No Answers Yet About Petco Grooming Death

MIDDLETOWN, RI — Ollie, the pug, died at the Middletown Petco while groomers were trimming his nails, and the state Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is continuing its investigation about why. Dr. E. F. Finocchio said today he believes Ollie suffered a medical emergency.

The little dog could have suffered a cardiac arrest or some other type of emergency, he said. The interviews with the groomers and the store manager are scheduled for tomorrow.

Tufts late last week released some preliminary findings, which did not indicate the actual cause of death but ruled out head or neck trauma. Nonetheless, based on that finding, Petco released a statement saying its groomers were not to blame for Ollie's death.

Over the weekend, according to published reports, Ollie's owner expressed some doubts about the validity of the post-mortem tests, called a necropsy, being performed at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

Hannah Sherman did not return calls from Patch. However^, reports in the Newport Daily News and Associated Press indicated Sherman and her family want a second necropsy performed at a different veterinary hospital. Questions about Tufts' independence came up after a staff member at the Cummings School, defending the hospital's decision to include Petco in the investigation, allegedly said the company is a client and Tufts does lots of necropsies for Petco.

Patch asked the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine how many necropsies Tufts performs for Petco. Taraneh Pettinato, spokeswoman would not say. She did provide this statement from the school.

"Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University performs approximately 700 necropsies per year for a variety of external and internal clients across a wide range of species. We cannot release information about specific clients or provide further comment on an ongoing investigation."

Patch also asked if the business connection with Petco would compromise the Cummings School's findings, and Pettinato did not answer that question in her e-mail reply.

Dr. Finocchio said it's certainly the owner's privilege to have another necropsy performed by a different institution. A second opinion would not stall the RI SPCA investigation, which is going forward.

"It's a very emotional situation," he said and added he hopes the investigation will answer the question what happened to Ollie.

Courtesy Stock Photo by Mike Mozart via Flickr