Florida dog groomer Osvaldo Sanchez accused of posing as veterinarian

A six-pound pregnant Chihuahua named Sugar was struggling to give birth in mid-May, trouble that a veterinarian probably could have resolved with relative ease. Instead, a dog groomer pretending to be a vet botched Sugar’s Caesarean section, authorities said.

A week later, Sugar died.

On Friday, Osvaldo “Ozzy” Sanchez of Naples, Fla., was charged with two felonies: practicing veterinary medicine without a license and animal cruelty resulting in pain, suffering and death. His bail was set at $60,000, which was posted before his release on Saturday.

Sanchez, 61, did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment from The Washington Post. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

On May 18, one of Sugar’s owners, a woman identified as “BD” in court documents, was at home with the 6-year-old Chihuahua while her husband was out of town for work, Collier County sheriff’s detective Bruce Cordivari wrote in a sworn affidavit.

Sugar was having trouble delivering her litter, so BD called her husband, identified as “LP” in the affidavit, for advice. Since BD couldn’t drive that week, the affidavit states, the couple ruled out their normal veterinary clinic for treatment. Instead, LP contacted Sanchez, who had previously treated one of the couple’s other dogs, it adds. LP was told that Sanchez was a vet when they were first introduced by a mutual friend, according to the affidavit.

Sanchez told LP that he was close to the couple’s house and could swing by to look at Sugar, the affidavit states. He allegedly warned LP that he might have to perform a C-section.

Sanchez arrived at the couple’s home in a van emblazoned with “Ozzy Pet Grooming,” the detective wrote in the affidavit. Sanchez allegedly took Sugar into the van, where he examined her. He told BD he would have to operate, then injected Sugar with a painkiller and announced they had to wait for the sedative to take effect, the affidavit states. BD took the opportunity to go back into her house to do something.

“When she returned to the van Sanchez already had Sugar cut open, and Sugar was crying loudly in pain,” the affidavit states.

BD questioned Sanchez about the crying, leading him to inject the dog with more sedative, according to the affidavit. Then he allegedly removed a stillborn puppy from Sugar and “threw it in the trash in his van.” He sewed Sugar’s incision closed before leaving, the affidavit states.

The couple allegedly paid Sanchez $600 for the procedure.

Although Sanchez told BD that Sugar would wake up in a couple hours, the Chihuahua didn’t do so for more than five hours, and when she did, she was groggy and couldn’t walk, according to the affidavit.

Things went downhill from there, the affidavit states.

The next day, Sugar started shaking and was “not doing well,” so much so that her owners feared she would die, according to the affidavit. They day after, May 20, they took her to their usual veterinarian, who noted that Sugar was jaundiced, extremely lethargic and “close to death,” the affidavit states. Sugar’s owners told him that she had undergone a C-section at home, which was a red flag to the veterinarian, since such a procedure is usually performed in a medical setting.

The vet noted that the incision had been sewn shut with “some type of yarn” instead of sterile sutures, the affidavit states. He found the wound red and swelling and discovered that it had been coated with an unusual “silver sparkly spray” that he had never seen before, according to the affidavit.

The vet and other staff at the clinic treated Sugar for days, putting her on a feeding tube and giving her medication for pain and inflammation, the detective wrote. But she did not improve. After five days, staff recommended the owners transfer her to another veterinary clinic with a more technologically advanced ultrasound machine.

On May 25, the vets examining Sugar described her stitches as “amateurish and unprofessional,” noting that they’d never seen such a suture pattern, according to the affidavit. When staff called Sanchez to get more information about the C-section, he allegedly yelled at them, saying he didn’t have time to talk before hanging up. An ultrasound revealed that Sugar’s stomach was significantly distended and inflamed and that her pancreas was swollen and inflamed, according to the affidavit.

After a two-hour procedure, her owners brought Sugar back to their usual clinic, the affidavit states. They left her there for more treatment and went home. Later that night, staff called to tell them that Sugar had died.

It was a preventable death, authorities said. The couple’s vet told a detective that if an actual veterinarian had performed the original surgery, Sugar probably would have survived, the affidavit states. He said that neither he nor the other veterinarians at the clinic had ever had an animal die because of a C-section, according to the affidavit.

Detective Cordivari checked state records and found no veterinary license for Sanchez, the affidavit states. He did come across a business license that Sanchez had gotten four years earlier. In 2019, he created a limited liability company called “Ozzy Tree Service and Lawn Care,” according to the state Division of Corporations. A year later, he changed the company’s name to “Ozzy Pet Grooming.”

About a week after Sugar died, Sanchez allegedly called her owners late one night to ask who had made a criminal complaint against him. He told BD that he didn’t have a vet license and could go to jail, authorities allege.

Sanchez is scheduled to be arraigned on Sept. 5. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of both charges.