Jan Holtz walks her new dog, Leo, in her South Tampa neighborhood. She says he’s good for her. “Definitely heals the ache in your heart,” she says, tapping her chest.
Holtz is heartbroken over the sudden loss of her previous dog, Lilly. Lilly went into a local Banfield Pet Hospital last month for routine ear cleaning – and never came out.
She describes the incident as horrific. “One minute healthy, the next vomiting blood.” She says that she dropped Lilly off and was browsing the store aisles for some time before she was paged. When she returned to the hospital Lilly was near death.
Holtz demanded that Banfield perform a necropsy, but she still doesn’t have any answers. “All I can assume is they strangled her, trying to hold her down trying to clean her ears,” she says.
She also says that after losing a loved one, compensation, an apology, and some answers are required. “If I have to, I’ll stand out in front of the store with a sign saying, ‘You killed my dog,” says Holtz. “I’m not going away.”
