A Dunn, North Carolina woman is demanding answers after a veterinary clinic lost her 7-year-old Labrador-German shepherd mix while her family was traveling.
Kim Croonquist says she dropped off Ewok at Vets for Pets on June 4, and never saw him again. “I don’t understand how this could happen,” she said Wednesday. “Our son cries himself to sleep every night.”
Croonquist says she checked in frequently during her trip and was told that Ewok was fine. She says Vets for Pets has offered no explanation whatsoever, and she feels it was negligence on the part of the business that led to Ewok’s escape.
“It’s one thing, if somebody took him out to walk him and he got loose, but we’re getting no answers, no closure, no cooperation from them on getting answers as to what happened to them,” she said.
“We’re very upset, also,” said Dr. Guy Beretich, who runs Vets for Pets. “Either he manipulated the door, or the door wasn’t shut correctly,” he said. “Every dog put in any boarding facility wants to get out, and he was more determined than most.”
He says it’s impossible to say what led to the escape.
“It happened on my watch, and it’s my responsibility, but I know of nothing that I or any of my collaborators did wrong or didn’t do right,” he said. “But obviously, something happened.”
Beretich was the subject of three registered complaints in 2009. According to WRAL:
In 2010, the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Board ordered Beretich to surrender his license after investigators found what they called “evidence of incompetence.” In one case, the board found he chose an inappropriate surgery on a dog’s eye and then did the procedure on the wrong eye. In another case, he was accused of failing to properly diagnose a dog and then inadequately care for it.
