Video: Investigators: Local kennel led customers astray

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TACOMA, Wash. - If you're a pet owner heading out of town, finding someone to take care of your four-legged family member is a top priority.

The KING 5 Investigators looked into a long standing, respected kennel in Tacoma that's taken care of thousands of pets while their owners are away. We discovered the kennel has some secrets.

A yellow lab named Sydney has been staying at Cairjac Kennels in Tacoma for years. Her owners consider her their child. When they travel they want the best for her.

"We love Sydney, she's like our kid," said Mary Anna Hunt. "She's very important to us, she's basically our child, because we don't have any kids yet."

The Hunts chose Cairjac because of the accommodations touted on the company Web site. Among the amenities are private indoor/outdoor kennels, heated indoor bedding areas, and one-on-one play time for an additional fee. Personal items from home were encouraged as well. Anything to make your pet more comfortable.

Before making the choice, the Hunts also took a tour.

"It looked great," Hunt said. "She could be in the run next to other dogs, interact with other dogs, be indoors or outdoors."

Several months ago, the KING 5 Investigators were contacted by a former employee of Cairjac Kennels who said dogs like Sydney the lab weren't getting what their owners expected.

"It just really bothered me that I was lying to them like that," said Amanda Kern. "She (Mary Anna Hunt) wasn't getting what she thought she was getting."

Kern quit the company after working there for three years as a kennel tech. The parting was not amicable. Kern was critical of how the manager ran the business.

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KING 5 showed kennel owner Jim Charboneau a home video of the kennel, secretly taken by Amanda Kern just before Christmas last year. It shows dogs in travel crates, crammed in a room that looked like a closet.

"The manager said I was a kennel tech," said Kern. "But I personally feel as though I was a professional liar. I was paid to tell these people they were getting something they were not."

What was she lying about? First, Amanda and other former employees say dogs weren't allowed to keep those special blankets and pillows from home, as promised. They say the manager didn't want them damaged or stained.

"We let them set them up with all their blankets and toys and as soon as they were out the door and out of the parking lot, we stripped everything out of the run, put it in bags, labeled it, and then gave them our own stuff," said Kern.

"We would tell (the owners) they could bring things from home to make them more comfortable," said a former employee who didn't want to be identified. "The owners thought they had their own blankets and things, but we would actually store them in a bag."

Next, during holidays and busy three-day weekends, many of the dogs didn't stay in those roomy runs as advertised. When the runs were full, others stayed in a travel crate for 18 to 21 hours a day, with breaks in half-runs outside.

"Their dogs are their children and I think they deserve to know exactly what is going on with them," said Kern.

Kern and two other former employees tell us the manager told them not to tell pet owners about the crates.

"With the crating, I felt like I had to lie," said an employee who didn't want her name used.

"Nobody knew," said another former employee who asked to remain anonymous. "(The manager) told us not to tell owners about crating. The holidays were crazy. There would be a dog in a crate in every nook and cranny."

The owner of Cairjac Kennels, Jim Charboneau, tells us Amanda Kern and the other employees who talked to us are simply disgruntled, and are lashing out.

"We take a lot of pride," said Charboneau, "It's probably one of the cleanest kennels in the state. It's one of the nicest kennels in the county."

Charboneau gave us a tour of his business. The place was spotless. All of the former employees we spoke with agreed that cleanliness was always a must at the kennel.

Before the interview with Charboneau, we showed him a home video of the kennel, secretly taken by Amanda Kern just before Christmas last year.

It shows dogs in travel crates, some stacked three high in a room with a furnace. Some crates were in an aisle, and others were crammed in a room that looked like a closet.

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Cairjac Kennels is located in Tacoma, Wash.

After viewing it, Charboneau said holidays are crazy, and dog owners know it.

KING 5 Investigator Susannah Frame asked Charboneau: "Do the owners know that their dog could potentially be crated over the holidays and not have an indoor outdoor run?"

Charboneau replied: "Yes."

That's not the message Mary Anna Hunt, owner of Sydney the lab, got. Frame asked her: "So no one ever mentioned anything to you about a crate?"

Hunt said: "No."

We showed the home video to her.

"They definitely didn't show us this when we toured the kennel," Hunt said. "It's very disappointing and very sad. That's not how we thought our dogs were treated when we were there."

The manager of Cairjac told us Sydney was never crated. She said the dog had so much energy she always got a full run. But Kern and another former employee said if the kennel was full, that wasn't so.

"She hated it," Kern said. "She would sit and scratch at the door or when we let her outside she'd jump on the door and scratch it, like let me back in."

"Sydney was there a lot, she's very hyper. When we weren't full Sydney got a run," said one of the former employees who didn't want to be named. "But when we were full, she was in a crate in the hallway. I know Sydney was crated."

We also showed the home video to Inga Gibson of the U.S. Humane Society. She said there's nothing wrong with crating dogs. In fact the Humane Society encourages crate training for emergency situations and transporting your pet. But after watching the video, she had concerns.

"If this is temporary, meaning a number of hours until they can move them into a larger kennel, that may be acceptable," Gibson said. "But obviously I don't think this is the level of care that most pet owners would expect when they're taking their animal to any kind of boarding facility."

At first the kennel owner told us dogs in the video were only in crates for a few hours. But when we enlarged the video time stamp, it showed most of the video was taken around 6:40 a.m., well before the business opened. The dogs had been there overnight, for at least 13 hours.

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Amanda and three other former employees say dogs weren't allowed to keep special blankets and pillows from home, as promised.

The final concern brought to us by the former employees was that they were told to routinely give Pepto-Bismol tablets, made for humans, to dogs if they got sick. And that pet owners weren't called about that ahead of him.

"(The attitude was) if a dog came down with diarrhea, oh, pop it a Pepto, it will be fine," Kern said.

Charboneau says pet owners were usually alerted.

"We will always try to contact the owner before we give anything to the dog," he said. "If the owners can be reached, yes, we talk to the owners."

Dr. Jayne Jensen of Tiger Mountain Veterinary Clinic, a well respected local veterinarian, says notification or not, giving pets Pepto-Bismol is bad practice.

"It's over the counter medication and people do it all the time for themselves but do not do it in a dog or a cat," she said. "There are side affects that are really serious in those animals.”

Charboneau ended our interview saying he stands by his staff and the work they do in caring for pets.

"We've very proud of this kennel," he said. "This will be interesting to see how you can drag it through the dirt with your story. That's about all I want to say. I'm sure that won't make it on TV."

We looked at the kennel's inspection reports authored by the Pierce County Auditor's Office, and all of them went well.

In addition we've heard from a slew of customers telling us they wouldn't take their pet anywhere else. But only a few pet owners told us they were aware dogs were crated during the busy holidays. The rest had no idea.

After we started asking questions, the kennel owner changed his Web site to let customers know that if they were busy, their dog could be housed in a crate.

A few hours before our story aired, the owner's wife called to say they were very upset about the story because they say it gives the wrong impression about their business. She also said there was never any attempt on their part to deceive KING 5 or the pet owners. As for their staff, she says they have attempted to correct any miscommunication they may have had with pet owners.