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I stopped in PetSmart to pick up some dog treats and while there decided to have my Peke's back nails clipped. 3 years ago he had spinal cord surgery to correct a disk herniation in his lower back. As a result, he has lost the ability to walk unassisted. He is not in any pain and pulls himself around using his front 2 legs quite well. He does wear a harness over his back legs so that I can hold his back legs up and he walks with his front legs. Since he does not naturally wear down the nails on his back legs. the nails grow unevenly. He had 2 or 3 nails I wanted clipped. They asked for his rabies certificate which I retrieved out of the car. When I returned, they asked "can't this dog walk?" When I said no, they said they would not cut his nails as they cannot accept any dog that cannot walk. They wouldn't want to "take him in the back and cause him any more pain". When I told him that was ridiculous, they said it was corporate policy. They made no attempt to placate me, call a manager (indeed the assistant mgr. was one of the 4 people standing in the grooming salon with nothing to do) or even apologize or an idiotic rule... if it even is truly a corporate rule. Is this really a PetSmart rule? If so, it is quite ignorant and will only highlight the inexperience of their grooming and managerial staff, such as I witnessed first hand today. What idiots.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
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Petsmart P & P says that anyone can refuse a customer or client if they are not comfortable doing the procedure. As for just a nail trimming, we are allowed to take a pet that may not be in the best of health back, or in your case, a pet that does not have the ability to use it's back legs. The only problem with this scenario is, with a spinal cord injury, typically, nothing would be allowed to be around the dog's neck because it can injure it even more severely. If this is the case, policy does say that we are not allowed to work on anything with this animal.
When a cat or dog is in the salon, under our care, they must always have a lead on them at all times except for when they are in the cage. If your dog has a spinal injury and cannot have our blue lead around the dog's neck, we cannot accept that animal and the groomer should turn the service down
Actually, it is there to protect both the employees and your dog. Read some of these other complaints. Many people will try to blame pre-existing conditions on PetSmart. I've seen it firsthand. So there are rules in place to prevent this. Also, the grooming salon is not a vet hospital. They are not equipped to deal with special needs dogs, and for safety decline to do them. So what had happened if, say, someone accepted your dog for the nail trim, but he wiggled and maybe the person (who has not been trained to deal with special needs animals) does not hold him correctly and injures his back or legs? What happens then? Wouldn't you feel bad for insisting that they take your dog regardless of the safety rules they have in place? PetSmart has rules for a reason.
I fully agree with the above comment from Anon. It's owner ignorance to be insistant on putting their dog in danger just to convienance themselves.