Unregistered “pet care” company staffed by untrained employees led to the death of an autistic child’s pet parrot due to internal injuries

SINGAPORE: A woman filed a police report after her child’s pet parrot, named Gru, died following a grooming session. The bird was allegedly improperly handled during the session, which took place at her executive condominium unit at Lorong 1A Toa Payoh.

Thirty-eight-year-old Huang Wei, a data scientist, reported the pet care service company to the police, according to the Chinese Shin Min Daily News.

Ms Huang, who had acquired the pet parrot as a companion for her child with autism, is also urging the authorities to investigate the incident.

Only after Gru’s death did she find out that the pet service company had never been registered. Moreover, its only experience had been in raising parrots.

She has said she believes what happened to her five-week-old African grey parrot, Gru, could mean that more stringent training and regulations are needed for pet care professionals in the country.

She says she believes Gru’s death should not be in vain.

Details of the incident

The pet care service visited Ms Huang’s Toa Payoh condominium unit last Tuesday (Sept 17).

She told Shin Min Daily News that during the session, she asked the pet service providers grooming the parrot if it was normal for the bird to keep screaming.

When they told her it was, she believed them. The grooming session lasted two hours. After it ended, however, the parrot started whining. More alarmingly, he also began to excrete faeces with blood.

“Gru tried to fly over my head, and his eyes were wet,” Ms Huang said. “He then fell. His wings were drooped, and he was bleeding.”

She then confronted the pet care service staff about this, but they alleged that the problem lay with the food she had given the parrot. Ms Huang also said that they hurriedly left her condominium unit.

An autopsy performed on Gru showed that he had internal injuries that were likely due to the improper way the parrot was handled while he was being groomed. This could have led to his death.

“His muscle tissue was damaged, resulting in blood in his urine,” Ms Huang told Shin Min Daily News.

While her other parrot fell from her unit’s 26th-story balcony on the day of Gru’s fateful grooming, it sustained injuries but survived the fall.

The pet care service was said to have admitted negligence and offered compensation when Ms Huang told them about the autopsy report.

/TISG

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