RAYTOWN, Mo. (KCTV) – An overnight fire in Raytown at a dog boarding and training business caused a scare for some pet owners, and the dogs inside the facility.
Pet Connection’s Brian Martveli, who was on the scene in the middle of the night, said, “The fire had already been put out when I came around the corner and I just kind of saw all the debris laid out here along this wall where you see most of the damage was done.”
The Pet Connection’s worst nightmare came true when its Raytown facility caught on fire at around 12:30 in the morning Wednesday. Thankfully, no animals or people were hurt.
Behavioral Trainer Colton Rivers said, “The power is off to half of our building right now so we’ve got some emergency stuff in place to make sure the dogs have light and heat and things like that.”
Dog owners were contacted by the non-profit organization throughout the morning to let them safely get their pets home.
“Once we got the glass swept up, we started getting the dogs out individually to get them some one-on-one time with us, take another look at them to make sure they were all doing alright, and they’re all doing really well considering everything that happened,” said Rivers.
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The cleanup is starting and now they need the community’s help with emergency funding. Rivers said they have some extra expenses now with staffing and this incident will affect their funding moving forward for the time being.
“We’re going to lose some revenue because obviously, we can’t bring new dogs in for boarding, we can’t do training because our training room was flooded by the first responders when they were putting out the fire,” he said.
All 15 dogs, including Bronx who joined us for the interview Wednesday morning, are adjusting to the stressful night with the hope of getting things back to normal soon.
“Double-checking their eyes and their gums just to make sure they are completely healthy. We’re offering them a lot of decompression in their rooms since all of the smoke is exited,” said Martveli. “Just making sure that we get them calmed down from the busyness that happened in the facility.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation. The Raytown Fire Department thanked the Kansas City Fire Department for their assistance in stopping the fire from spreading.
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