A Dublin kennel owner has responded to the controversy surrounding the circumstances in which a woman’s dog died while in his care.
Kirsten Kinch left her dog Nova with P&E Boarding Kennels, owned by Paddy Cullen, while she was on holiday in Iceland, but when she returned to collect the dog, Nova was dead and wrapped up in plastic.
The story has since made headlines around the country, and Cullen has now responded to explain that he did this to “prevent a dangerous virus wiping out the other dogs in our care”, and that he and his family have received a number of death threats.
Nova had ongoing problems with colitis which was being treated with steroids, though she had been checked by a vet before boarding in the kennels.
Owner Kirsten shared her story in an emotional Facebook post, writing, ‘Nova was a once in a lifetime kind of dog for me and my family and has left a hole that will always be impossible to fill, she is loved and missed every single day and I hope writing this can stop a similar situation in the future. ‘
This was how Kirsten found her dog when she came home from holidays. Kirsten says the boarding kennel only told her Nova had died moments before seeing him like this – "packaged up in duct tape". More at 1.45pm on #liveline pic.twitter.com/dlV4SzBu3y
— Liveline (@rteliveline) April 24, 2019
Kirsten explained that her dog ‘had been wrapped in what I can only describe as a ball in a black bag which was covered in masking tape, there was clearly so little care and empathy in the way she had been handled and dealt with since finding her’.
She continued, ‘There are no words to describe how upsetting and traumatic it was to carry her to the car and take her home in what seemed a completely inhuman way.’
Cullen told The Independent, “On the fourth day the dog died and bled out from the rear end. If a dog bleeds out it can throw out a virus called parvovirus which can wipe out all your dogs within 24 hours.”
He added, “The lady came home, we explained it to her, she said she was going off to have an autopsy done and she was to come back and let us know what happened but she didn’t.”
Cullen said he and his family were incredibly upset over the death threats, adding, “People think if you put a dog in a bag you’re a killer, but we did what we had to do.”
The postmortem showed that Nova died of internal bleeding but could not determine what caused it. Kirsten said she has contacted the kennels to ask for more information following the incident but Cullen responded that they had not heard from her.
Main image via Facebook/Kirsten Kinch
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