A KENNEL OWNER has said he is receiving death threats after a woman who left her dog with him while on holidays posted online that she returned to find out her dog had died and was wrapped up in duct tape.

Kirsten Kinch said she travelled to Iceland with her family on 27 December and left her dog Nova with P&E Boarding Kennels and Cattery in Dublin for three days.

Speaking earlier today on RTÉ’s Liveline, Kinch said Nova had an ongoing issue with colitis – an inflammatory bowel disease – which was being treated with steroids. She said Nova had been checked by a vet before she was left in the kennel.

She said she told the kennel owners about Nova’s condition and gave information on her medication.

Kinch said when she went to collect Nova she was in “complete shock” when they told her Nova had passed away.

The rescue dog was returned to Kirsten wrapped up in duct tape in a package.

She said staff told her that Nova had been found that morning with blood coming from her.

She had been put in, I can only describe it as a black bin bag and she’d been kind of pushed into a ball and they’d gotten brown masking tape and just covered the bin bag with masking tape… I don’t know if you’ve seen a 25 kilo husky but they definitely don’t fit in the shape that we were given.

When Kirsten brought the bundle to the vet, the microchip proved that it was indeed her husky.

After having had a post-mortem carried out, Kirsten learned that Nova had died of internal bleeding.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, kennel owner Paddy Cullen said they bundled up the dog after she died in order to stop the spread of the Parvo virus.

Cullen said he found Nova dead the morning of the 31 December in a “big pool of blood” and had bled out from the rear end.

Parvo is a highly contagious virus which causes an infectious gastrointestinal illness in puppies and young dogs, and without treatment, it is potentially deadly. The symptoms for this are similar to colitis.

‘We’re gonna chop you and your kids up’

Cullen said that since Kinch shared her initial post on Facebook and appeared on the radio, they have received nothing but hate mail and death threats.

People are threatening to burn down my house. People are saying, ‘we’re gonna chop you and your kids up and put you in a bag’.

Cullen said that people have already started to boycott the kennels adding “my business has gone into the ground”.

Cullen claims that Kinch told him she would be in touch after the autopsy was carried, but said she never made contact.

He said he plans to pursue harassment proceedings and has already given statements to the gardaí.