My Vet Has Hired "Thugs"; Shakes down pet owners...

Finally back home!!

Now let the real fun begin with those other vets....

I truly sadden to hear about the problems you experienced with the overnight vet. There's a special circle in Hell for shysters like that.

Anyway, I'm glad to see you've made through the worst with the fires and all, and I'm glad to see your kitty's back home.

Take care!
--Maria

Yay! Kitty's home.

You have a lot of support here, so you go get those bastards and don't let 'em do this to another animal and animal lover!! This is how we change the world man. One corrupt vet at a time.

I am in love with Sawyer now!

Glad he's home.

reply to post by jasonjnelsonTake them to court,you can recover more than half if not all,very simple

Yeah man, that would piss me off. The vets holding my cats like that.
I suggest legal action! Sue those mother ****ers!
(Starred and flagged)

Glad to see he is home! I hope he is eating too.

FYI most vets close at 12 on saturday and don't reopen until monday morning. Except many Petsmarts do have vets (Bainfield Animal Clinics) that are open until 6 or so on Saturday and usually on Sunday too. Good thing to remember if something happens on a weekend, they are definitely cheaper than an emergency clinic.

You have a cute cat!

I was just curious, what food do you feed him? It's not the crap you buy in the supermarkets is it?

reply to post by RoidRage


Iams.

I know it's not the best in the world, but not purina, you know? Thanks for the star and flag! He is an adorable little guy. I think everyone who knows him agrees...

[edit on 14-7-2008 by jasonjnelson]

reply to post by jasonjnelson


Right on...I am pleased to see that Sawyer is doing well.

Now, I think I hear cats mewing everywhere that this clinic would be a healthy alternative to Purina....

reply to post by jasonjnelson



Just found and read through your whole thread. You're cat is beautiful ! It's terrible that you both had to go through that. I'm really glad to see that he's happy at home now.


Make sure that you get copies of all the records that your vet requested from the emergency vet, and don't let her tell you that she can't give them to you. Take that emergency vet to small claims court, you do have a case.


Btw did the emergency vet administer IV's ? The fact that they did not test the fecal matter is a dead give away that they didn't do their job right, any time that i've had to take one of my babies to the vet when they were sick ( especially if they had diarhea) the first thing they do is a fecal matter test. Another thing is the fact that they didn't clean him up. They had him for how many hours and left him covered in his own feces ? That alone is considered neglect, i believe they charged you for his stay there, he should've been cleaned up. You left him in their care and were charged for this and you had every right to expect that your cat would not be neglected.



Your vet need not testify in court, ask her if she would be willing to give you a written statement saying that if the cat had been brought to her showing the same symptoms that she would have run the fecal matter test, that will carry a lot of wieght. Also she told you that they gave him an overdose of some medication, so she should be willing to put that in writing also. She more than likely wrote it in her notes in Sawyers file, so you can request copies of those files too.


I've had two dogs get cocidia, the first time she had diarhea to the point that she started pooping out blood. So yes by the vet not diagnosing Sawyer properly he did put his life at a greater risk and also caused a longer recovery time.


In case you are not aware of it they sell a otc anti diarhea medication for dogs and cats. They sell it at petsmart, it's called pet pectillan and it works very well. It has an ingredient to help pull out toxins and an ingredient to help stop the diarhea. The vet gave it to one of my dogs in pill form (higher dosage i believe) when she had cocidia. I don't mean that you should give it to him now, just in case he gets sick again in the middle of the night or something, you can give it to him until you can get him to his regular vet.



Anyway i really think you should take them to small claims court, contact any animal welfare group, humane society, animal activist groups, etc, you may find a lot of help and support. You should also talk to the authorities and see if you can press any charges for extortion, threats, strong arm tactics, etc.


Let us know if you find out what the stuff in his throat was. I'd be willing to bet that they left him unattended and he chewed up some type of bandaging because he was scared.


Good luck, and i hope re recovers quickly with no side effects.

reply to post by jasonjnelson


I also had a bad experience with an emergency vet. About 6-7 years ago my son's dog caught her nail on something and almost pulled it out. The nail was hanging, she cut the quick, and was bleeding bad, they can bleed to death from that. It was late at night and our vet was closed, as were the pet stores, so we rushed her to the emergency vet.


They did the same thing took her into a room and harrassed me to sign all kinds of papers agreeing to pay for services. I said that i only had a certain amount of cash wih me and did they accept debit, the receptionist said hold on a minute, made a phone call and the next thing i knew this really big guy came out from the back and stood there glaring at me while the receptionist told me that maybe i should send my son to get some more cash. It made me feel very intimidated, nervous, and angry.


Turns out all they did for her was to cut the nail and dip it in some quick stop powder. And for that they charged us $300. something that our regular vet would've only charged us $40. for at that time. Seems like the emergency vets are all about making as much money as they can. They know they have people between a rock and a hard place and they use it to their advantage.


I recently had another bad experience when trying to get medical attention for one of my dogs when he became ill. Turns out that he had a really aggressive form of cancer and i had to have him put down a little over a month ago. He was 12 and such a good boy, i miss him terribly. It seems like it's getting so hard to find a good vet, that truely cares about animals lately.


Again i'm glad that Sawyer's home and getting well, best wishes to you both.

Im the Director of a Humane Society (No-kill) and unfortunatly I hear, over and over again, horror stories coming from the 24 hour Emergency Vet clinics.

They are in a position to extort people. They are the only place to go at a time when people are emotionally frazzled and unable to make rational decisions. Their prices are inflated by hundreds of percent and they generally over-test and miss obvious diagnosis.

Point in case, one of my staff was fostering some very young puppies and two of them started to crash. While she was in the Emergency clinic at 2am a woman, probably in her eighties, brought in a senior dog who was dying. She knew that it was time to make the decision to euthanize and wanted them to do that. They wanted to charge her $180.00 to perform a simple euthanasia. She didnt have it and had to take the dog home where it probably suffered for god knows how long.

Thankfully, we also have a big vet clinic here who are open for emergencies all day Saturday and Sunday and only charge an additional $75.00 emergency charge on top of regular service prices. That still doesnt help the overnight problems.

The problems of the skyrocketing vet charges is a serious one. Between the economic situation and the price of a simple spay/neuter, people are not being able to afford the simple act of a spay or neuter. EVERY shelter in EVERY state in the USA, and probably in other countries as well, are seeing a HUGE explosion in kittens this spring. Why? Because people are not spaying and neutering.

It is a problem that we are all going to pay for as all these offspring will eventually end up in county kill shelters.

(Sorry, I got a bit off topic but...well...you know....)

Originally posted by BeaSharpe
Im the Director of a Humane Society (No-kill) and unfortunatly I hear, over and over again, horror stories coming from the 24 hour Emergency Vet clinics.

The term “no kill” is often very very misleading. Here in Atlanta the Humane Society claims the same thing, and yup they don’t kill dogs themselves -- they simply send the ones they can’t place to the city pound (a truly horrid place run by uncaring ghetto scum) and let the city kill them instead.

Virtually no shelters in large cities could take in ALL animals that end up at their doorstep and uphold a true a no kill policy, the kennels would fill up with dogs and cats that could not be adopted. There are tens of millions of dogs and cats killed every year in this country and most every large metropolis has a big problem. People often think its “okay” to dump their dog at the Humane Society here cause it is “no kill” when in fact those dogs could very easily end up dead or worse.

Let's not mislead people with the happy “no kill” slogan unless your shelter is different than most and only takes in pets it can place.


[edit on 14-7-2008 by Sonya610]

Ok...I'll bite. We are no-kill. We are not a city shelter. We are not a county shelter. We do have to turn away animals for lack of space. We keep what we take in until they are adopted.

The name Humane Society can be taken by anyone. Even some kill shelters go under the name of Humane Society.

We are not governed by the Humane Society of the United States as most under that name are not.

We are private. We run 100% on donations and fundraising. We have our own board of directors. We make up our own policies.

We send no animals to our local county kill shelter. We actually receive calls from them to take in animals that they dont want to kill but legally cant adopt.

If you would like to ask any other questions of me feel free to take it to private message as I dont want to highjack this thread.

UPDATE

Today I took the first step in small claims court, and my vet agreed to write a statement about the state of the animal when received, as well as a medical opinion about his treatment!

Also, I filed two official complaints, and go see the BBB tomorrow!

Thanks again for your support ATS. I will ask a mod to post a thread update when the case has reached a full resolution, but feel free to check in, as I will post my progress here.

-Jason

[edit on 16-7-2008 by jasonjnelson]

Good job. Great pics and I'm glad your cat made it through that hell. Good luck.

reply to post by jasonjnelson



Good goin !!! Don't let them try to talk you out of it, or make you back down.


Kudos to your vet, at least she's one of the good ones, cares about the animals.


How is Sawyer doin now ?

Good luck & keep us posted.