Walmart is denying claims that it fired an employee in Kemptville, Ont., south of Ottawa, for trying to rescue a dog locked in a hot car in the store’s parking lot.
In a statement posted to the company’s Facebook page Thursday, the company said “the associate in question was absolutely not let go for trying to help a dog in a locked car.”
Former employee Carla Cheney told CTV Ottawa she was fired shortly after calling police to report a dog locked in a parked truck.
Cheney said she hadn’t yet started her shift when she noticed a man putting his dog in his truck and rolling up the windows. She called police.
She was later fired.
“When (the store’s manager) did fire me, I did say ‘I really need to understand why I’m being fired,’’ she told CTV Ottawa. “He said it was because I was rude to a customer.”
“I told him I wasn’t.”
Walmart didn’t offer a reason for the firing for “privacy reasons.”
“The decision to dismiss an associate is one that we take extremely seriously and must follow a comprehensive process,” the company said in a statement on Facebook. “…as per our protocol, the store manager did speak to the customer in question about the dangers of leaving a dog in a hot car.”
The company announced that it will be adding signs to the front of all stores across the country to advise customers of the dangers of leaving kids and pets in hot vehicles.
In June 2012, a dog died after it was left in a parked car in the Vaughan Mills shopping centre parking lot.
