Manager of pet grooming salon charged over death of corgi that fell off table

A manager of a home-based pet grooming salon appeared in a district court on Dec 11 over the death of a dog she had allegedly left unattended on a table.

Vanessa Chiu Yan Er, 29, who is also a partner at Pawkins SG, the home-based salon, was charged with one count of causing unnecessary pain and suffering to a corgi named Fendi in a unit of a Serangoon Central block of flats around 1.45pm on July 24.

This case first made headlines in July, after a video of a dog falling off a grooming table and being hanged to death with its leash went viral online. According to court documents, Chiu was Fendi’s groomer, and she allegedly failed to secure the dog with a “double arm lock” and left it unattended on the table.

The three-year-old dog slipped off the table and died after it was hanged by its neck with its leash for an extended period.

In a video posted on Instagram on July 24, six dogs seen in a room start to bark after being triggered by something off camera. No one can be seen in the footage at this point.

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A brown dog tied to a table then falls off it at 1.42pm, according to the video’s timestamp. It struggles for about a minute to get back onto the table on its own, but fails to do so. It eventually stops moving.

In a separate video earlier seen by The Straits Times, a woman is seen entering the room at 2.17pm and moving towards that dog.

She picks the dog up and places it back on the table before knocking on an adjacent door.

Fendi’s owner, Ms Sonia Tan, 24, told The Straits Times that the salon informed her about the death at 3.14pm that day after it took the dog to a vet.

Chiu’s case will be mentioned again in court on Jan 15, 2025.

A first-time offender convicted of causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal can be jailed for up to two years and fined up to $40,000.

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