A South Florida family is demanding answers after one of their dogs died while under the care of a pet sitter hired through the Rover app.<\/p>\n
Kaylynn Ackeret said she left her two dogs, 9-year-old King and 4-year-old Prince, at a home in Hollywood on Friday before leaving the country. <\/p>\n
But the next day, she received a message asking her to call immediately. During that conversation, she says she was told her French bulldog, Prince, had died.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo remorse in her voice, just, ‘Yes, Prince died last night. You know, those dogs are prone to heatstroke. They overheat all the time. I\u2019ll have his body. Just let me know what you want me to do with it.\u2019 And that was it,\u201d Ackeret said.<\/p>\n
Ackeret said she’s tried since then to get answers about the circumstances surrounding Prince\u2019s death, but claims she hasn\u2019t received any information.<\/p>\n
Now she wants police to get involved. <\/p>\n
\u201c[The sitter] shouldn\u2019t have any kind of contact with animals. She should not care for animals. I want her to be fired from the job she’s with right now with canine specialists. And I think she should be locked up,\u201d Ackeret said. <\/p>\n
NBC6 is not naming the pet sitter because she has not been charged with crime.<\/p>\n
Ackeret said Prince was a birthday gift for her daughter, and now the whole family\u2014including their other pup\u2014is mourning the loss. <\/p>\n
The Hollywood Police Department confirmed that officers responded to a home on Atlanta Street where the incident occurred. In a statement, the department said officers are working with the City of Hollywood\u2019s Animal Control to gather as much information as possible and determine exactly what happened. They also said they understand the community\u2019s concern and that the investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n
Rover said it permanently deactivated the sitter’s account with no option to appeal, preventing her from contacting anyone or accepting bookings through the platform again.<\/p>\n
“Most of us at Rover are pet parents ourselves, and we can only imagine the heartbreak and stress Prince\u2019s family is experiencing,” the company said in a statement in part. “Safety incidents on our platform are extremely rare\u2014over half a million stays have been booked by pet parents in the Miami area, with more than 98% of reviewed stays receiving five stars. Prince’s death is truly heartbreaking, and it’s one we’re handling with the seriousness it deserves.”<\/p>\n
The company also said it refunded the cost of Ackeret\u2019s stay and offered to cover eligible veterinary and aftercare expenses under the Rover Guarantee.<\/p>\n
So far, authorities have not released an official cause of Prince\u2019s death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A South Florida family is demanding answers after one of their dogs died while under the care of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250,686],"class_list":["post-357666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-hollywood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}