In March 2025, a dog named Reagan was placed in the care of a licensed boarding facility in Forsyth County, North Carolina. She died after climbing unseen into a clothes dryer, which ran for 80 minutes before anyone knew she was inside. The facility was fined $1,800.

That fine is not justice. It is not a deterrent. And without real reform, it will not prevent the next Reagan.

North Carolina licenses and inspects pet boarding facilities, and the state even maintains a free public database where owners can look up inspection reports and civil penalties. But most pet owners do not know that database exists. Facilities are not required to tell you about past violations when you book. Inspections, as the state's own Animal Welfare Director Dr. Patricia Norris has said, are "like snapshots." They capture a moment, not a pattern. And a growing number of unlicensed facilities, including home-based operations, operate entirely outside the system.

We are calling on the North Carolina General Assembly and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture to act on four fronts. First, raise the civil penalties for facilities where animals die or suffer serious harm due to negligence. A fine that costs less than a weekend stay at a boarding kennel is not accountability. Second, establish mandatory minimum safety standards for all licensed facilities, including supervision requirements, equipment safeguards, and staff training, so that preventable deaths become structurally impossible. Third, require all boarding facilities to disclose prior animal injuries, deaths, and major violations directly to pet owners at the time of booking, not buried in a database most people will never find. And fourth, increase enforcement against unlicensed boarding operations. As Dr. Norris put it plainly: "If a facility is not licensed as a boarding kennel, do not leave your animal there. Period." That warning means nothing if unlicensed facilities face no consequences for operating in the open.

Pet owners in North Carolina trust boarding facilities with members of their family. That trust deserves the protection of real standards and real accountability.

Reagan deserved to come home.