A Ridgewood couple says they're sad and outraged after learning that an incident at a Bushwick doggie day care wouldn't just cost their dog 2 inches of his tail — but also that the business wouldn't comp the canine's stay.
Dayi Novas of Queens was on a 10-day road trip in the Utah desert with her partner last month when she got an alarming text: “I have a urgent message regarding Timber can you please give us a call.”
Thinking the worst, they drove in a panic until they found a spot with enough signal to call and find out just what had happened to their 5-year-old treeing walker coonhound, who’d been staying at the Pawsies boarding facility on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn for the past few days. Novas learned from a worker that Timber had been injured. She said the employee told her that a trainer working that night was taking him to a play area at 1 a.m. when they closed a door too fast, clipping the end of Timber’s tail so badly that bone was exposed.
“At this point we're both yelling like, ‘What do you mean there's bone exposed? How does that even happen?’” she said. “We're cursing, like, ‘What do you mean there's bone exposed? What the f--- actually physically happened?’”
Novas said the worker told her Timber was, at that point, on the way to the hospital. Eventually, Pawsies’ owner, Ivan Gamba, got in touch with her and, after apologizing for the incident, said they needed her permission to amputate Timber’s tail, Novas said. After speaking to the veterinarian, Novas gave the go-ahead.
Timber's clipped tail.
“They amputated around 2 inches of it. And it used to have this really cute point and curl and now it's just a nub,” she said. “I feel so sad for Timber, seeing his tail shortened, that scab. Every time I think about it, I’m just really, really sad.”
Novas said Gamba paid for the veterinary bill and told her he would take Timber to his own house for one-on-one care, but said nothing about compensating the $925 stay at Pawsies — $500 of which was due at pickup, which was still seven days away.
“It would help us feel more at peace in our hearts if this length of the stay be comped this time,” she said in texts shared with Gothamist, adding that she hoped the initial deposit could go toward an already-scheduled future stay, or that company could cover the dog’s future vet visits.
But Gamba refused, telling her that if she felt she should be compensated with a free stay, “it would be best if he could be picked up as soon as possible,” and adding he couldn’t personally care for Timber at no cost. In a video she later posted to Instagram, she said the owner “refused to release him to us until we paid” — which Gamba confirmed to Gothamist.
Gamba said he felt that he had done a good job making the situation right by paying for the $2,000 vet bill and taking care of Timber himself.
“If I was to accommodate for everybody, we would never be in business,” he said. “We would be shut down.”
On its website, Pawsies states that pet owners must waive their right to make any injury claims against the facility “except if arising out of the negligence or intentional misconduct on the part of Pawsies.”
After Novas’ brother picked up Timber on Nov. 21 and paid the remainder of the balance, Novas got a text from Gamba telling her “using Timber’s accident to request free services is not something we can accommodate.” He told her to stop texting the number and only email the business moving forward.
Novas said she was shocked by the response, and resorted to sharing her experience on social media. The Instagram video recounting the events, which she posted Nov. 26, got some local traction, and she began getting messages from other people who described having bad experiences at the same business.
“We are relieved Timber is out of there and recovering with family, but we are nevertheless still sad and outraged,” Novas wrote in the video caption. “Timber's nub was raw and bleeding when we returned home. Accident or not, sweeping up the pieces does not unshatter a treasure. Pawsies permanently mutilated our precious puppy. What else is there to say.”
Gamba responded with a written statement on Pawsies’ Instagram apologizing for the incident, and turned off the comments on the page.
Though Novas hasn’t heard from him since, Gamba told Gothamist “if she really wants the compensation of $500 because that's what she really wants like at this point, like I mean I would give it to her, to be honest,” adding he just wants to move on.
“I'm not really worried because I'm very confident of what we do,” he said. “I'm aware that this incident happened and we're going through a bad moment.”
