Chino Hills family demanding answers after dog dies from heatstroke at boarding facility
A Chino Hills family is demanding answers after their beloved dog died from heatstroke at a home-based dog boarding facility.
Kimberly Gebala said that she and her husband, Robert, were on a family vacation with their children in Hawaii when they got the gut-wrenching call that Herschell was dead.
"I had an anxiety attack before getting on the plane because I didn't want to come home knowing that he wasn't gonna be here," Kimberly Gebala said.
Hershell, a 5-year-old Australian shepherd, was boarded at a dog training business called Critical Thinking Dog Services, where the Gebalas had boarded him several times over the years when on vacation.
"He died from heatstroke and he suffered cardiac arrest, shock," Kimberly Gebala said, citing the paperwork from Herschell's necropsy.
She says that the heatstroke was determined as the most likely cause of death since it was 97 degrees in Chino Hills on the day he died, just one of several severely hot Southern California days in the midst of a massive heatwave.
When CBS LA reached out to the Inland Valley Humane Society, they said that they are "unable to comment as this is an ongoing investigation."
Upon contacting the owner of Critical Thinking Dog Services at his home, he said that he doesn't have a legitimate dog boarding business, and that he watches dogs for friends while they're out of town.
He said that he considers the Gebalas as his friends, and that he considered Herschell as one of his own dogs. He also said that on the day Herschell died, he was at his mother's house and that he was being kept inside with fans on.
The Gebalas say that he reached out to them mid-vacation asking for money.
"His words was like, 'Hey Rob, can you get some payment in advance because my sister's worried she's not gonna get paid,'" Robert Gebala said. "That was out of the ordinary."
They think that Herschell may have already been dead when the request was made. After researching the business, they learned that it was not licensed to board dogs. They're hopeful that no one else makes the same mistake.
"We just don't want any other family to feel this, because it's awful. You have no closure," Kimberly Gabala said. "You feel guilty."
