A suit filed by Marie Moore argues that carers and vets at the kennel where she had taken her dog to, Riverside Animal Clinic, essentially ignored her dog’s distressed calls, which inevitably led it to suffocating from its own over barking.

It is claimed that Cowboy, her English Bulldog, who had never been apart from its owner before (a point that Ms Moore had been sure to emphatically disclose) had barked for days, a result of stress it was enduring. But for all the dog’s barking the suit claims that Cowboy was not once attended to, but simply ignored. In fact during the dog’s tenure at the kennel, Ms Moore had called to inquire about the dog’s disposition and she had been assured that Cowboy was doing just fine.

Upon the dog’s death, the kennel reasoned that the dog had probably died from hear failure, but after an autopsy it was found that the dog who had happened to arrive at the facility in good health had actually died as a result of suffocation.

Adding insult to injury, Ms Moore claims she wasn’t even notified of the dog’s death, instead an email was sent to her mother, who also had a dog at the kennel. It was only after phoning the kennel that Ms Moore’s mother was briefed that her daughter’s dog had died.

The autopsy revealed that Ms Moore’s dog’s stomach as a result of over-barking was full of air, his throat swollen, suggesting respiratory distress.

In her suit, Ms Moore claims had her dog been tended to, the dog’s air valves could have been cleared.

Countered Marie Moore’s husband, Carlos Moore- “Everyone loved him. He was a wonderful dog.”

The moral of the lesson? Just because plaintively it doesn’t make sense that a fish which spends its whole existence swimming in water can sometimes drown, it shouldn’t surprise us that every so often a dog which essentially spends its life barking can one day end up dying, no matter how unlikely from the very thing that defines it. It should be very interesting to see what damages are awarded if this makes it to trial.

dailymail.co.uk