A dog owner recently went viral for sharing pictures of her Husky wrapped in masking tape by a kennel.
The incident took place at P&E Kennels in Dublin, Ireland. Kirsten Kinch had entrusted them to look after her beloved pet Nova for three days while she went on holiday. She described the dog, which was on steroids for an issue with colitis, as perfectly healthy.
But when she returned from her vacation, she learned that disaster had struck. Nova had passed away while in the care of P&E, causing Kirsten to wonder if he had been properly cared for.
In addition to dealing with the sudden shock of losing her dog, Kinch was horrified to discover that the animal's remains had been placed inside bin bags and wrapped with masking tape.
Kinch then, after claiming to ask and then be denied an explanation for what went wrong, booked Nova in for a postmortem at Dublin City University (DCU) and shamed P&E Kennels on Facebook.
However, after the post received so much publicity, the kennel owner, Paddy Cullen, shared his side of the story with the Irish Herald, claiming that he had no option but to wrap the dog's corpse in such an "inhuman" way.
"There's two sides to every story," Cullen said. "There was two dogs left in to us on December 27."
"They came in for four days and one of them was an ill dog and the other one was OK. The one that was ill was on steroids.
"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.
"We had a lot of dogs left in for the Christmas period, and I said seal the dog up in black plastic bags and that's what they did.
"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 added that as a result of Kinch's Facebook post, he and his family have received death threats, and he is concerned that his business had been damaged beyond repair.
Further weight was added to Cullen's side of the story by Lovin.ie who reported that DCU had concluded Nova died from internal bleeding without specifying its cause.
Kinch, however, has now hit back at the kennel owner again on Facebook.
She wrote: "I want to let you all know that what is being said about Nova and the possibility of her having parvovirus while being boarded In P&E Boarding Kennels and Cattery is false. This is a cover-up. Nova was checked by my vet two days before going to the kennels and fully vaccinated.
"The vaccine certs were shown to the kennels on the day I left her. No professional kennel would allow dogs in for boarding without the dog being vaccinated or seeing the vaccination certs.
"It is not possible for her to have had parvo as she was boarded with my other dog Romeo who is perfectly fine and was kept in the same kennel.
"I have results from Novas [sic] postmortem confirming that she didn't have parvovirus. I have still yet to be contacted by Paddy or any member of staff."
The bereaved owner then wrote that if Cullen had such concerns about Nova's remains being infected, he should have informed her as he was also looking after her other dog instead of leaving "in a rush".
"Why are there conflicting statements made by Paddy, saying he was instructed by a vet and in a second statement he instructed a member of staff to package nova in this way himself?" Kinch questioned.
"If it was suspected that Nova was sick while in their care, why was the contact information given by myself and my vet to the kennels never used?"
