Groomed To Death

A dog was killed after being groomed to death:

A Brooklyn family’s precious pooch was accidentally “roasted” to death after the tiny Shih Tzu was left under a grooming parlor’s scorching blow dryer for too long, the devastated owners said yesterday.

Eight-year-old Zoe Del Toro dropped off her pup, Phoebe, for an annual shave and shampoo at the Brooklyn Zoo & Aquarium in Flatlands on Wednesday — never suspecting she would not see the dog alive again.

Zoe and her mom, Tina, ran errands, and when the car phone rang two hours later, the pair thought the groomer was calling to tell them to come pick up Phoebe.

But after Tina switched the call to speaker phone, she and Zoe learned the horrifying truth — Phoebe had been fried to death.

“They said your dog has passed,” Tina recalled yesterday. “I said, ‘Passed where?’ They said, ‘Your dog is dead.’

“I said, ‘How’s that possible from a haircut?'”

When Tina arrived at the groomers, she was handed Phoebe in a cardboard box — which was still hot to the touch.

“I could still feel the heat of my dog through the box,” she said. “I can just imagine what this tiny little dog went through.”

. . .

Tina wanted justice for pet-store owner Peter Eppolito.

“This beautiful, sweet, loving dog was roasted. I won’t be happy unless there’s a vacant sign in this window,” Tina said.

Most groomers dry dogs by hand, said Kruger, but Eppolito’s shop, which grooms at least 150 animals a week, also puts dogs in cages that have dryers clipped to them.