District Dogs agrees to pay DC $100,000 and improve safety measures following deadly flood

District Dogs will pay $100,000 to D.C. and make improvements to safety and emergency response, after a 2023 flood left 10 dogs dead.

Under a settlement reached with D.C.’s Office of the Attorney General, District Dogs must keep the store at 680 Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast permanently closed. That location flooded three times in 2022 — before the 2023 flood.

In an August 2023 interview with NBC Washington, District Dogs owner Jacob Hensley said that location was “officially closed. Forever.”

In the settlement, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said District Dogs misled customers about the safety of their dogs and “downplayed the flooding and mentioned specific measures that District Dogs was taking to prevent future flooding issues, representing to Consumers that dogs would be safe in District Dogs’ care.”

D.C. alleged District Dogs misrepresented that each dog in its care would enjoy a safe and healthy experience, told customers flood prevention measures were sufficient to keep dogs safe, and failed to implement adequate training, emergency and evacuation procedures.

The settlement said “District Dogs denies all of OAG’s allegations and claims, including that it has violated any consumer protection laws.”

In a statement provided to WTOP, a spokesperson for District Dogs said: “To bring this matter to an end, and to avoid the continued financial strain on our small business from an unnecessarily prolonged process, we agreed to settle this matter with one important condition – that the Attorney General’s Office agree as part of the settlement that there is no admission of wrongdoing by District Dogs whatsoever.”

On Aug. 14, 2023, 10 dogs died inside the pet day care and grooming facility following a torrential downpour. Water rose nearly six feet in the span of a few minutes, to the middle of doors on District Dogs, before one of the walls gave out, according to D.C. Fire and EMS supervisors on the scene.

As part of the settlement, District Dogs will be required to obtain risk management certification for its locations, to include emergency response and evacuations specific to each facility.

Some of the procedures include designating evacuation route assignments, rescue and medical duties, a clear checklist of sequential steps, as well as a system to account for each dog on site during emergencies. In addition, an alarm system would notify employees of an emergency situation.

Separately, in May 2024, eight families whose dogs drowned at the District Dogs filed a negligence suit against Hensley.

According to the suit, filed in D.C. Superior Court, the dogs’ deaths were foreseeable and preventable, since the District Dogs location at 680 Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast had flooded repeatedly, including almost exactly one year before the 2023 flood.

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