What a heartbreaking local tragedy can teach us about grief, justice, public outrage, and compassion.
This week, I wasn’t wearing my PR hat. I was just a dog mom.
That was the trauma I was witnessing: a father showing up to collect his best friend, with no warning that anything was wrong, and being handed a reality no one should ever have to absorb that way.
I watched him scream through unimaginable grief.
I cried… uncontrollably. The kind of crying that brings you to your knees. I found myself there as I watched a father realize that the dog he expected to take home was never coming home again.
I have four dogs. They are my family, my world. Like so many of us, I trust other people with them from time to time. Watching that father’s pain, I couldn’t help but imagine it was me. Then I felt something else: anger. I was angry that this happened. Angry at the public response. Angry that the first thing I heard was reassurance that business would continue instead of overwhelming compassion for the family whose lives had just changed forever.
I wanted justice for Bruce. I still do. But as I sat with my anger, something else happened. Nearly thirty years in crisis communications wouldn’t stay quiet. I found myself putting my PR hat back on—not to defend anyone, not to diminish the family’s pain, but because I recognized something else unfolding alongside this tragedy.
A crisis no longer happens only to the people directly involved. It happens in front of everyone.
Within hours, thousands of strangers have become investigators, jurors, advocates, critics, and commentators. Social media amplifies grief, outrage, fear, and speculation faster than any press conference ever could. The algorithms don’t reward patience, they reward emotion.
That doesn’t mean the public is wrong, it means the environment has changed.
One post becomes a hundred, one review becomes thousands, one mistake becomes an organization’s defining moment, sometimes that’s deserved, sometimes it isn’t. Most often, it’s somewhere in between.
Here’s what people don’t often see- behind every public statement are lawyers trying to reduce liability, insurance companies giving instructions, employees terrified they’re about to lose their jobs, or worse get sued as well. Owners who may be grieving too while simultaneously trying to keep a business from collapsing. Police investigations, reporters calling every hour, families demanding answers, customers demanding accountability, social media demanding instant perfection. It is one of the hardest places a person can stand. That doesn’t excuse a poor response, it explains why so many organizations get it wrong.
There is one question I kept asking myself as I sat with all of this- What if it were me? What if I owned Camp Canine? What if someone’s beloved dog, or someone’s child died while in my care? I didn’t ask myself that question to excuse what happened, I asked it because I wanted to understand the weight of it. My first thought wasn’t about lawsuits, insurance or reputation, it was, “Oh my God… take everything I have. I am so incredibly sorry.” I can’t imagine carrying the knowledge that a family entrusted me with someone they loved, and they never came home.
That kind of guilt, whether an investigation ultimately finds negligence, an accident, or something else entirely, is a burden most of us hope we never have to carry. At the same time, I also understand why the public demands justice. Bruce’s family deserves answers. Accountability matters. Transparency matters. Both things can be true.
In today’s world, however, something else happens almost immediately. Before a business has time to gather the facts, coordinate with investigators, grieve alongside the family, communicate with employees and determine its next steps, the court of public opinion is already in session. Millions of people can watch, judge, share, review and condemn within hours. Sometimes that accountability is warranted, sometimes it exposes failures that never should have happened. But it also leaves very little room for reflection, humanity or even the possibility that everyone involved is experiencing profound pain in different ways.
I don’t know the owners of Camp Canine. I don’t know its employees. And I don’t know Bruce’s family. I’m simply a dog owner who cried watching a father grieve, became angry like so many others, and then forced myself to wrestle with what leadership looks like when the unthinkable happens. That question changed the way I viewed everything that followed.
What would I do if this happened on my watch?
The first instinct is almost always to protect the business, ironically, that’s often what causes the greatest damage. People don’t remember perfect legal language, they remember whether you sounded human., they remember whether your first instinct was compassion or reputation, whether you paused operations because losing one life mattered more than making another dollar, whether you spoke to the grieving family before you spoke to your followers, whether your actions matched your words.
If I had been advising Camp Canine from the moment this happened, my advice would have been simple.
Lead with Bruce.
Lead with his family.
Pause.
Then cooperate fully with investigators. Communicate often, even if the update is simply, “We don’t have new information today, but we’re still here, we’re still listening, we’re investigating, and we remain committed to finding answers.”
Before reopening, invite an independent review of every safety policy, emergency protocol, staffing practice, and training procedure- and publish what changed.
Then go further. Consider added transparency measures, including live-stream cameras owners can access at any time and, where practical and safe, GoPro-style cameras for dogs during group activities. No technology can eliminate risk, but giving owners greater visibility could help rebuild confidence and create another layer of accountability. Trust isn’t rebuilt by asking for it, it’s rebuilt through transparency.
I also want to leave all of us with something to think about. Accountability matters, justice matters, demanding better matters.
But somewhere along the way, we’ve become conditioned to believe that outrage is the same thing as resolution, it isn’t.
We can hold businesses accountable without forgetting that real people exist on every side of a tragedy. The family who lost Bruce, the employees who may carry the trauma of that day forever, the business owners, and managers whose decisions will rightly be scrutinized, the community trying to make sense of something heartbreaking. Compassion and accountability are not opposites, the best leaders understand that, the best communities should, too.
Bruce deserved better. His family deserves answers. Camp Canine has a long road ahead.
Accountability and compassion are not competing values. They are the foundation of trust. May we never lose our capacity for compassion, even as we demand accountability. Our first response should always be our humanity. Everything else comes after.
Starr Hall