Timeline of Events
October 3, 2006
Around noon, Chemlawn enters my property without permission and starts
spraying a chemical called Tri-Power, even though the Chemlawn employee states
he saw:
The front door wide open, plus all windows
open AND Moose standing right there in the yard.
I called Chemlawn to inform them of what happened and find out the pesticides
used since receipt was illegible. Said they didn't know and would call
me back with answer. Moose seemed fine for about 3 hours. But, by dinner
time, he was slow and didn't eat much of his dinner.
October 4th, 2006 Wednesday
Moose vomited a large amount of grass and green gastric juice onto
carpet sometime after midnight but before 9am. Unsure of the time, but I
saw it right before I left to go to my Wed. morning bowling league. I
got a paper towel and threw it in the trash. (Hindsight: YES, I SHOULD HAVE
KEPT IT!) Came home around 12:30pm and was constantly watching him. "Is he
going to feel better or worse?" By late that evening I determined he
was getting worse. I stated to husband if Moose was not dramatically better
by tomorrow (THURS). I would take him to the Vet.
October 5, 2006
I was home all day. Was watching Moose carefully. Seemed slow, which is not
normal for Moose. 11:00am (47 hours later) I let Moose out to go potty. I
was watching him from kitchen window, while doing dishes. He seemed
odd, and appeared "frozen". I quickly ran outside to him and yelled
his name. Moose started having convulsions, muscle jerking, is dazed, non
responsive to his name, shivering. I was totally freaked out. He'd never
been in that condition before. I took him to Vet ASAP. Had to pick him up
to get him into car.
October 6, 2006
I called Chemlawn and demanded to speak to a supervisor. Told the story to
girl who answers phone, named Nicole, in my local office. She seemed sympathetic.
Said a Supervisor named Ozzie would call me back. He never returned call.
October 7th, 2006
Called again. Was disgusted I did not get a return phone call. I decide
to go over so called supervisors head and asked the front desk girl for the
contact information of Trugreen Chemlawn's Corporate Headquarters and the
name specific person to complain to. From her I only received the main Corporate
phone number, which I already had from web.
October 10, 2006
Looked up complaints on Chemlawn on the internet.
There's a lot.
October 13th, 2006
I called Chemlawn Corporate.
My notes:
I called at 3:34pm. Live person answers at 3:42pm. Puts me on hold again
from 3:45-4:11pm.
Another person answers, she informs me there is no person to directly complain
to by phone, I must send letter by snail mail.
She does not ask any personal information from me, she only gives me the
Chemlawn complaint contact information.
Trugreen Chemlawn
Attn: Brendon Bernero
Office of Vice President of Customer Care
860 Ridge Lake Blvd.
Memphis, TN 38120
It took me 37 minutes by phone to get this address.
See Letter I wrote to
Chemlawn Corporate
October 16th
I was expecting a call from a local Chemlawn supervisor. The Local Office
Manager weenies out and instead makes the Idiot Sprayer call me. They probably
taped the conversation. I hope they did!
(I am not naming him on purpose.)
Sprayer called on 10/16 at 3:30. I recounted to him that day.
Sprayer says: "Why didn't you put the dog in BEFORE I
sprayed?"
I said: "YOU SPRAYED BEFORE I EVEN KNEW YOU WERE ON MY PROPERTY!
I NEVER GOT A NOTIFICATION PHONE CALL!"
I then asked him if he "saw all the doors and windows open and if he saw
Moose outside" and he said "YES".
Chemlawn, did you hear that? It's on audio if you taped it!
I further said:
"WHY DIDN'T I GET A COURTESY CALL, LIKE I AM SUPPOSED TO? IT'S BEEN ON
FILE WITH CHEMLAWN FOR YEARS THAT I MUST HAVE A CALL, BECAUSE I HAVE 3 KIDS
AND A DOG!"
He said: "I have no way of knowing who requires or gets courtesy calls!"
(He also said this to me at time of incident.)
(Later after I hung up the phone, I realized that I forgot to ask him, the
exact pesticide he used and vowed to do that the next day, which I did.)
There's a communication breakdown, but it's not between me and Chemlawn
--it's between Chemlawn's office and their employee sprayers. He also
admitted to me the product is "NOT SAFE"! He acknowledged the dog was standing
in a just sprayed area.
Moose received 3 types of pesticide contact:
Inhalation, Dermal, and Oral
In my opinion, Moose most likely inhaled it from charging right up to the
spray rig, stood on it in the grass right after it was sprayed and a few
hours later when he started to not feel well, did in fact eat some grass,
which he vomited 12-20 hours later. A triple whammy.
October 17, 2006
Finally found out from Chemlawn, what chemical was sprayed:
TRI-POWER, which is: MCPA, Mecoprop and Dicamba, plus Liquid Ammonium
Phosphate (fertilizer)
Now that I finally knew what was sprayed I called the EPA, which is the
Environmental Protection Agency. A nice woman tells me I need to speak with
the MDA which is the Maryland Department of Agriculture. She actually calls
them for me and leaves a message and I got a phone call from the MDA later
that day. I spoke with Mr. Phil Davidson. He tells me to write down my story.
October 19th, 2006
1:30pm in the afternoon, I receive a phone call from Trugreen Chemlawn
Corporate Headquarters:
A young sounding girl, no name stated, says very quickly:
"Hello, this is Chemlawn Corporate headquarters. Just wanted you to
know that we will not be pursuing collections on this account. Bye."
Click.
Two notes about this:
1) That didn't stop my local Chemlawn from continuing to bill me for that
time period. I am still receiving bills for that Aug. 30th spray.
2) This phone call was not generated by me, as I had not yet sent my 8 page
letter to corporate. This was probably a response from local manager
talking to corporate headquarters about me after my conversation from Oct.
16th with idiot sprayer.)
Here is my public response:
Dear Chemlawn,
Thank you so much for not charging me to poison my dog!
Love,
Robin
October 20th, 2006
Moose appeared to be bouncing back and we had hope that he would return to
normal. We were so happy! Everyday he seemed a little better, more energetic.
He had such a strong will to live. I know for sure he didn't want to leave
this family and he fought with everything he had. Moose was quite pleased
with the dinner and puppy treat arrangements. People food all the time,
yummy!
November 5th, 2006
Moose finishes all the medications he was given on October 5th. He probably
missed the meds because he got so many puppy treats because if them. His
favorites were the Mar-o Snack. He seems to be getting back to normal,
except he never ate dog food again from day of poisoning. We'd been
giving him Royal Canin Labrador food, which he previously loved. But
now, he would eat only people food. Chicken and rice or hamburger and rice.
He lost his once insatiable appetite starting from poisoning day. I'd
been giving him
homemade dog food recipes that I found on the internet.
He wasn't 100% the dog he was before but he was so much better than he was
on October 5. We had hope that he would continue to get better and gain his
strength back. If I had to give a percentage I'd say by Nov. 5, he was 70%
of who he was previously.
November 22th, 2006
A few weeks after all the meds run out, I notice Moose is slowing down again,
sleeping a lot more and a deeper kind of sleep. Sort of comatose looking,
a bit freaky, scary looking. We noticed involuntary muscle twitching when
he was sleeping. Sometimes he'd start shivering when he was awake,
but the house wasn't cold. It was random. The shivering would last
from 30 seconds to 2-3 minutes. When he was in this shivering state he would
be incapacitated. Then it would pass and he'd seem somewhat normal
again. Hindsight is always 20/20. We were focusing on how much better
he was from the initial poisoning.
Moose started drinking more water, and started throwing up once every few
days. I said to my husband this was a bad sign and I decided to put him back
on
Zentonil,
an expensive drug to help keep a dogs liver going. He also appeared by symptoms
to be having kidney problems, which is a problem he never had before
Oct. 3rd.
I read fish pills are good for kidneys, so I gave Moose one of those a day,
along with 2 Pet Tabs vitamins, 1 1/2 Pepcid AC's and 1 Marin daily.
I didn't tell the Vet, yet, I just decided to put him back on all meds and
see if that turns him around. It worked before, right after the initial
poisoning, I figured it could work again. In my reading on Vet sites
I found that for liver and kidney failure they don't do organ transplants
on pets, they usually recommend euthanasia. We were not ready to hear that
kind of information.
This time period, late November, was the first
time it occurred to me that Moose may not survive his Chemlawn episode.
I worked very hard from the time of incident until Moose
died to feed him. This was a Lab that used to eat everything in site and
was in fact on a diet his whole life. We struggled to keep him at
75 lbs, because when he was more than 80 pounds he would start to limp from
too much weight. He had to be put on Rimadyl for a long time when he
was a fat boy with an all time high of 92 pounds --before 2004. And now I
couldn't get him to eat anything.
So, even though Moose appeared to bounce back after the initial incident--after
he was off the drugs, in only three to four weeks, he started slipping down
hill. There was something systemic going on and I suspected a few things...
Liver, Kidney and Neurological.
November 28th, 2006
I sent my missive off to
Chemlawn Corporate Customer Care. They never responded. Some
"Customer Care". NOT!!!
My own prophetic words, stinging my ears forever...
..."Long term ramifications of this event are still
unknown."
See:
The
same situation happened to someone else, except their dogs didn't die, just
got very sick.
December 7, 2006
Phil Davidson of the Maryland Department of Agriculture comes to my house
and takes a detailed report and pictures and sees Moose. We re-enact the
situation. Since he had never seen Moose before, he met a quiet, calm dog
who looked normal. That's the problem, Moose was never calm or quiet.
He was a high energy dog who was always "looking for the party". He was
mischievous and wanted to play all the time. If he was bored he'd
step on Fuzzy on purpose just to wake him up and cause commotion and have
a reason to chase him around. If the kids took off their gloves/socks/shoes
he'd grab one and run away as if to say "Chase me! Chase me!" He was never
like that again. When I emailed my Mom a picture of Moose, she said "His
eyes have lost their spark".
December 10th, 2006
For the first time ever, Moose attended my annual
Cookie Exchange
Party. In years previous he was always locked up in a bedroom,
so he wouldn't jump all over the ladies, who were dressed nice and carrying
trays of cookies into my house. He'd never lost his excitable puppy personality
until the poisoning. He slept all during the cookie party even with all those
women around. Very abnormal for Moose. Nobody else at the party
noticed this but me. My heart was breaking.
December 25th, 2006
I knew inside my heart that this would be Moose's last Christmas. I think
everyone else knew that, too, but we couldn't bear to say it. He pretty much
slept through the whole thing.
January 16, 2007
Moose seemed very uncomfortable because he ripped a toenail, so I took him
to the Vet. She did his blood work. The Vet said Moose was dying and he
was in total liver and kidney failure! I was shocked! She recommend that
day that we put Moose to sleep.
She recommend for me to take Moose to VCA Animal Hospital, to run extensive
tests and MRI's "because some people have to know exactly how their animal
died." She did not think he could be saved. I already knew WHY he was
dying. It was liver, kidney and neurological and due to herbicide poisoning.
I decided to not spent another $15,000 dollars. If I thought he could be
saved though, if there was any hope from the Doctor, I probably would have.
But she said there was no hope.
I came home and gathered my family as Vet suggested --and they all went crazy
on me, as if I was trying to kill Moose. How could I even suggest such a
thing? So I continued my hospice care, by hand feeding Moose and shoving
10 pills a day down his throat. The Vet gave me recipes for home made Renal
Failure diet, and we added antibiotics for the toe nail injury. It was at
that time I told her I started Moose back on the Zentonil two months before.
She agreed he needed that. Moose then bounces back a little and he leads
a somewhat normal, but even quieter life. He has moments of "being
Moose", but they were few and far between.
February 21, 2007
The beginning of the end. Moose hides underneath the deck and he won't
come out, unresponsive. The deck had to be cut away with a chain saw to get
Moose out. (It was 20 degrees outside.) He was shivering, shaking and
muscle spasming, just like the day of the poisoning. He looses muscle function
and can't walk without falling over. We put on his harness so we can help
him walk when he wants to go outside and go potty.
I took Moose to Vet for final blood work. She confirmed Moose was really
dying this time and she recommended to put Moose to sleep again. Again, I
go home and tell my family and no one can agree to do this.
February 24, 2007
The actual death process took about four hours. About one hour before
death, my daughter started begging me to take Moose to the Vet to be put
asleep. I told her it was too late, that Moose would die at home. We
just hope he couldn't feel any pain. It was not pretty.
Moose passed away in our den surrounded by the family who loved him so
much.
My final statement is this:
If Chemlawn had NOT come onto my property without an appointment
or permission, on October 3rd, 2006, Moose would still be
alive.
