agents were showing the apartment, the dogs were often sent to Biscuits and Bath. Last weekend, Mr. Bryant was in London on business, so Ms. Bryant decided she and Thaddeus would visit her mother in Connecticut. The dogs would stay at the kennel on Saturday night.
Ms. Bryant said she regarded many of the workers at Biscuits and Bath as conscientious and caring. They could be counted on to give Peanut her medicines, including an Eastern herbal potion that she took for a collapsing trachea, which apparently is a common affliction of tiny dogs.
The Bryant dogs were dropped off on Saturday afternoon by the family baby sitter. Their stay cost $75 per dog for 24 hours, Ms. Bryant said.
At breakfast with friends on Sunday morning, she said, she got a call from a manager. “She said Peanut had stopped breathing and was in the emergency room and the I.C.U., and they were working on her,” Ms. Bryant said.
She loaded Thaddeus into the car. “I was driving like a madwoman back to the city,” she said.
Along the way, there were more phone calls, including one with the manager of Biscuits and Bath who told her to assume that Peanut was dead. Ms. Bryant said she and Thaddeus began to pray aloud.
The company said its management was not available to discuss Peanut.
It turns out that on Sunday morning, Sweetie and Peanut were being brought back to TriBeCa from the Biscuits and Bath place on West 13th Street, where they had spent the night. The dogs were leashed by “slip collars,” also known as choke collars, which tighten when the dog pulls. Then their leashes were hooked onto the walls of the van. Other dogs were picked up.
“Some of the other dogs were anxious and active in the back, and managed to get tangled with the patient,” according to a report from Fifth Avenue Veterinary Specialists. “When the driver turned around, he saw the patient hanging by his strangle collar. The pet was noted to not be breathing. The driver said he attempted chest compressions and nose to mouth breathing.”
Fifth Avenue Veterinary has 21 vets, and all the major specialties; it appears that since the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, a poodle there could have more immediate care in a medical crisis than a person. Peanut was intubated and given medicine to try restarting her heart, but it was over before she got there.
At the hospital, Ms. Bryant said, the doctor tenderly brought her Peanut, choke collars still attached.
“People have said to me, ‘Why are you not pursuing a lawsuit?’ ” Ms. Bryant said. “I don’t believe in the negative energy of that. I don’t want any other dogs to go through what Peanut did.”
She is in the freezer, awaiting burial at the family’s home on Shelter Island.