Dog wash outrage

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Hamilton Burlington SPCA is investigating after a video went viral last night. It appears to show a woman trying to clean a dog with a pressure washer meant for vehicles. The woman who took the video told us she woke this morning to find it has been shared 10’s of thousands of times.

Karliegh Heatley was at the Wash Me self-serve on King street at about 6pm Thursday. She noticed a woman trying to wash her dog in the car bay and started filming. You can see the dog escape and when the woman tries to drag it back, you can hear it yelp.

There is a doggie wash beside the bay the woman was using. It is enclosed and has tubs, where large and small dogs can get clean. It costs four times more than a car wash, but that section was closed at the time anyway, according to Heatley.

When we tested the nozzle, there were several options for low pressure washing that didn’t cause any discomfort on bare skin. Heatley says she couldn’t tell how much pressure the dog was getting. At that point she approached the woman and says she was threatened. She called police.

Police say the the woman was just trying to get some dirt off her dog, using a low power setting and did not believe she was doing harm. The dog was not injured, it was simply reacting to cold water as it usually does when bathing. SPCA will follow up to make sure. Police advised the woman the car wash was a poor choice for a dog and she was cooperative. But they will be investigating threats made on social media after the video was posted.