‘How Is This Possible?’: Chicago Family’s Dog Dies After Being Left in a Hot Van at Doggy Daycare, and the Business Is Still Open
"You open the van door and you're staring right at him."
Steve Serota had used the same doggy daycare for years. Miller, his six-year-old black Labrador, went there several times a week. A driver from Waggles Pet Resort in Wheeling picked Miller up around 9 a.m. Seven hours later, Serota’s wife got a call. According to Daily Mail, Waggles owner Ross Niehaus was the one who broke the news. Miller had been left inside one of the daycare’s vans all day, in temperatures that hit 97 degrees, and had died.
“I’m dumbstruck,” Serota said. “How is this possible?” He drove to the facility, where Miller’s body was locked inside a crate. He sat with his dog before he could bring himself to leave. “I mean, as you can imagine, it’s just heart-wrenching. But the most unbelievable part is that he was in the first crate,” Serota said.
“You open the van door and you’re staring right at him. This is a 110-pound black Lab. You see him the moment you open the door.” Waggles put out a statement. “We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of Miller, a dog who died after being left in one of our chauffeur service vehicles,” the company said. “This should never have happened, and our hearts are with Miller’s family as they grieve the loss of their beloved companion.”
The Business Says It’s Pausing the Van Service
Niehaus was arrested after turning himself in to police, and charged with cruel treatment of animals, as reported by ABC 7. He was released and is due back in court in Rolling Meadows. The company said it’s “taking what happened extremely seriously” and is pausing its chauffeur van service. Its daycare and boarding services have remained open for business.
“I’ve been in healthcare for a long time, and when something happens or something goes wrong, you do an immediate RCA, root cause analysis,” Serota said. “You look at where the failures occurred, and you make sure that you put absolute safeguards in place before you ever take responsibility for another life. And to my knowledge, none of that happened.”
Niehaus’s charge falls under Illinois’s Humane Care for Animals Act, Section 3.01, which makes cruel treatment of an animal a Class A misdemeanor on a first offense, carrying up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. A second conviction jumps to a Class 4 felony. The same section also covers leaving a companion animal in dangerous heat or cold for a prolonged stretch if it results in injury or death.
Illinois also has a separate statute, 510 ILCS 70/7.1, that makes it its own lesser offense to confine an animal in a vehicle under those conditions. That charge does not appear to have been filed against Niehaus, only the broader cruelty count. Serota said Miller, who was six years old, had been a member of the family just like his three kids. “When you have a dog, and we had a dog before Miller named Duffy, when a dog lives a full, happy life and they die, there is a life-cycle conversation you can have with your kids,” Serota said.
“But this wasn’t that, right? This was completely unexpected. This was completely unnecessary. It’s just tragic.” He said he’s speaking out so another family doesn’t go through the same thing. “We can’t let this moment pass without enacting some real change to ensure that other dogs don’t suffer the same fate,” he said.
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