A Las Vegas woman says she's heartbroken after her bulldog was crushed to death by a grooming table at PetSmart.
Vicki Seifert took her 2-year-old bulldog Minni to get bathed and have her nails trimmed. Seifert and Minni had visited the PetSmart before. The grooming session doesn't usually take long, and Seifert said she would typically walk through the store while waiting for the groomers to finish.
However, during her last visit to PetSmart, she tells KVVU that she started to see employees running back to the grooming area. Wanting to see what was going on and knowing Minni was back there, she followed the employees.
"When I went in, she was crushed under a grooming table," Seifert told the outlet. "They said that they had listened for her heartbeat and she was gone."
Seifert says when she tried to find out what happened to her dog, she never got a straight answer from the employees.
"What were these two groomers doing? Why did no one notice where the dog was? Why was she under a table? How does a dog go in for a bath and get crushed in 13 minutes?" she asked.
Seifert says the table was electric and didn't see how it could have crushed Minni.
“I don’t believe it was the weight of the table,” she said. “It was the fact that it was electric, and it had crushed her to the point that the table was closed all the way on her, then with it being unplugged there was no way to raise it.”
PetSmart issued a statement, that said in part:
"A tragic accident occurred in our grooming salon, which led to the heartbreaking loss of Minni."
"There's nothing more important than the safety of the pets in our care, and we immediately launched a comprehensive investigation into how this type of unprecedented event could have possibly happened," PetSmart said. "We have been in constant contact with the pet parent since this occurred and will continue to do everything we can to help support her during this difficult time."
Seifert says she will wait until the autopsy comes back to decide on whether she will file a lawsuit.