A Denver woman is suing a local cleaning company after finding her dog dead beneath her dining-room table after a cleaning service visited in August.
Robin Lohre hired Posh Maids for a three-hour cleaning Aug. 17 at her northeast Denver home. When the first of two maids arrived that morning, Lohre said she offered to take the 18-month-old dog, Ruthie, with her as she ran to the market. The woman assured her Ruthie could stay.
The maid was told that if she needed to leave the house before Lohre returned, to go out the back door. The door opens to an enclosed mudroom that would keep Ruthie from running out, Lohre said.
At about 1 p.m., Lohre and her 6-year-old daughter, Imogene, returned and found Ruthie dead with a bowl of water next to her.
“I still don’t know what happened,” Lohre said. “I came home, and she was alone. That’s what bothers me the most: She was left scared and alone to die.”
Lohre said she immediately called Posh Maids owner Miranda Pallone and asked what happened. Lohre said Pallone told her that Ruthie darted out of the house and was hit by a car. Ruthie was “whimpering a little” when the maids left.
While Pallone admitted that Ruthie ran out of the home as the maids were leaving, she said the dog ran back into the house and started growling and acting aggressively toward them. Neither of the maids touched the dog, Pallone said.
Posh Maids recommends that all of its clients secure their animals before leaving their homes.
“It’s such a terrible tragedy,” Pallone said. “We honestly feel we did everything in our power to make sure everything was OK. We had to move the maids from a potentially unstable situation.”
On Thursday, Lohre filed suit against the company in Denver District Court, said Jennifer Edwards, an attorney for the Animal Law Center, which is representing Lohre.
Lohre and Edwards say Ruthie was left injured and by herself for almost an hour.
“It’s just despicable what this company did,” Edwards said. “They took a family member from these people.”
Lohre owns the Talulah Jones gift store in Denver, where she said Ruthie used to sleep and greet customers on the counter.
Unable to sleep, Lohre said she wants compensation to help pay for the counseling she has been in since Ruthie’s death. Her daughter, who often referred to Ruthie as her sister, has had a hard time adjusting to the dog’s absence.
“They took a family member out of my life and broke my heart,” Lohre said.
Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794 or jsteffen@denverpost.com
