Christine Pary and her sister Jennifer Gutierrez were crushed when they found out their beloved 8-year-old dog, Cocoa, died suddenly during a dental procedure at a vet hospital in Maryland. But what happened afterward made things even worse.
Cocoa seemed completely healthy before his dental appointment on April 23. He went under anesthesia, which is common for dental work in pets. Everything seemed fine, so the sisters were shocked when the vet hospital — Banfield Pet Hospital in Kensington — called and told them Cocoa had gone into cardiac arrest. By the time they got there, he had passed away.
“We said goodbye,” Christine recalled. “My sister completely broke down.”
The hospital offered to send Cocoa’s body for a necropsy (an animal autopsy) to find out what went wrong. They told the sisters they’d cover the cost and send him overnight to a lab in Virginia. But days passed, and then the hospital gave them terrible news: the package had gone missing.
A week later, Banfield told them Cocoa’s remains had leaked during shipping, and FedEx had thrown the package away.
Christine said this added to their heartbreak. “We were already grieving. Now we don’t even get his ashes. We have nothing.”
Cocoa and his brother Tofu were adopted by the sisters in 2016. They live together in Silver Spring, Maryland, and share several pets. While Tofu was Christine’s dog, Cocoa belonged to Jennifer. He was a happy, loving Chihuahua — not the kind to growl or snap. Out of all the pets, Cocoa was the most talkative. Now their home feels painfully quiet.
What made it harder was the response they got. When Banfield offered to give them money or buy them a new dog, the sisters were hurt. “You can’t replace Cocoa,” Christine said. “We want someone to take responsibility.”
Banfield said in a statement that they are very sorry for the loss and are working with the family and the shipping company to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.
Christine believes they were never warned about the risk of shipping Cocoa’s body. “If they had told us this might happen, we would never have agreed,” she said. “If the box was sealed properly, why did it leak? Wasn’t it labeled?”
Banfield didn’t explain more about their shipping process. They said the package was sent to Virginia Tech’s animal lab, but tracking shows it somehow ended up in Tennessee before disappearing.
According to the lab’s website, animal remains should be packed with multiple plastic layers, absorbent materials, and cold packs. Leaking packages can be destroyed, and the lab recommends not labeling them as containing a “dead animal” because some carriers might reject them.
FedEx normally doesn’t allow shipping of animal remains without special approval and didn’t say whether this shipment followed their rules. A spokesperson simply said they were very sorry and are working with the vet hospital to review what happened.
Christine and Jennifer say losing Cocoa was like losing a piece of their hearts. Now, they want both Banfield and FedEx to change their policies so no other pet owner has to go through this.
“We don’t want this to be forgotten,” Christine said. “We want to make sure this never happens to anyone else.”
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