RESPONSE TO OWNER: I'm disappointed in your response, because there's never been an honest…read moreaccounting for the issues that occurred. Your response has inaccuracies and is misleading, so I feel some key clarifications are needed. In any event, I hope this has helped assure that these things don't happen with your future clients.
1) the delay in pick up was due to your desk not following the contact instructions for that day. Honest mistake but your desk person left a message for a person out of town on business. when I was contacted later, I had no idea I wasn't the initial call or that the time clock had already started.
2) regardless of why the delay happened, you describe my dog being in distress for a long time, putting your staff in a bad position to navigate, yet we never received one call letting us know this was happening, or asking why we were so delayed. We had no idea of any of this until we noticed his paw after we got home. It's disappointing that you've added a complete untruth that my daughter was told of the injury. That never happened and it was the entire reason I contacted you after they got home. We noticed the injury and didn't know what happened.
All of the mistakes that happened are normal things and I've always been happy with the grooming services. My struggle has always been the lack of authentic responsibility taken by the business. If nothing else, I hope it will help ensure that this doesn't happen with others.
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I used The Pet Salon twice. Prior to using the services, I spoke in detail with the owner about my dog's sensitivity to being put in a crate or in any way isolated. The first service was positive, my dog was well cared for and they did a nice job.
The 2nd time unfortunately was very upsetting. After getting the same service, my daughter picked up my dog (slightly late due to the salon contacting the wrong family member for pickup, who was out of town) Once she got back, we noticed that one of his nails had been injured, and had the remnants of antiseptic around that paw. We were shocked to see this, especially when there had been no communications to us that anything happened to him.
When I called and spoke with a woman who was either the manager or an owner, she said she would investigate and get back to me. And in her follow up, she told me that "my dog did this to himself" because we were late picking him up and she implied that he was acting up (barking, etc), and then banged his nail and it was bleeding. (as a side note, they were told "who" to contact for pickup, since only I was local that day and didn't follow it. It was 15 min notice, and they contacted me a while after they called my husband who was not in town)
Bottom line, there is so much wrong with the owner's messaging to me. Regardless of "who's fault" the late pickup was ... she was clear that they put him in a stressful situation for that extra "wait time". (it was an additional 15 minutes by the time my daughter got there). Their staff ignored the signs that my dog was stressed being in the situation we had warned not to do to him until he was stressed enough to injure himself. This owner's willingness to "blame the customer" for their own poor handling of the situation is a disappointment. But much worse was her decision NOT to disclose that the injury happened at all under their care. Mistakes happen, and had she responded differently, we likely would have continued to use their services.
In the end, the owner had the opportunity to take responsibility for their mistakes to ensure it wouldn't happen again. And we would have been a repeat customer. A non-disclosure of an injury to your pet - WHOEVER is at fault - is not only a violation of customer trust but I would suspect state regulations.
I RARELY write reviews, especially for understandable mistakes which will happen, so long as they can be discussed and remedied. But this owner's approach and judgment is a different level and I felt it was important to share.
