Woman says she searched for 8 days before pet sitting company announced her dog died

• A woman said she spent days looking for her dog after it disappeared from the care of a Wag walker.
• Liz Giorgi said she was only told her dog Fran had died after searching for eight days.
• Wag, an app that connects pet owners with independent walkers and sitters, has previously been the subject of controversy.

A startup founder whose dog went missing in the care of pet boarding firm Wag said she was told her pet died after spending eight days looking for the pup.

Liz Giorgi, CEO of Soona video and photo studio, tweeted Thursday that Wag broke the news to him with this message:

“I am calling to report that we have heard from your pet. Our local contact has informed us that she did not survive. She is deceased. These cases are incredibly rare but do occur. Do you have any questions? ?”

It’s not immediately clear if Giorgi’s dog, Fran, died while in the care of a Wag walker or if he disappeared and later died.

Giorgi said she left her two dogs in Wag’s care to go on a trip to Africa to honor the memory of her late father.

On January 5, Giorgi learns that Fran has disappeared. She enlisted the help of her mother-in-law to search for the dog as she was traveling to a remote location overseas and any attempt to return to the United States would take more than five days, she added.

Giorgi said she panicked when she couldn’t find a process for handling a lost dog or a way to contact customer service on the Wag app. “You just sit in the queue with everyone,” she tweeted.

Giorgi added that Wag responded to her 25 hours after informing her of Fran’s disappearance. She said she was “always expecting a simple ‘I’m sorry'”.

In the meantime, she gathered friends, family and peers to browse her neighborhood in Denver, in part through Nextdoor, a social networking app for neighbors.

—Liz Giorgi (@lizgiorgi) January 7, 2022

On Thursday, Giorgi said he received confirmation that Fran was dead.

“The dog tracker found her and called animal control”, Giorgi tweeted. She said she didn’t get to see Fran one last time before animal control cremated her. “We have her ashes now, however, and will make a significant donation to the rescue we adopted her in her honor.”

“To add insult to injury, they charged me for my dog ​​sitting services yesterday. Such a joke. They said they would ‘look into it,'” she added. added.

Wag, an app that connects dog owners with company-rated independent walkers or sitters, was founded in 2015.

Giorgi, Wag and Wag CEO Garrett Smallwood did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

The company has been embroiled in past customer service controversies.

In June 2019, a couple said their dog was stolen by a Wag walker, Buzzfeed News reported. And in November 2019, another client tweeted a video of a Wag walker stealing items from her home.

—Shayna Bryan (@Shayna_ABryan) November 21, 2019

That same year, a Los Angeles couple filed a lawsuit against Wag, accusing the company of trying to cover up the death of their French bulldog, Burger. They alleged Burger was in the care of a Wag walker, who stood on the sidewalk while allowing the 10-year-old dog to venture across the crosswalk alone, resulting in Burger being fatally struck by a car.

In 2019, Hilary Schneider, CEO of Wag at the time, wrote an open letter addressing the negative sentiment around the company’s customer service. She said Wag is “revisiting and revising” its customer service systems.