Monday, August 19, 2019

So Much Loss... So Many Questions


Hello Friends and Dog Lovers,

This is my first post and I will keep it short and sweet.
This blog is dedicated to the love of my life, Bailey Boo. He was the world's sweetest dog - I know everyone says that about their pet, but he was everything to me. More on that later. I need to stop crying and continue fighting for his cause and his legacy.
I am pleading with you - CHECK OUT WHO YOU LEAVE YOUR PETS WITH!!!! I recently left Bailey over the weekend at Camp Diggity Dog in San Diego, California... this company touts 24/7 animal surveillance... well, he was attacked and killed by a dog 3-4 times his size sometime between 6:30PM on Friday and 8:30AM on Saturday.
How do I know this? The owner of this facility put it into email that he was last seen at closing time and discovered in the morning.
14-hours of lapse?? How is this constant surveillance?
Please go to Yelp... go to Outside.In... ask for references... call your vet... DO ANYTHING to prevent this from happening again. Spread the word of mouth - this CANNOT be allowed to go on!!!!!!

**** PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG SO THAT I CAN KEEP YOU INFORMED WITH UPDATES REGARDING BAILEY, AND THE FUTURE SAFETY OF YOUR ANIMALS ****

(PS- I had to set the post date to ten years in the future in order to keep it at the top of the chain... If anyone knows how to do this differently, please shoot me an email!)

22 comments:

  1. I am so sorry my love. You and your heart are in our constant prayers. I am so thankful that animals have people like you in their lives to protect them and stick up for them. Know that as your friend we will do whatever it takes to give Bailey Boo his justice. I am appauled that a place of business can ignore their motto to this extent. I will always forwarn people to keep their pets away from this so called "doggie day care", that is the least of what they should call their facilitiy. Ignorance and neglegance are to blame for your huge loss. We are so sorry Laura. We love you.

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  2. I heard about this incident today. I am so sorry for your loss. Any animal care facility that allows dogs to be left unsupervised should be shut down. This is not the first example of neglect that I have heard about this place. If they advertise 24 hour care, they have clearly been negligent. I will make sure I tell everyone about this. How dare they call themselves a 'pet care facility' they clearly don't care at all.

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  3. At Camp Diggity Dogs, we are exremely saddened by what happened. It was absolutely devastating. We are so sorry and are doing everything we can think of to prevent anything like this again.

    But sometimes trajedy strikes and you can't blame anyone. If you want your dogs unkenneled there's always a small risk, and we make that very clear in our release form. You can be assured that this was 1 instance out of 7,500 stays we've had, most for multiple nights.

    It was a freak occurrence and could have happened anywhere. We absolutely had someone there, but it happened so fast and the dog made no noise, so he never heard a thing. We do need to get the facts right. We never touted 24/7 surveillance. That would be close to impossible in the dark and the dogs asleep. The dogs were NOT left overnight from 6:30pm til 8:30am. We even have pictures of them being checked on. We have 2 people who live on the premises, and that's what we tell people. This was the 1st incident in the 2 1/2 years we've existed anything like this happened, and the 1st time a dog in our small dog room even needed veterinary attention.

    The owners had another dog there, a bulldog, who they listed on the information form as 39 lbs, and they knew the dogs were together, so they knew that dogs ranged from very small to small/medium. The only other potential aggressors were 4 dogs who had been with us for 27 nights, and never shown one sign of aggression.

    While it's too late for Bailey, to prevent anything like this from ever happening again, we are now keeping someone awake in the lobby all night, right next to the dog rooms, with the window to the small dog room open. We are also further separating the "Toy" breeds, normally under 15 lbs from the larger small dogs overnight and potentially during the day.

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  4. I never thought that one week ago I would be doing this. I haven't slept, I haven't eaten, I haven't been able to stop shaking.

    Everyone who knows me knows that I am not an irrational person- I am not trying to talk badly about an individual, a business, or anything EXCEPT FOR the practices that resulted in a catastrophic incident which resulted in my dog's untimely demise. I am telling the truth about what happened, including the name of the company and facts that are non-disputable.
    I have legal representation and factual evidence showing he was last seen at 630PM and we were told that he was not found passed on until 830AM when they opened. We were also told verbally that he was found "stiff", meaning he was already in Heaven for hours by the time he was found.
    The site says dogs are monitored 24/7 - we were never told that this monitoring was from residents who live upstairs and are not in the lobby. I was also told that Bailey and Shyla were kept seperated at night because of their size difference; they were only allowed to play during the daytime hours under constant watch of their staff.
    I will not be scared, I will not back down, Bailey will get his justice.
    My attorneys have told me there is no slander here - just very disturbing evidence and a horrendous outcome that should have never happened and will never happen again.

    God bless Bailey, may his memory NEVER be shadowed by fear, intimidation, or nonsense.

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  5. I am reading this response from the Camp Dog Diggity, and I am wondering how they can testify that the dog didn't make any noise, when the individual was upstairs sleeping! I cannot imagine a dog would be in another dogs mouth being shaken like a rag doll without making a noise! You cannot attest to something that you are not completely sure of. I am saddened to see this response from the doggie day care. I do not have any personal attachment to this dog, but I have heard the story, and I find it absolutely disturbing being a pet owner myself. My heart goes out to the owners of Bailey.

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  6. Thank you, Crystal, LBFT, and Martini! Woof!

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  7. I lost an animal to another animal (a neighbor's dog) once, too. It was heartbreaking. I drove around and cried for hours. I still remember that day.
    I hope you will be able to let your anger go. Don't dwell on the negative, it will only make the pain last longer. Nobody wanted this to happen, but it did happen, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do that will make it any better...or hurt any less. Don't let your grief turn into anger.

    I'm sorry for your loss. :(

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  8. I have to say I was disgusted to read the response from the owner of this establishment trying to justify this somehow.
    The fact is there was nobody watching these dogs. If there had been they would have heard this attack taking place. Possibly before the fatal outcome. The fact that Bailey was not found until 8:30am shows quite clearly that nobody was present, otherwise they would have found him sooner. I am not surprised Ted chose to comment on here. Just take a look at some of his comments to the negative reviews on yelp. That shows the character of the man in my opinion.
    You have every right to be angry. This incident is nothing less than gross negligence. They advertise 24/7 supervision. The fact is this so called 'supervision' is by residents of an apartment above 'listening out for anything'. Absolutely not acceptable. Anyone with half a brain will know you can not leave a group of dogs in a room, loose, unsupervised. If they are not going to be with the dogs overnight, then they must be crated.
    He's even trying to suggest in his comment that the owners other dog may have attacked the smaller one. Stating that the other 4 dogs in the room were not aggressive. He obviously knows nothing about pack behavior. Even the sweetest of dogs can turn vicious when pack mentality takes over.
    He says they are now going to separate the dogs by size. They should have been doing this all along. The potential for small dogs to get hurt by bigger dogs is huge. He says it was a freak accident that could have happened anywhere. Yes, anywhere that operates the same negligent practises. A responsible crate free boarding facility will ensure there is constant on site, in room supervision and size separation.
    I wish you every success in getting justice for Bailey. I hope people hear about this incident and think twice about where they take their pets.

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  9. Bailey was the sweetest little boy. He did not have a mean bone in him. He always welcomed me home with a big smile. His pack mate Shyla is devastated without her brother and has not been her usual happy self. It is awful that 10 to 15 years of his love have been taken away from us and I hope that no one ever has to go through something like this.

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  10. This makes me sick, and I don't even know you. If I were you I would take legal action for your own piece of mind and to prevent such horrendous acts from happening again. Such a profound loss.

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  11. The more actions I see by Ted G the more I am conviced this man is a low life. How dare he remove those reviews from Yelp.com. His actions speak louder than words. He is trying everything he can to cover this up. Well I would advise everybody to tell as many people as you can about this and what he is doing. The sooner it becomes public knowledge the better. Dog owners have a right to be protected from such disreputable establishments.Disgusting behavior.

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  12. Hello, as a fellow pet lover, I must express my deepest sympathy for your puppy and youall. Words can not help but please understand that many, many, many people have you and your doggy in their prayers. Please take some solice in knowing that and my heart goes out to you.

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  13. I am very sad. He looked so very cute. My heart goes out to you both.
    I work at a dog hotel and we really do have 24 hour watch....and not by a person who lives upstairs that may not be able to hear if dogs get in a fight. We have two people right there in close contact with the dogs at night.I have seen a few almost fights at our camp but we are alert employees and we stop it right before the fight happens. We are right there among the dogs when dogs from different owners are in the camp. We do not allow dogs from different owners together without supervision. That is just being safe. That is our rule and it is a smart one.
    We believe strongly that these little critters are people's fur kids and they love them. I know I love my dog very much.
    I am a college educated person with a 3.85 average and very level headed. I would feel grief and anger as well. I do not want to disclose my gender but perhaps because she is a young girl people are accusing her of being a hysterical nut. I for one do not buy into that stereotype.
    I believe is someone left their human child in a similar situration and they told the parents I am sorry but your child was killed by another child between 6p when we left the child unsupervised and came back the next morning and the child was dead I would be very sad.
    I know they do disclose their policies about being cage free. I believe they should re-think that procedure.

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  14. I heard about this incident for the first time today while at a dog park. I came home to look up the incident and found this blog.

    The word is getting out to the dog owning public.

    I'm truly sorry for your loss. It really does seem that some common sense steps needed to be taken long before Bailey was killed.

    The owners of Diggity Dog should have known more about pack behavior and the unpredictability of any dog in an environment outside of it's home territory.

    I hope Bailey's legacy will be improvement of similar facility's practices and policies.

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  15. Diana,

    I am so glad to hear that the word is out!! That made Ryan and I so happy to hear.
    Thank you so much for looking up the blog and letting us know that dog owners are upset about this, and that this will hopefully never happen again. It's an unimaginable loss, and I pray that it never happens to another dog parent again. Thanks again!!!

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  16. My Lab use to love going to Camp Diggity dog till one day I picked him up and he had a deep cut on his leg and Ted(the owner) couldn't explain how it had happened. Ted's a nice guy, but obviously the dogs were left unattended. I'm sorry for your loss. I know nothing can bring him back, but at least you are getting the word out that this isn't the safest place to leave a beloved pet. I know you will be hesitant in the future to leave your other dog anywhere, but ever since my lab healed from his cut I have found camp run a mutt to be the safest and most secure place to leave him when I'm at work.

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  17. I'm so sorry for your loss. My sweet boy is in the vet hospital right now with broken bones and multiple cuts from another facility. He's a 9 pound dog, whom I was assured would be separated from any large dogs. "Somehow" he got in with the large dogs and was chewed up. I know it so easily could have ended the way your Bailey did. These dog daycares need to be so much more careful taking care of our furry babies.

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  18. My dog didn't die, but she is currently missing. I had boarded her at a local kennel and she escaped. I didn't realize they didn't have a fenced area to walk the dogs. The walker put the leash on the ground to tie her shoe and my dog took the advantage. They then chased her into the woods where they lost her. She has been missing for 7 months now. I think I would rather know that she was dead and not hurting. The not knowing is killing me. I believe there should be a site where kennels are rated so that others can have a good feeling about how their animals are going to be treated and cared for while they are away.

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  19. I am so thankful I found this blog! We are looking for a fun doggy place to board our 7 mo. mixed (aussie/golden retriever) puppy for two nights in April. When I came upon Camp Diggity Dogs site it sounded like the "Four Seasons" of overnight doggie stay. Well, after reading all of these comments, we are NEVER taking our precious, sweet best friend to this place! I am sickened by your experience and so sorry for your loss. Your pup was soooo adorable! I am glad to know that my 17 yr old childhood dog who is now up in doggie heaven has such a beautiful companion to play with! I hope that any lawsuit you are or have filed against them is successful-they need to take responsibility and be held accountable. On another note, anyone out there have any recommendations of any overnight places for doggies here in SD? I am still looking, and now, quite frightened of what is out there! Though I am sure incredibly painful, thanks for sharing your story-sounds like to me you have saved many precious canine lives!!

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  20. I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't even imagine your pain.

    We too had a bad experience with Camp Diggity Dogs. We never did an overnight stay because (we live in the neighborhood) wondered why it was always dark at night.
    We leave our two dogs home and have Hali and Brittany from www.PeaceLove-n-dogs.com . They walk, spend the night, feed the cats... they are responsible, loving and affordable!

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  21. I am a doggie mom of three wonderful Yorkie kids ... while searching for a boarding facility, I came across your story. My heart goes out to you because the pain of a loss like this never really goes away. I want to thank you for sharing your horrible loss in Bailey's memory in the the hope that a tragedy like this can be prevented ... Nikki, Jacky and Tiger send doggie kisses to help you heal your heart.

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  22. I am glad I came across this blog. 3 years ago I boarded my 6 month old Italian Greyhound for a week at Diggity Dog Resort. When I came back my dog could not walk or move. He was starved. He had lost over 50% of his body weight. I rushed him to my vet and it took over a month to get him back to health. Their excuse? I did not leave enough dog food. Are you kidding me? I called every day and they told me He was fine. I spoke to the owner and not once he apologized. ALWAYS saying it was my fault or that the dog was very nervous and had diarrhea the whole time. What happened to emergency numbers I left? or telling me when I called daily?
    NEVER LEAVE YOUR DOG THERE.

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