I had trusted Mrs. Kristin Zickel, owner of Rockin'Z Doggie Ranch located in Vail, to care for our…read moretwo labs Colt & Remi. In January, we had a dangerous and extremely poor experience with her.
We dropped off both dogs on late Thursday, January 16th with a scheduled pickup of early Tuesday, January 21st for the agreed upon amount of $275.00. On the morning of Tuesday, my wife was heading to pick them up when Kristin had messaged her asking if she could call her. Once on the phone, Kristin told my wife that her worker Caitlin would be there because she had to leave to pick up her daughter. She then said that yesterday (January 20th), her golden retriever, Colt, and Remi were all playing and she heard a "scream like a yelp" and went to check, but didn't see anything. Then, on the morning of January 21st she noticed Colt had a "scab on his back." She was then asking if Colt and Remi play rough at home because it looked "old" (insinuating we dropped him off this way), to which my wife said not anything as of recent. Kristin then said Colt had a "small tooth puncture" but she cleaned it up and put some triple antibiotic ointment on it.
My wife arrived, picked up our two dogs and called to let me know what was going on. When she got home, I examined Colt and found him to have a very bloody, open wound on his back with ointment rubbed into it and his fur. It looked absolutely awful. We immediately called our vet to see if they could see us and arrived within the hour. Our Veterinarian, Dr. Droves' first words were "that's really bad". She asked how it happened and we explained the situation. Dr. Groves stated the wound was 1-2 days old and labeled it as a "laceration". Unfortunately, it was too late to be sutured. They shaved down his coat, cleaned up the wound, prescribed antibiotic ointment, antibiotic tablets, and told us to monitor the area and clean it daily. The total bill was $136.17 which we paid. Later that day, I contacted Kristin and asked for an explanation as to what happened. She seemed very nonchalant about the situation and very dismissive. I explained to her about bringing Colt to the vet, the diagnosis & cost. I then requested a refund of the $275.00 boarding cost plus the $136.17 in medical cost. Kristin immediately became very defensive and angry, even going as far as saying that if your child gets hurt at school, you don't ask the school to pay for it. I found this very insulting, and it just shows her poor attitude towards her handling of the situation. After the call, I sent her photos of Colt's wound (a 1 inch chunk of flesh was missing from his back, as well as being badly bruised in the area) along with the receipt from the vet, as well as Dr. Groves' notes from the exam.
The following day, Kristin wanted me to coordinate with our Vet so that I could see footage from an indoor security camera of what took place. She said she could not send the video nor show it to me privately due to it being classified as "distributing child pornography" because she had young family members in the video. She said it would cost too much to hire someone to blur out certain parts of the video, which is why I would need to view it at our vets office. I declined multiple times, saying it does not change the outcome of the situation. Colt was not being properly supervised, and he was not properly looked over after the screaming yelp. Kristin once again became extremely defensive and sent me a photo of the pet sitting contract that we signed nearly a year ago, which she claims absolves her of all liability. if she gives me a full refund + medical, it would be her admitting total fault. I said I would be open to half of the $275.00 ($137.50) since our other dog was fine, and the entirety of the medical bill ($136.17). Kristin told me she would need to consult with her husband and have to get back to me.
Unfortunately, over the next two weeks Kristin kept making excuses and postponing any type of resolution to the situation. I did not want to continue going back and forth with her, so I sent a final email, as my patience was wearing very thin at this point. The last excuse was that she was going on a planned vacation with her family and would be getting back to me when they returned, because she had a lot to say. Then, on February 9th I saw she had refunded me a total of $137.50 for "1/2 of boarding cost" and no email, text, or phone call with an explanation. It took Mrs. Zickel 19 days to come to the conclusion that she will not cover the medical cost, and only refund half of the boarding. I gave her many, many chances to make a bad situation better, but she has failed. Still to this day, she has never asked how Colt is doing. In-case anyone is curious, in her pet-sitting contract, it states the following:
"The utmost care will be given in watching Client's pet(s) and Client's home."
If this is what Mrs. Zickel considers "the utmost care" then I am very concerned.
