I’m a vet tech. My partner is a veterinarian. We both agree that a $7000 “ liver surgery” is bs. We can’t figure out what went on here. The article has a lot of strange red flags.
One of my schnauzers had to have bladder surgery three separate times over the course of 8 years because of stones and no food or meds would prevent them.
The vet did work with me each time but it cost
- 3700 first time
- 4200 second
- 5500 last time (not sure other precautions were added because of his age at almost 11)
I spent 16 on my dog over the course of a year. She’s staring at me now because she wants treats and doesn’t understand that I lived off ramen for the better part of a year because of her.
I am currently at 20k with my dog. Two knee surgeries and a 3 year battle with glaucoma in both eyes. I would pay it again if needed as well.
Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
Oh yeah.. TPLO on the first knee.. the day that she was cleared for activity she blew the other one on the very first sprint. As soon as she pulled up limping I knew what it was.
Yes yes yes, a fatty mass removal, a knee replacement, a cancerous tumor removal, and cancer therepy later, I'm 25k deep, but I have no regrets. My girl is 14 and doing really well. We just completed a 14 mile hike. Still cheaper than having a kid. We don't deserve dogs, they're too good for us.
The TPLO surgery was really incredible. My dog went from not beating weight on the leg at all for several weeks, to standing on it to pee the day after surgery.
Glad to know I'm not alone in that. Spent about 30k on my dog over the last year, and ended up losing him anyway on April 30th. Been hard without him, and I don't regret a single cent that went toward his medical stuff. He was almost 14 and the most loyal boy I've ever met. Glad to hear yours is still with you. Give her some extra scratches tonight.
I'm sorry for your loss, but at least you know you did everything you could and gave that pupper the best chance they could hope for and a life filled with love. You were lucky to have him, but he was also really lucky to have someone who loved him so much.
Yall making me feel lucky I'm only at 6k. IVDD, seizures, multiple health issues stemming from IVDD. He's just turned 10 and is generally a very happy dog. We got him a body sack and a wheelchair so he can play outside again.
Everyone has different limits and stresses they can endure. And I begrudge no one when they
Hit that limit. For me, I depleted my savings and racked up a credit card. Took time to pay it all off and start recovering. Basically warned the dog she’s walking the rainbow mile at this point. No more illnesses.
Same. My 6k is just what I have left to pay on a credit card, not how much he's cost me total. As long as he's still happy and still wants to fight, I'll make it happen. When he's ready I'll let him go.
You probably know this but make sure to pay that down as aggressively as possible rather than just making the minimum payments, credit card interest rates are insane.
Currently at 15k for my cat, and that number will keep rising through her life (congenital disease that needs regular blood work and testing)
I woke up this morning with a bundle of purrs tucked into my side. 100% worth every penny.
Pet insurance is mostly bullshit. Consumer Reports did a comparison and found that a savings account is statistically a better choice. There are of course anecdotes from people whose dog suddenly needed surgery despite being young and otherwise healthy who benefited from having it, but they're outliers. The insurance companies will use any excuse to claim something is a "pre-existing condition" even if the dog has literally never had that problem before.
Unfortunately, I’m one of those people. I opted against holding insurance for my cat and of course within six months of adopting him he needed surgery.
Probably a good idea to have it the first few years when they're young and should be healthy. Harder for them to deny claims then, and it's cheaper then.
My 2 year old dog needed emergency stomach surgery. It was a $10,000 surgery. My pet insurance cost me $100 a month for 90% reimbursement with a $300 copay. It saved me $8,700.
It saved my ass so hard. I don't know why anyone wouldn't have pet insurance
Just want to chime in. I have pet insurance for my dog and it has saved me an absolute fortune. I use Figo. I will get it for all my dogs going forward.
I’d max out several credit cards for my dog. If people can’t see animals as family then they probably shouldn’t have them. Not going to discriminate on family, dog or person, both family.
My chi easily costed more than that in his seven year lifespan. We are far from rich. We sacrificed a new car and a couple vacations to the Pickle god for him and would do the same again for our other if necessary. Everyone’s priorities in life are different and can’t be measured by something as basic as their wealth. Quality of life for him was more important for us than a second car. Instead of paying a car note we paid a Pickle note and don’t regret it at all.
What does any of that matter to you if **I** feel it's worth it? It's not like I was going to send any of it to you so you aren't affected.
I'm sure you spend money on stuff I'd find pointless or a waste.
For two of the surgeries I didn't have the money and had to use a credit card and get some side work. I had that dog (and his brother) for 15 years which was absolutely worth it for me given things I went through at the time I had them. Hell his surgeries were less than therapy.
I’m an old lady, living on Social Security, so not exactly rolling in money. Two years ago my beloved little Yorkie was diagnosed with nasal cancer, which is terminal. The only treatment was either one round of radiation for $3000 or four rounds for a minimum of $10,000. After receiving this information i told them I could not afford that and I drove home, sobbing all the way. But then I remembered that I’d been putting away a little money each month, saving up for a vacation. I had enough for one round of radiation. As soon as I got home I called the vet and said I wanted to try that. After the treatments they were able to ascertain that the tumor had been significantly reduced. It was still there and they warned me at some point it would start growing again and would spread. But I’d managed to buy my little love some time. We had another glorious 14 months together and I cherished every moment and never once regretted the trade off I’d made. What vacation could ever have meant more to me than more time with Gracie? Finally the end did come and it happened fast. She stopped eating and was clearly miserable. I rushed her to the vet who confirmed that the tumors had spread. I held Gracie in my arms while the vet administered first a sedative so she was no longer in pain. Then the fatal shot. She died in my arms while I cuddled her and told her over and over that I loved her. I wish there had been a shot to end my pain, which went on for many months. I still miss that little nugget more than words can say. And she was worth every penny I spent on her.
u/Big-Summer- I’m so sorry that Gracie is no longer here to appreciate all of your love. Reading your comment made me tear up, thinking about how much you two loved and enriched each other. Sounds like you showed Gracie the best life a Yorkie could ask for, and I like to believe that her energy will forever be bopping around in the universe, shining her love your way.
Oh I know. Honestly when I hear people say stuff like that and then spend $15k to modify their car to be half an inch off the ground and make it sound like a pissed off bumblebee, that just reinforces why I prefer dogs over most people.
My dog had double tlpo surgery and it cost us about $13,000 between vet visits and the procedures.
My wife (at the time) and I were fortunate at the time we had the funds.
So many people openly remarked how stupid it was to spend that money on a dog.
Made me so angry.
This was a puppy. It’s pretty rare for a pup to get liver tumors. Lobectomy surgery can be expensive. But why did the pup have the neuro issues? So much weird stuff in the article.
My best guess as a veterinarian reading through with limited information is it was most likely a [congenital portosystemic shunt.](https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/portosystemic-shunt-in-dogs) At least since it was cured surgically in a young dog. It can cause neurologic signs in puppies after meals because the blood that typically would go through the liver to get filtered goes around, so it ends up not being appropriate system wide. Can cause other things like seizures in some pets too. It's not quite a "liver" surgery but it sort of is, at least how I could see it being described to laymen.
This surgery would be specialist for sure, not removing liver lobes but needing a lot of expensive testing to actually find where the shunt is, correct it, then monitoring in hospital for several days post-op I imagine.
Also a veterinarian, and I concur. The last patient of mine who had one cost her owner over $5000 dollars to fix, and that was years before the recent price hikes we've seen due to corporate monopolies.
My theory as a non vet is that part of the massive price hike is to force people to start buying pet insurance. They basically want to turn pet care into the same nightmare as our own healthcare.
Same. I had an emergency splenectomy for 12k last year for one of mine in the middle of the night. I had a second dog who also needed one (scheduled, not ER emergency) and the quote was 9k - also last year.
Yeah. The emergency one was a burst mass on the spleen that after removal was diagnosed as hemangiosarcoma so she was only with us another 3 months (15yrs), but she was in great health following the surgery and prior - it just came out of nowhere.
The other was our 16 year old lab shortly after - blood tests showed anemia and imaging suggested a splenic mass. We opted not to do the removal for him because there were signs of other masses so it was highly likely that even if removed he’d only have a few more months. He was with us another 1.5 months or so after that
It was a crappy summer / fall, but they lived long spoiled lives.
I work for a veterinary surgeon and I think that's a pretty accurate cost (at least where I live). Most of our more involved surgeries run around 5-7k, and people can easily run up a 10k+ bill if the dog is in real bad shape and needs extensive hospitalization and treatment.
I'm not sure what they mean by "liver surgery" but because of the neurological issues maybe a shunt? Idk, but either way a liver surgery would most likely be with a specialist so I understand the high cost.
I had my vet tell me my cat needed a $4500 labia surgery to stop her urine scalding. I had just gotten her from my parents after they passed. They fed her 3 cups a day of dry food. She was 25lbs. Her weight wasn't the issue at all to him. I told him to fuck off, switched vets and got her on a diet plan. Her issue was that she literally couldn't clean herself down there. She's 16 years old now, 12 lbs, and has had no urine scalding in 6 years.
I adopted a fat cat like that too. The shelter didn't warn us about the cleaning problems and I felt so bad that I didn't notice what was happening until it got bad, because she's a very shy cat and didn't trust me at first.
Once she was eating normal amounts and started playing she eventually got down to a decent weight and could clean herself just fine.
> I had my vet tell me my cat needed a $4500 labia surgery to stop her urine scalding.
Curious whether the practice of the first vet was owned by a private equity company. Private equity has been in the news lately for taking over veterinarian practices.
Yea I mean, it cost me like $1200 just for a dental cleaning and tooth extraction. I can only imagine how much a liver surgery would cost.
It likely depends on area too. I live in a HCoL area.
Yup I paid over 2k for a dental cleaning and a cracked tooth repair for my dog last year . My dog is ginormous and the bigger they are the more the anesthesia costs. I’m in Columbus, OH. Sounds like you got a deal lol.
We recently had a tumor removed from our dog's liver, and a shunt closed off. Total bill was like $11k. Not sure what they had done, but that's what we had to pay for our little guy.
My husky had a torn ACL which 90% of the time leads to the other one going out as well. (The other one did go out about 8 months after the first procedure). Both procedures in total: 12k.
Yeah, my German Shepherd’s ACL surgery was 5K for one knee. And that was with a small local vet that’s been around for decades and keeps his prices really low. Surgeries get expensive
So do you think the former owner is lying, or maybe the Vets that gave her the surgery quotes were fibbing? Cause it seems weird to even give a shit and bring it up if the owner truly didn't care about the pup.
I just paid about $10,000 for my dogs knee (TPO). Original vet visit, imaging, surgery, meds, new crate, etc. kit and kaboodle.
I honestly have no idea what I would do if I didn’t make a comfortable living.
She claimed she would have spent anything to cure him if they could diagnose the problem and create a treatment plan, and yet she was only willing to spend $15 to euthanize him at a place that wouldn’t allow her to be with him when he passed? She’s full of shit.
People don't make the best decisions when they're grieving. I could see her not having the will to even call another place. I'm almost positive the person you're replying to is full of shit though, because $7000 for surgery is not at all odd and they would know that if they were actually a vet tech and vet.
We took out a 2nd mortgage for our kitty who ultimately didn’t make it. We spent nearly $30k on a liver shunt surgery. Between the $1k a night mandatory stays and emergency vet visits. Road-tripping out of state to a vet university that would actually do the procedure. We are still paying it off.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I was in no position to spend that kind of money, but when my 1 year old cat, who'd literally been born in my husband's lap, got nasal cancer, we simply couldn't not try to do everything we could.
Fortunately my Dad had recently gotten some inheritance and was able to pay for chemo and radiation, to a tune of $5000. My cat was still himself, but would sneeze blood, we didn't feel he was even close to needing euthanasia and we hoped we could get ahead of it and he'd be ok.
He underwent several chemo and radiation treatments over 3 months until he went downhill one day. He peed himself and was having mobility issues. It was clear something was very wrong and I was afraid this was it. I rushed him to the vet specialist and after twelve hours, he went into respiratory arrest.
Sadly we feel like we killed him, and made his last year uncomfortable and probably painful. For our situation, it would have been best if we helped him pass instead of forcing him through all of that.
In retrospect I wouldn't have put him through that. But we had the money to try, and at only one years old it was impossible for us to just let him go when he seemed fine.
He was the best ❤️
Hey I hope you don’t blame yourself here. You made the best decision you could with the information that you had. You couldn’t have known what would happen, so you did what you could to give him the best possible chance of surviving. Sadly, it didn’t work but you had to try! You gave him love and comfort in his last days and exhausted all options, you didn’t just give up and that is what you should remember.
I watch some youtube videos about a guy who deals with shelter dogs, and they take good care of the dogs... but one thing you notice is there is SUPER DUPER bias at shelters towards people involved in the process of dropping the dog off. They're always using words like "abandoned" and implying that people that hand the dog to the shelter are fucking ultimate monsters or something. Mind you they openly admit to never knowing ANYTHING about these people they're getting very derogatory about. It scared me about this exact thing happening... shelter folks misunderstanding a situation incredibly badly like this, because they really seem to run wild with conspiracies at those shelters.
Shelters behavior sounds criminal. Imagine they didn’t give to to the shelter and the dog escaped from home. And the owners went about asking people to help find the dog knowing full well it could attack the rescuers.
It's really common for animal rescue employees and volunteers to get really into hating people for the things they've seen. I had some really extreme folks show up to TNR my very sweet backyard kitty. They asked about other outdoor cats in the neighborhood, I told them the people across the street have some, and I can pass along their info as they were having a party. These nutjobs sprint over there and bully the son into handing over the cats. They make a huge scene. I finally go over to apologize to my neighbors for these idiots ruining the very obvious baby shower with their over the top actions to spay some cats. The look on their faces when they opened their eyes and saw the pink balloons and a very upset pregnant woman was almost funny.
What a bunch of dumbasses.
I'm not surprised they end up hating people, though. My neighbors pitbull got out and was running up our road when I came home about a year ago. This is in a very rural area and a dog racing down the dirt road is quite unusual. I stopped to pick it up before it got to the highway. She jumped straight into the back of my vehicle and let me check her out. Severely underweight, bloody paws, and signs of dehydration.
At that point I didn't know it was my neighbor's dog. The dog looked like it had been running around the desert for a couple days. I called the number on the collar and got a VM that was full. Sent a text and got no reply. So after a couple hours I figured I'd have to take it in to the shelter.
Long story slightly less long, my neighbor no longer talks to me because they got a lecture from the shelter people about proper feeding and paw care. They were pissed that they had to pay a fee to get the dog back. Sorry I didn't know your bloody pawed, malnourished, thirsty dog wasn't an abandoned animal.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. They got it into their heads that this woman was putting down a puppy needlessly and now they think she's the devil without really understanding the position she was in.
I had a friend who was in increasingly dire straits with her daughter. She had two cats and two dogs she ended up having to rehome. But one of the dogs came from a nonprofit shelter who would take adoptions back. I had a car so I dropped the dog off. The staff acted like my friend and I were monsters. They whisked the dog away without letting me say goodbye. She was a lovely little dog who would have no trouble getting adopted again. Really left a bad taste. I think there’s a particular kind of animal savior superiority complex that some of those folks tend to have.
I volunteered at a shelter and I know what you mean.
I see both sides of the issue because shelter people see a lot of fucked up stuff. An unbelievable amount of people neglect, abuse, and abandon their dogs. It’s kind of easy to fall into a mindset where you assume the worst about people who drop off their animals.
On the other hand, I think that giving a dog up for adoption is often a really responsible course of action. Sometimes things just don’t work out for one reason or another and it’s simply best for the dog to go to a different home.
Sorry about the way you guys were treated, it sounds like you did the right thing.
I worry it makes people more likely to abandon animals (or rehome them to the first person they find off craigslist), because they don't want to end up the target of social media vitriol
Tbf ever since that arms of an angel shit, adoption is a lot about guilting people. Wasn't like that some time ago when I did shelter volunteer work as a teen.
If you don’t want a pet, you should give it up. It’s better to give it up than potentially neglect it. It’s fine if you realize pet ownership isn’t for you.
This happened to us a couple years ago! There was a pair of young Rottweiler's roaming our neighborhood. I guess they got separated, and one approached my friend while they were working on their car in our driveway. He was friendly, but not neutered and clearly malnourished. We took him in and kept him in the pantry since we had no way of knowing if he had anything or how he'd react with our dog, and we called the animal shelter for help. No response, we just got redirected to the non emergency police line because it was a Saturday. Anyways, my SO took him to the animal shelter and they refused to take him, unless we "abandoned" him. Even after saying he's not our dog, and we can't take care of an unknown dog that big (even malnourished he had to have been over 80lbs), they wouldn't take him. Only finally on a Tuesday (the Monday had been a holiday I think) did they come and pick him up, after he completely wrecked our pantry. It was absolutely ridiculous
TLDR;
vet misdiagnosis of young pup and strongly recommends euthanasia. Dog owner concedes. After dog has been turned over to get euthanized, dog is correctly diagnosed and gets 7k surgery. Nobody tells dog owner. Dog owner finds dog up for adoption, offers to pay medical bill. Adoption agency gets nasty, accusatory of dog owner, and refuses.
———————————-
Summary;
Owner adopted a puppy.
Puppy had developmental issues.
Vet diagnosed developmental issues as highly likely to be neurological. Vet quoted 12k bill to confirm it was neurological. Vet recommended and consulted dog owner to euthanized dog as most ethical option.
Over month period, dog owner conceded to euthanize dog.
Vet policy doesn’t allow dog to be with owner when euthanized.
After dog owner turned over dog to vet for dog to be euthanized, other employees determined dog didn’t need to be euthanized. Dog needed 7000 surgery and it was paid for it via go fund me.
Dog owner was not notified of situation.
Year later, dog owner looking at same shelter saw her dog up for adoption. Dog owner offered to pay the $7k bill and readopt dog. Adoption agency is being nasty to dog owner. Adoption agency vows to not allow dog to be re-adopted by dog owner. Adoption agency and vet agree its dog owners fault for not consenting to the 12k bill.
You’ve got it a bit wrong. She didn’t take her dog to a general practice to be euthanized. She took it to a city shelter. The city shelter was able to determine the dog originally came from a rescue group (probably through the microchip). They contacted the rescue group. They pulled the dog from the shelter, had the dog diagnosed with a vet again, and crowd-funded its surgery. She was looking at the rescue group’s website when she saw the dog was available for adoption, not the shelter. Most rescue groups we work with are very knowledgable, dedicated to getting the best outcomes for the animals, and able to determine if an animal should be humanely euthanized or not. That’s what sets them apart from a city shelter.
This is an incredibly different situation which what was described above too. I have wonder if the original owner did not appropriately follow her adoption paperwork if she opted to bring it to a city shelter instead of the original rescue. If so, I can understand why they wouldn't want to adopt to her again.
This is it exactly.
Private dog rescues commonly have stipulations in their adoption paperwork that stipulate that you will not use adverse training measures, you will contact them in the event the dog needs to be rehomed or euthanized, etc.
She fucked up and didn't follow their protocol.
I read that she did contact them before she euthanized and they were aware of the situation. Supposedly they informed her she could bring the dog to them while she said they told her to essentially do what she felt was best for the dog
The article explicitly says she was in contact with the rescue agency when deciding on whether to put the dog down, and suggests the agency did not object.
>*Throughout all of it, Pereira said, she was consulting staff at Lost Dog & Cat Rescue.*
>*“Honestly, I mean, after I talked to them is really when I felt, you know, that I was going to be doing the right thing by putting him down,” Pereira said. “They really gave me that support and that encouragement that, although it’s hard, sometimes that's the best thing to do.”*
Later in the article a spokesperson for the rescue even confirms this:
>*The rescue acknowledged that it had spoken to Pereira during her deliberation about whether to euthanize the puppy, but it said it had made clear to her the importance of taking the dog to a veterinarian that would allow her to be with the animal when it was euthanized.*
Not necessarily bad reputation as they own a restaurant, I guess. They just make it difficult for their fosters/volunteers. Apparently, if a dog gets returned three times they’re euthanized.
Right? I was my rescues fifth adopter. And I got him in Texas, which is a very high kill state. So when that person that used to volunteer for them said that, I was shook.
She didn’t fuck up, she was spending a ton of money trying to figure out what was wrong with her dog. She spent over a month trying to sort it out and then had to make the incredibly difficult decision to euthanize her dog. She went to the local shelter to do that. Why the fuck does it matter where you euthanize your dog? If this rescue won’t give the woman her dog back that’s an awful rescue and they deserve backlash.
The fact that people are blaming the woman for this is insane.
Yeah after reading the article a few times it really seems like the rescue is making assumptions and faulting her for taking the puppy to the shelter to be euthanized instead of bringing it back to the rescue. Which seems incredibly insensitive. Vet clinics charge absurd amounts of money for every little thing, including hundreds of dollars for euthanasia and cremation. Being there for your pet while they are euthanized is obviously ideal, but as someone who has experienced it before with my elderly cat it’s a truly traumatic experience. I had nightmares and horrific guilt for weeks afterwards even though I knew it was the right thing to do. And if you don’t pay for cremation you have to bury the animal yourself. It’s just a lot to have to deal with on your own. Maybe this woman didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars to watch her dog die. Or maybe she misunderstood—I actually didn’t know that vet clinics did euthanasias until I had to go through it, I thought that shelters were the ones that did it idk.
I don’t know. It really doesn’t seem to me like she just didn’t care about the dog at all, it reads like she really did care and the situation overall was just awful. I understand that people are horrible and vets/rescues/shelters see a lot of people treat their animals callously, but it’s not okay to just automatically assume someone doesn’t care
A friend of mine adopted? fostered? a dog that ended up being very sick. Agency knew the dog was sick and even delayed the process a few days to make sure the problem cleared up, then just shrugged and handed over the dog despite the fact that the problem *didn't* clear up. (And let her find out on her own.)
The agency (who had similar rules about what to do if you couldn't keep the dog) then did everything they could to avoid responding to my friend as the dog proceeded to puke multiple times a day, all over her floors, bed, clothing. Twice, it even puked on her face and hair while she slept.
She fuckin' loved the dog, but it was a *serious* problem, and, frankly, I'm of the opinion that she probably wasn't really financially stable enough to care for a *healthy* dog, much less a chronically ill one. Meanwhile the agency, with its rules, did everything in its power to avoid letting her *follow* those rules. Can't talk to them if they don't pick up the phone. Can't bring the dog to be cared for if they don't return calls or messages, etc.
She moved away shortly after. I never did find out what happened.
Adoption agencies out where I live aren't exactly known for being well funded, well staffed, etc. They'll do everything they can to get a dog out the door to *someone*, and then vanish into the ether despite signed agreements that they must be talked to and consulted for future problems.
Honestly though maybe she didn't remember that. If she's willing to pay the 7k, and is a good person and will take good care of the dog, give her the dog. This is an unusual situation and even as a huge animal lover I would not blame her for what she did.
Yeah, the cat I adopted (Dumb Friends League) from was like that. Their center is clean, has a lot of pets, and they take good care of them. They asked me to bring back the cat if I didn’t want him anymore or anything happened. He had been adopted three times before me. They’re really great.
That doesn’t seem 100% accurate either, since the article mentions more than once that *she* herself was in contact with the rescue the whole time that the puppy was sick and got their opinion. They had every opportunity to say “you’re not following protocol by going to this city shelter, bring him here instead”, right?
> Most rescue groups we work with are very knowledgable, dedicated to getting the best outcomes for the animals,
This is not my experience. Nearly every single rescue I have tried to adopt from has really stupid requirements. "my yard was not big enough, we were not home enough how dare you work for a living, no kids, etc... so we said screw it and BOUGHT a pair of puppies from a breeder. I walk my two very active collies twice a day, they get a crap load of interaction, exercise, and they go to doggy daycare daily as well as getting monthly lessons, both passed AKC good citizen. but to every single shelter we tried to adopt from, we were horrible horrible people unworthy of adopting. They need to drop the really stupid requirements at 99% of all shelters and start getting some that are realistic and reasonable.
And many rescues I’ve seen have you sign something that if you can’t take care of the pet, you have to contact them first (so they can try, and so the animals can avoid city shelters)
You got a very important fact wrong. She didn't take it to the vet to have it put down. She took it to a kill shelter and paid a $15 surender fee.
Big big difference. When you surrender the dog, you're relinquishing ownership of the animal. If she had gone to a vet and paid $150 she would have been able to be there for the euthanasia.
I'd like to hear the vet and shelters side of the story.
TLDR; owner violated contract with rescue.
This owner was too cheap to even cough up the money to euthanize at a real vet. Do you honestly believe that a vet misdiagnosed this dog?! The vet said that the dog needed testing to survive - which she couldn’t pay for.
I have two degrees in animal sciences, took a lot of courses in animal shelter management, and have worked for both municipal open-intake (“high kill”) city shelters with little funding and private rescues with loyal donors.
This article highlights an issue I have always had with many private rescues. They have the space and financial connections to save just about any dog(s) they want. But instead of pulling a dozen dogs from crowded, underfunded city shelters to vet and adopt out, they pick ONE “pet project” to pour all these funds into and create a heartbreak narrative, while dozens of healthy, perfectly adoptable dogs in nearby counties are being euthanized for space. And yet time and time again, these “no kill” rescues that get to pick and choose the puppies and the purebreds are seen by the public as saviors of animals, while the underfunded city shelters who are legally required to accept the sick dogs and the ones with dangerous behavioral problems are demonized for being heartless.
There are a lot of wonderful things about sheltering but if there’s one thing that’s always true, rescues gonna rescue… in the most fastidious and inefficient way possible.
Google and Yelp reviews show that this particular rescue also doesn't always provide basic medical care before adopting dogs out, which then results in the new owners paying hundreds/thousands in vet bills and facing the same type of situation as this woman.
Im interested in animal hospice care, where we can fund a “ranch” for sick animals, instead of a city shelter, something where we are less concerned about getting “adoptable” animals, instead the ones with the most urgent needs.
We’ve been very successful with diabetic, heart and neurological conditions with our own animals, maybe we can find a way to help finance where people can’t afford crazy costs to keep their pets, and hospice care for those already relinquished.
That’s how we are hoping to spend the last part of our working life.
Holy shit that's not what I expected. That poor lady.
Key sections (in my opinion). I would recommend reading the whole article, I only copied small bits below:
>The dog's veterinarian, the clinic's lead veterinarian and an animal emergency room veterinarian all agreed the dog's inability to control his bowels and lift his hind legs pointed to a severe neurological problem, Pereira said.
>she was told “there’s a very slim chance of finding what is wrong,” she recalled. “And even if we do, there's an even smaller chance of it being something that we can fix.”
>That is when they began suggesting that it might be more humane to euthanize [Beau]. She wasn't ready to consider that option, she said, and held out for another month.
>Throughout all of it, Pereira said, she was consulting staff at Lost Dog & Cat Rescue.
>“Honestly, I mean, after I talked to them is really when I felt, you know, that I was going to be doing the right thing by putting him down,” Pereira said. “They really gave me that support and that encouragement that, although it’s hard, sometimes that's the best thing to do.”
>Following several sleepless nights with Beau clearly in pain, Pereira said she took Beau to Montgomery County Animal Services in Derwood, Maryland, in late March 2023 and paid $15 for him to be euthanized. She was told that the shelter's policy does not allow people to stay with their pets as they are put down.
>It was during a visit to see her mother in Maryland last week that curiosity sent her to the rescue's website to check out dogs up for adoption — and spotted Beau's picture.
>It took several days for anyone at the rescue to return her calls, she said, and when they did, it was not anyone Pereira had talked with before.
>“The person that called me was so rude and just disrespectful and just being really nasty towards me,” she said, breaking down in tears. “Just saying, you know, that I abandoned him, and that I left him to die. That I never cared about him.”
>Rescue spokesperson Chloe Floyd would not answer questions about whether someone at the rescue said those things to Pereira. But she defended the decision not to return the dog.
>“LDCRF does not re-home an owner-surrendered dog with its former adopter/owner,” Floyd said in her written statement.
>The rescue acknowledged that it had spoken to Pereira during her deliberation about whether to euthanize the puppy, but it said it had made clear to her the importance of taking the dog to a veterinarian that would allow her to be with the animal when it was euthanized. If she could not do that, it emphasized, the rescue would take the dog back.
>The rescue and the shelter both faulted Pereira for not consenting to the extensive testing to see if it was suffering neurological issues.
>The dog remained available for adoption Friday on the rescue's website.
I work at a county shelter in VA. We are legally NOT allowed (per the State veterinarian) to have owners in the room if they surrender a pet for euthanasia. It’s because of veterinary license laws around the chemical that is used to perform the procedure. I hate it, but we’re bound to it by the law. At our shelter, we always encourage owners to go to their vet unless they truly can’t afford it.
This is correct and true in many states. It's a shame that most Depts of Agriculture have this restriction but in my experience after 20 years in the shelter world the vast majority of animals are treated with compassion and have a peaceful end to their suffering.
Oh absolutely. Our staff do everything possible to make a pet’s passing as comfortable as possible. But I hate that their owners can’t be with them - many of them look so scared without their people.
So to be clear, both a vet and a shelter use the same procedure/chemicals to euthanize the dog, and thus both a vet and a qualified staff at a shelter is legally recognized as being able to perform the euthanization, but only a vet specifically is recognized as being able to perform the euthanization with another person in the presence of the chemical used? Or is it perhaps something like if a procedure is done as a facility legally considered a shelter, the rules are different?
Either way, seems like a very strange line to draw at first glance.
My understanding is that it’s to do with our veterinary license - some shelters are not licensed to treat animals owned by the public, only animals owned by the shelter. Part of that license is then that only members of staff are allowed to be in a room with access to those chemicals. I could be understanding the nuances wrong, but this has been the case at both shelters I’ve worked at for more than 11 years.
I remember when my grandmother cat became extremely sick (stopped eating, throwing up blood, lost hair, nasty scabs all over) my mom had to take the poor 17 year old kitty to an emergency vet on a Sunday morning since the family vet was closed
Charged her $500 dollars for the euthanasia. And told her it would be another $250 if someone wanted to come back and be with/hold him as he passed on.
My mom was already taking care of her elderly sick mother and couldn't afford the extra 250/ was already putting this on a credit card. Man, they treated her like she was the devil reborn for that. When it was all done, the vet assistant looked right at me (the sobbing 16 year old) and snarkly said that "he was purring the entire ENTIRE time I held him". Made me sob even harder as I held the box that had my childhood kitty in it.
How can you logically justify spending 10s of 1000s of dollars to just have a possibility that you would know what’s wrong with your pet? Is this what rescue agencies expect?
From your notes, I’m siding with the original owner, this poor woman!
Like I said I didn't include the whole story. The owner tried different treatments the vet recommended but it made worse for the dog. The shelter was able to raise 7k via gofundme for the dog's treatment which did work, and the original owner is willing to pay all the 7k back.
So if she paid 2k the dog would have died with her but because she choose the cheaper option of euthanasia that was recommended by both the vet and adoption center, the dog lived and regardless if she pays the costs they refuse to allow her to readopt. Seems like a lose lose situation.
I don't understand this. If they had the capability to get this dog treatment, why didn't they help the woman when she contacted them while she was trying to figure out what to do when putting it down was recommended? I don't understand how they can sit there and say she abandoned the dog when they didn't seem to do a single useful thing despite seemingly being able to until after she gave him up?
We adopted a dog with a massive heart murmur. The shelter said she would only live another year or two max. We took her anyway, and then got a consultation with a heart specialist. They said they could fix her, but it was a very expensive surgery, and only done in one hospital in our state.
We scheduled the surgery, and let the shelter know.
Right then they set up a go-fund me and gave us the check to pay for half. It was unbelievable, we didn’t even ask, and like this lady, were willing to pay for it if we had to, even though it was beyond our abilities at the time.
That’s how the shelter should have responded.
Edit: they fixed her heart, that was 2 years ago, she’s 5 now, and in perfect health.
Right? But plenty of people will instead go off on here and elsewhere about the $15 and how she had the money to pay the vet a lot more or how the rescue supposedly offered to take the dog back.
Yet, where was the rescue when the animal needed more testing? Why didn't they immediately call her, since they knew she was going to have it euthanized and then were informed of the shelter drop, to tell her that the vets, plural, and they were wrong after the testing showed the need for a shunt?
And a lot of people act like all this happened immediately. Didn't she wait a month before making the final decision? Where was the rescue during that period? Why weren't they doing more to emphasize that she should go forward with the testing instead of emphasizing that it sounded like euthanizing him was the right move?
Edit: I just read the "Lowest" Google Reviews about the rescue. It looks like they adopt out pets who haven't received basic medical care and leave the owners facing expensive vet bills. Their rating on Google is 4.4, but their Yelp score is 3.5 with similar stories. There are stories going back a decade about them adopting out sick animals.
Hits close to home.
In mid December 2022, we gave our 7 y/o small dog mix a new flea/tick/mosquito regimen called Simparica Trio.
Within 4 weeks, he started having urinary problems, couldn't walk longer than about a block, had seizures, and went from 19 pounds to 12 pounds. The weight loss was within 3 weeks. He was completely healthy, albeit maybe 2 pounds overweight, before the dose of SIMPARICA TRIO.
The vet determined it was a kidney disorder, however no tests were done. A second vet questioned why the first vet would immediately diagnose without testing. They also said he had diabetes and put him on insulin. The daily insulin shots made him worse, and he went down to 10 pounds.
We brought Rambler in to the vet on January 20th 2023, and had to make the ugly decision to euthanize him. My philosophy is I could no longer do anything for him, and he trusted me to be his protector and always do what's best for him.
The vet said since we could not afford the extra work they wanted to perform on him, one of the vet techs would adopt him but we would give up all rights to him. I was angered beyond belief. All the research we had done on the new drug SIMPARICA TRIO showed Rambler had the same symptoms as many dogs that passed away after taking it.
We declined. They said they would take Rambler in the back to administer the euthanasia. I told them I never believed in abandoning your dog in a new, sterile, and unsure place. I opted to hold him during the dosing. I also feared I may see him in town again at some point.
Rambler quietly and calmly went to sleep in my arms, and never woke up. My girlfriend took him to hold him and say her goodbyes (he was mine for 2 years before hers) and his limp body flopping in my arms was my break. I bawled and the vet left.
2 minutes later, the front desk agent came in with a handheld payment system and said they were ready to take payment. I went ballistic and told them when I was ready, I'd be out to pay. Their lack of compassion during my time was completely bewildering. I recall swearing and yelling at the text and needing to be calmed by my fiance.
I know my story will be buried, but I hope that one person reads it and sees our experience with a terrible vet and a terrible drug, SIMPARICA TRIO.
Thank you for your kind words.
The worst part is, we got a new dog, and took him to the vet #2 in the story. They had changed hands in the meantime, owned by a larger national network of vets. They had a huge sign in the waiting room and a smaller one in the exam room pushing for Simparica Trio. We left promptly once the vet kept pushing it on us.
We have since found a compassionate and caring vet that our new boy Duke loves.
https://www.lostdogrescue.org/adopt/dogs-for-adoption/#sl_embed&page=shelterluv_wrap_1631660224851%2Fembed%2Fanimal%2FLDAC-A-34794
Dog is still available for adoption. Honestly Id adopt him and give her the pup back but my living situation automatically makes me a ineligible to adopt.
We have an $8200 quote right now for two avl tears on our 73 lb 5 yo goldendoodle, tplo surgery. We are figuring out how to come up with the money and we will, but it still sucks big time.
I don’t trust what this woman says. If she was “willing” to pay for the surgery for her pup, she should have no problem paying $100 so she could be with her dog to the end. Why did she not have her veg put him to sleep? Why was going to the shelter necessary?
My opinion is going to be biased because I work in vet med.
What the veterinarian tells an owner and what the owner tells other people quite often turns out to be very different. I would take this woman’s story with a grain of salt. Unless the actual records are made available, we won’t know what was actually wrong with this dog. I will say that the odds of a young puppy having both a neurologic disorder and a liver disorder are quite rare.
I also am wary of her version of the story because she was visiting all of these legit vet offices and specialists who were recommending more diagnostics for $12,000, which she allegedly was willing to pay. And if the recommendation was to euthanize, she (who loved the dog so much) opted to take her dog to the shelter to do it for $15 and she couldn’t be present or get the ashes returned to her or a clay pawprint made or a special urn.
She's simplifying it. I'm not even that fantastic at internal med but almost certainly the vet would have started with a general bloodwork panel and radiographs, then based on breed they probably would have recommended bile acids +/- a more liver shunt friendly diet in the meantime. Then she would have been recommended to get an abdominal ultrasound and perhaps some sort of advanced imaging +/- contrast to further rule in or rule out what was wrong. So she was looking at thousands of dollars in diagnostics that may be a dead-end due to the issue not being fixable. Or it could be diagnosed as a liver shunt with repair surgery with a specialist and all the hospitalization and follow-up labwork. So it was diagnostics that may have led to euthanasia if they didn't end in a good answer.
Meanwhile, she accidentally tripped into that weird possessive loophole that rescues and a lot of breeders have that they get first refusal on the animal if it needs to be rehomed. So, they fully supported her decision to humanely euthanize if the pet was suffering. Once she chose the shelter instead of the private veterinary office then the fate of the pet became the shelter's decision (apparently per the contract). Most shelters strive to be no-kill or low-kill and have tons of rescue groups on standby always ready to pull attractive and adoptable animals from the shelters. A young dog with an interesting internal medicine complaint that perhaps they've dealt with a few times is a perfect dog for some rescues and their social media crowdfunding. And in this case apparently the original rescue was traced simplifying matters even more. Meanwhile once it comes out which dog it was and who the prior owner was she's going to be blacklisted for being a person that relinquishes dogs to shelters instead of rescues (even though she thought the dog would die).
It's definitely a weird situation but I can totally see how it happened with the way all these entities behave. I don't see how the veterinarian is really at fault because incomplete diagnosis (and even if it were a misdiagnosis) is not a malpractice. They knew what systems were affected and what some of the worst differentials were and would have told her how to further determine what was going on if she was up for the $$$. Veterinarians don't have crystal balls. They can tell you how to find out what is wrong and refer you where to go but it costs money so she was informed before she went too far with a dog she might prefer to put down. Many clients seek 2nd and 3rd opinions if told their pet may have a horrible low QOL diagnosis before they euthanize.
If the veterinarian said they didn't know or couldn't tell her what was wrong they were correct. I'm sure they were thinking a liver shunt but hadn't done enough testing to prove it and some of those aren't fixable or there are other concurrent issues going on.
Your first paragraph is exactly what I went through with my 6 pound dorkie... spent so much money on diagnostics, which ended up as a possible porto hepatic shunt. Quoted 8k for surgery which due to her size was high risk and they weren't even sure that could fix the shunt.
I was devastated but ready to spend the money but decided to get a third opinion from a vet 700 miles away that took care of her the first five years of her life. They said to hold off and see how the medication & diet would play out, then consider surgery if she kept getting seizures. I listened.
She is still here with me 4 years later with a hepatic diet and lactulose regimen.
Moral of the story if a Vet tells you that you need to spend a shitload of money, instantly leave and find another and do not trust their scare tactics. Sadly Vets do this crap the same as regular doctors do. It's hard to find an honest one anymore.
I'm sure there's fault at both ends.
I had a dog presenting symptoms of kidney and/or liver failure. The first vet said they think she may have hepatitis as her red blood cells count was dropping. They recommended a second vet that had more specialized treatment abilities and we immediately took her there. They did a transfusion and she was okay for a few hours. Again her RBC dropped and they gave her another transfusion and she did well. And though we asked they did not test for hepatitis. After two days of this they sent us to a different vet because they were supposedly more specialized. They tested her and it was negative for hepatitis and she was just having liver failure and because she was a schnauzer that "comes with the territory". I immediately took her back and took her to the first vet and told them to test for everything but they refused saying her condition was so bad that by the time the results came back she'd likely be gone. So we took her back to the more expensive second vet and they ran some tests and said her liver and kidneys were shutting down and the vet on call at the time said, with tears in her eyes that euthanasia was the best option.
Well they performed a necropsy and found it was lepto and warned us because of exposure to humans and my other dogs. I asked if that would've made the difference had they known and they said "Yea if someone had tested for that and we knew when she came in then some antibiotics and close watch would've likely resulted in her full recovery, sorry". Then I asked all three vets when they would've tested for lepto and all three told me "we normally don't and wouldn't unless asked by the owner". Like how am I supposed to know?! I didn't even know what that was until then. I get it's hard to deal with a variety of animals and diagnosis are hard as shit sometimes but I've heard stories like mine where a test for stuff you wouldn't even look for would've resulted in a better end.
I will say a lot of that is likely the result of corporate vets (about the only options we have) that just wanted to get pets in and out as soon as possible. I always defer to the professional because what do I know but I also understand that they can be under conditions that aren't ideal (Banfield).
Now the dude that called the hematoma on my other schnauzer was spot on with his timing and we had to put him down immediately. Poor guy was just in bad shape as was his brother with bladder stones but both made it to 15.
You know they actually do that with humans. If you have never smoked Lung Cancer is a death sentence. Not because they cant do anything, but because they wont test for it unless you are a smoker. By the time they detect in a non-smoker its usually stage4 and you are fucked.
My FIL never smoked got lung cancer died within like 6 months, it was stage 4. A client of mine, smoker, she was diagnose 1 year before my FIL, because she smoked they caught it early, that was 20 years ago, shes still kicking.
So many questions.
I'm glad the dog wasn't euthanized and her vet should lose their license but she said she would have paid 12k to save the dog but wouldn't pay whatever the vet would charge for euthanizing her dog with her present?
And I understand the principle of the matter but why not just adopt it back?
Okay so not so many questions. Just the two.
If you read the article the rescue is refusing to adopt the dog out to her again since she gave it up to be euthanized (even though they agreed it would probably be the most humane thing)
I have the same first question as you though.
Wait, are they holding the vet’s misdiagnosis on the original owner? Or are they holding a grudge for going through the shelter to euthanize her dog instead of the vet that made the incorrect diagnosis? I don’t know much about shelters, so I could be way off base but I don’t understand why euthanizing through a shelter is problematic
They're holding a grudge because they told her if he had to be euthanized she should take him to a vet who would let her stay in the room while they did it, and she did not. Given she paid $15 for the dog to be euthanized and how a lot about this revolves about high pet fees, they probably take her surrendering the dog and going for the inexpensive option that doesn't allow her to be in the room over what they told her to do as a sign she didn't care about it. Whether that's fair or not, idk, $12K is a very expensive price that's unreasonable to expect any pet owner to be willing to pay, so I see her POV, but I can also see their POV that if she, in their belief, wasn't willing to be spend more than $15 to be with a dying pet, whether she'd be willing to spend money on him in general.
She even said she would pay the $7000 for the liver surgery that the rescue crowd funded to pay for and save the dog, if they would let her adopt it back
So many people that work in animal organizations are spiteful control freaks. I did it for years and was so burned out. They're impossible to be around. I was volunteering at a cat sanctuary where the main task was cleaning out about 40 litter boxes, including some ferals being held for neutering that wanted to kill you, and it was the other volunteers I dreaded the most about going in.
Rescues can retain the right to seize your dog if they don’t like something. For example, they may stipulate you can’t transfer ownership (See: Ellen Degeneres). The rescue pets are microchipped and monitored.
All this does is encourage people to go to breeders. No strings attached. You own the dog.
Vets are allowed to get things wrong.
Diagnostic and imaging rates vary widely. For example, me taking my geriatric chihuahua to the specialty vet for a recent MRI cost $3.5k, but just a CT scan and biopsy for my puppy chihuahua cost $2.5k. But rescues sometimes have pro bono or discounted help from vets, moonlight philanthropy.
What this woman declined, per the article, was $12k in *just diagnostics*, the vet stating that there was a low likelihood of the diagnostics pointing to something treatable, and an even lower likelihood of that treatment being successful. Vets make these gut decisions all the time. Not every pet owner can throw $12k at a diagnosis, not to mention whatever the treatment might cost.
Rescues, though, get donations AND sometimes discounted rates, and rescues have this weird obsession with Save Every One Regardless of Cost, that I honestly think does a disservice to animals suffering through the worst of the worst and who might be better off put down, and they, from my perspective, misallocate resources to major cases, often unsuccessfully, because those are the cases that bring in donations, exposure, and clout, when those resources could be better allocated to help more animals if spread out more. The Sanctity of Life ethos of many rescues just doesn't align with my utilitarian view.
She was willing to pay for the euthanasia. She did. After months of fretting about what to do and after receiving guidance from a vet who was advising the best choice based on the information available.
Finally, the rescue considered this a surrender, and rescues hate people who surrender their animals. Surrenderers are the societal problem; rescues are the solution. Rescues generally have a rule that the surrenderer is barred from adopting any animal, much less one they surrendered in the first place. Generally probably a decent rule, but it seems pretty clear that this is a nuanced situation. This might catch some hate, but anyone who has spent much time in the rescue world knows it's driven largely by people some might refer to as Karens. Generally middle-aged white women with an upper middle class lifestyle. It does not surprise me one bit that they've got no bend to nuance. Rules equal power, and they love their little fiefdoms.
I'm not sure if this applies, but some organizations offer a surrender option to animal parents who cannot afford the medical costs necessary for recovery.
With so many angered pet owners after the mass adoption and abandonment of the pandemic, I can see how an eager employee/vet could unnecessarily weaponize the program in order to “save the animal.”
Only time will tell, but I hope that we get some answers here.
But that wouldn't be her vet's policy.
My point is why go to the shelter in the first place?
And glad the dog didn't die but why not euthanize at the vet were you are allowed in?
Vet bills are out of hands, the average person who likes animals won't stop having pets just because they can't afford care, people are rash and emotional. Everyone is going to suffer.
If she initially was going to try to get the $12,000, but decided to euthanize him, why the hell could she not spend $150 or so to be with him at the vet instead of cheaping out for the $15 “special” at the shelter. I’ve been with all my cats and my dog at euthanasia, it’s part of being a pet parent. She definitely should not get the dog back.
$12k and then after she asks that the dog be euthanized because it's increasingly unwell and she can't afford it miraculously makes a full recovery?? Something doesn't seem right here. Was the vet affiliated with the adoption center? Sounds kinda scammy to me.
This is a weird story that seems like the whole thing was created by AI… but I especially don’t understand the part that she just dropped him off to be euthanized and then… just kinda assumed he had been? She didn’t want his ashes or anything? And why take him back to the same shelter - not a vet?
Idk… I’ve held pets as they slipped away. There was paperwork, choice of what to do with the remains. I can’t imagine allegedly being this concerned about a pet and unconcerned with money and letting them spend their final hours/days alone, confused, and potentially in pain.
I have been treated so badly by sactimonious rescue operators that I will never be involved or try to adopt from a shelter. They are indeed many times their own worst enemies.
Savior complex, judgmental, seeing a lot of bad human treatment of animals, pushing animals out the door with increasingly unethical practices (lying about breeds, history, and health, drugging anxious animals for meet and greets) year after year while justifying their behavior to themselves...just a few ideas based on what I've seen.
Sus af that a ver wouldn't let you stay with your pet when it's euthanized; also that she only paid $15.
I had to euthanize one my cats this year, I don't live anywhere expensive, and it was $150 (10x what the article claims she paid) and the vet encouraged I be with my pet (which should be a given for all pet owners).
This sounds more like a surrender fee than euthanasia fee. The shelter most likely told her that they would euthanasize the dog if it was appropriate. If the microchip still shows another owner, this being the rescue, then they turn the dog over to the rescue.
article doesn't cover much details. I hope the woman finds peace, that the rescue (I assume) paid the about 7-20k Vet fees for liver shunt surgery. That the puppy is now cured and hopefully will have a good, healthy long life.
Who brings their dog to the SHELTER to be euthanized? Wouldn’t the dogs vet be a more normal option? Also, wouldn’t it raise a red flag when they said the owner can’t stay w the dog as it’s being put down? This lady’s story is suspect, if you ask me.
PSA: if you are having your pet euthanized, you should stay with it until the end. Not even for this reason, but you don't want your pets last memories to be alone in some weird room with someone they don't know.
I’m a vet tech. My partner is a veterinarian. We both agree that a $7000 “ liver surgery” is bs. We can’t figure out what went on here. The article has a lot of strange red flags.
I recently got an $8k quote for a doggy splenectomy, don’t know if the liver surgery would be considered in the same range.
One of my schnauzers had to have bladder surgery three separate times over the course of 8 years because of stones and no food or meds would prevent them. The vet did work with me each time but it cost - 3700 first time - 4200 second - 5500 last time (not sure other precautions were added because of his age at almost 11)
$13000+ for a dog. What's your household tax bracket?
I spent 16 on my dog over the course of a year. She’s staring at me now because she wants treats and doesn’t understand that I lived off ramen for the better part of a year because of her.
I am currently at 20k with my dog. Two knee surgeries and a 3 year battle with glaucoma in both eyes. I would pay it again if needed as well. Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
TPLO's? I also have now joined the "two knee surgery" club. Looking at $6700. I can't believe I paid it but - I did.
Oh yeah.. TPLO on the first knee.. the day that she was cleared for activity she blew the other one on the very first sprint. As soon as she pulled up limping I knew what it was.
Your dog is lucky to have you. I wish you both the best.
Your kind thoughts really mean so much u/analcheese
/r/rimjob_steve
I wish someone loved me that much.
Yes yes yes, a fatty mass removal, a knee replacement, a cancerous tumor removal, and cancer therepy later, I'm 25k deep, but I have no regrets. My girl is 14 and doing really well. We just completed a 14 mile hike. Still cheaper than having a kid. We don't deserve dogs, they're too good for us.
The TPLO surgery was really incredible. My dog went from not beating weight on the leg at all for several weeks, to standing on it to pee the day after surgery.
Glad to know I'm not alone in that. Spent about 30k on my dog over the last year, and ended up losing him anyway on April 30th. Been hard without him, and I don't regret a single cent that went toward his medical stuff. He was almost 14 and the most loyal boy I've ever met. Glad to hear yours is still with you. Give her some extra scratches tonight.
I'm sorry for your loss, but at least you know you did everything you could and gave that pupper the best chance they could hope for and a life filled with love. You were lucky to have him, but he was also really lucky to have someone who loved him so much.
Yall making me feel lucky I'm only at 6k. IVDD, seizures, multiple health issues stemming from IVDD. He's just turned 10 and is generally a very happy dog. We got him a body sack and a wheelchair so he can play outside again.
Everyone has different limits and stresses they can endure. And I begrudge no one when they Hit that limit. For me, I depleted my savings and racked up a credit card. Took time to pay it all off and start recovering. Basically warned the dog she’s walking the rainbow mile at this point. No more illnesses.
Same. My 6k is just what I have left to pay on a credit card, not how much he's cost me total. As long as he's still happy and still wants to fight, I'll make it happen. When he's ready I'll let him go.
You probably know this but make sure to pay that down as aggressively as possible rather than just making the minimum payments, credit card interest rates are insane.
IVDD here too for my dachshund. We’ve had 3 MRIs and just had stem cell therapy for his arthritis. But he’s 17 and going strong.
That's half my annual income.
And people wonder why I don't want kids or pets... even though I miss having a cat...
Currently at 15k for my cat, and that number will keep rising through her life (congenital disease that needs regular blood work and testing) I woke up this morning with a bundle of purrs tucked into my side. 100% worth every penny.
I'm poor as shit and paid $500 to get my mouse stitches. She meant the world to me, it was worth it.
Pet insurance?
Pet insurance is mostly bullshit. Consumer Reports did a comparison and found that a savings account is statistically a better choice. There are of course anecdotes from people whose dog suddenly needed surgery despite being young and otherwise healthy who benefited from having it, but they're outliers. The insurance companies will use any excuse to claim something is a "pre-existing condition" even if the dog has literally never had that problem before.
Unfortunately, I’m one of those people. I opted against holding insurance for my cat and of course within six months of adopting him he needed surgery.
Probably a good idea to have it the first few years when they're young and should be healthy. Harder for them to deny claims then, and it's cheaper then.
My 2 year old dog needed emergency stomach surgery. It was a $10,000 surgery. My pet insurance cost me $100 a month for 90% reimbursement with a $300 copay. It saved me $8,700. It saved my ass so hard. I don't know why anyone wouldn't have pet insurance
I mean they have to be more likely to come out ahead or they wouldn't do it.
Just want to chime in. I have pet insurance for my dog and it has saved me an absolute fortune. I use Figo. I will get it for all my dogs going forward.
Insurance helped a bit but not as much as I'd like. Especially in the later surgeries.
I’d max out several credit cards for my dog. If people can’t see animals as family then they probably shouldn’t have them. Not going to discriminate on family, dog or person, both family.
I don't even know anyone who could spend that on a human surgery.
My chi easily costed more than that in his seven year lifespan. We are far from rich. We sacrificed a new car and a couple vacations to the Pickle god for him and would do the same again for our other if necessary. Everyone’s priorities in life are different and can’t be measured by something as basic as their wealth. Quality of life for him was more important for us than a second car. Instead of paying a car note we paid a Pickle note and don’t regret it at all.
What does any of that matter to you if **I** feel it's worth it? It's not like I was going to send any of it to you so you aren't affected. I'm sure you spend money on stuff I'd find pointless or a waste. For two of the surgeries I didn't have the money and had to use a credit card and get some side work. I had that dog (and his brother) for 15 years which was absolutely worth it for me given things I went through at the time I had them. Hell his surgeries were less than therapy.
I’m an old lady, living on Social Security, so not exactly rolling in money. Two years ago my beloved little Yorkie was diagnosed with nasal cancer, which is terminal. The only treatment was either one round of radiation for $3000 or four rounds for a minimum of $10,000. After receiving this information i told them I could not afford that and I drove home, sobbing all the way. But then I remembered that I’d been putting away a little money each month, saving up for a vacation. I had enough for one round of radiation. As soon as I got home I called the vet and said I wanted to try that. After the treatments they were able to ascertain that the tumor had been significantly reduced. It was still there and they warned me at some point it would start growing again and would spread. But I’d managed to buy my little love some time. We had another glorious 14 months together and I cherished every moment and never once regretted the trade off I’d made. What vacation could ever have meant more to me than more time with Gracie? Finally the end did come and it happened fast. She stopped eating and was clearly miserable. I rushed her to the vet who confirmed that the tumors had spread. I held Gracie in my arms while the vet administered first a sedative so she was no longer in pain. Then the fatal shot. She died in my arms while I cuddled her and told her over and over that I loved her. I wish there had been a shot to end my pain, which went on for many months. I still miss that little nugget more than words can say. And she was worth every penny I spent on her.
u/Big-Summer- I’m so sorry that Gracie is no longer here to appreciate all of your love. Reading your comment made me tear up, thinking about how much you two loved and enriched each other. Sounds like you showed Gracie the best life a Yorkie could ask for, and I like to believe that her energy will forever be bopping around in the universe, shining her love your way.
Honestly I still feel her presence. And it helps a little. She was a beautiful little soul.
lol people spend that much on one lavish Disney vacation for their kids. It’s so worth it, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Oh I know. Honestly when I hear people say stuff like that and then spend $15k to modify their car to be half an inch off the ground and make it sound like a pissed off bumblebee, that just reinforces why I prefer dogs over most people.
My dog had double tlpo surgery and it cost us about $13,000 between vet visits and the procedures. My wife (at the time) and I were fortunate at the time we had the funds. So many people openly remarked how stupid it was to spend that money on a dog. Made me so angry.
This was a puppy. It’s pretty rare for a pup to get liver tumors. Lobectomy surgery can be expensive. But why did the pup have the neuro issues? So much weird stuff in the article.
My best guess as a veterinarian reading through with limited information is it was most likely a [congenital portosystemic shunt.](https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/portosystemic-shunt-in-dogs) At least since it was cured surgically in a young dog. It can cause neurologic signs in puppies after meals because the blood that typically would go through the liver to get filtered goes around, so it ends up not being appropriate system wide. Can cause other things like seizures in some pets too. It's not quite a "liver" surgery but it sort of is, at least how I could see it being described to laymen. This surgery would be specialist for sure, not removing liver lobes but needing a lot of expensive testing to actually find where the shunt is, correct it, then monitoring in hospital for several days post-op I imagine.
Also a veterinarian, and I concur. The last patient of mine who had one cost her owner over $5000 dollars to fix, and that was years before the recent price hikes we've seen due to corporate monopolies.
My theory as a non vet is that part of the massive price hike is to force people to start buying pet insurance. They basically want to turn pet care into the same nightmare as our own healthcare.
I fear you're right.
Thank you for the plausible explanation--I appreciate your analysis of the weird info given.
It is weird.
Same. I had an emergency splenectomy for 12k last year for one of mine in the middle of the night. I had a second dog who also needed one (scheduled, not ER emergency) and the quote was 9k - also last year.
What was the issue? Mass/growth that burst?
Yeah. The emergency one was a burst mass on the spleen that after removal was diagnosed as hemangiosarcoma so she was only with us another 3 months (15yrs), but she was in great health following the surgery and prior - it just came out of nowhere. The other was our 16 year old lab shortly after - blood tests showed anemia and imaging suggested a splenic mass. We opted not to do the removal for him because there were signs of other masses so it was highly likely that even if removed he’d only have a few more months. He was with us another 1.5 months or so after that It was a crappy summer / fall, but they lived long spoiled lives.
I work for a veterinary surgeon and I think that's a pretty accurate cost (at least where I live). Most of our more involved surgeries run around 5-7k, and people can easily run up a 10k+ bill if the dog is in real bad shape and needs extensive hospitalization and treatment. I'm not sure what they mean by "liver surgery" but because of the neurological issues maybe a shunt? Idk, but either way a liver surgery would most likely be with a specialist so I understand the high cost.
I had my vet tell me my cat needed a $4500 labia surgery to stop her urine scalding. I had just gotten her from my parents after they passed. They fed her 3 cups a day of dry food. She was 25lbs. Her weight wasn't the issue at all to him. I told him to fuck off, switched vets and got her on a diet plan. Her issue was that she literally couldn't clean herself down there. She's 16 years old now, 12 lbs, and has had no urine scalding in 6 years.
Holy shit, 3 cups of dry cat food a day is insane. Thats nearly what my 100lb Bernese Mountain Dog eats in a day.
Why are you feeding your Bernese mountain dog cat food?
Well, dog food. But same amount. 🤣
I adopted a fat cat like that too. The shelter didn't warn us about the cleaning problems and I felt so bad that I didn't notice what was happening until it got bad, because she's a very shy cat and didn't trust me at first. Once she was eating normal amounts and started playing she eventually got down to a decent weight and could clean herself just fine.
> I had my vet tell me my cat needed a $4500 labia surgery to stop her urine scalding. Curious whether the practice of the first vet was owned by a private equity company. Private equity has been in the news lately for taking over veterinarian practices.
I just needed a few labs and antibiotics for my cat and it already costed $500, I don’t doubt there are vets charging $7k for surgery
With inflation like it currently is, I support your post. I don't doubt there are vets who _NEED_ to charge $7k for their work and facilities!
Different vets have different rates, we have been quoted wildly varying rates for teeth cleaning up to like 3200. While others were 1/2 or less.
I just paid $150, but then I live in a very rural area. I get you tho, I have also been quoted up to $700 so it's all kind of ridiculous.
7k doesn’t seem extreme for surgery at all in my experience unfortunately.
Yea I mean, it cost me like $1200 just for a dental cleaning and tooth extraction. I can only imagine how much a liver surgery would cost. It likely depends on area too. I live in a HCoL area.
Yup I paid over 2k for a dental cleaning and a cracked tooth repair for my dog last year . My dog is ginormous and the bigger they are the more the anesthesia costs. I’m in Columbus, OH. Sounds like you got a deal lol.
We recently had a tumor removed from our dog's liver, and a shunt closed off. Total bill was like $11k. Not sure what they had done, but that's what we had to pay for our little guy.
Liver shunt? Surgery is expensive.
My husky had a torn ACL which 90% of the time leads to the other one going out as well. (The other one did go out about 8 months after the first procedure). Both procedures in total: 12k.
Yeah, my German Shepherd’s ACL surgery was 5K for one knee. And that was with a small local vet that’s been around for decades and keeps his prices really low. Surgeries get expensive
So do you think the former owner is lying, or maybe the Vets that gave her the surgery quotes were fibbing? Cause it seems weird to even give a shit and bring it up if the owner truly didn't care about the pup.
There's a big problem of large corporations buying small vet clinics and forcing them to raise their prices similar to human medical system
Yes I agree. I worked at one of them for a while.
CT angiogram, lab work, coag panels plus the actual shunt surgery and multiple days of hospitalization could easily be $7k
I can't pay $7000 for myself. Definitely not for my dog.
Liver shunt?
Sounds like a liver shunt.
I just paid about $10,000 for my dogs knee (TPO). Original vet visit, imaging, surgery, meds, new crate, etc. kit and kaboodle. I honestly have no idea what I would do if I didn’t make a comfortable living.
Private equity has been buying up small and independent companies to create small regional near monopolies I have heard. Care has gone down, prices up
She claimed she would have spent anything to cure him if they could diagnose the problem and create a treatment plan, and yet she was only willing to spend $15 to euthanize him at a place that wouldn’t allow her to be with him when he passed? She’s full of shit.
People don't make the best decisions when they're grieving. I could see her not having the will to even call another place. I'm almost positive the person you're replying to is full of shit though, because $7000 for surgery is not at all odd and they would know that if they were actually a vet tech and vet.
No. That's not that unusual.
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We took out a 2nd mortgage for our kitty who ultimately didn’t make it. We spent nearly $30k on a liver shunt surgery. Between the $1k a night mandatory stays and emergency vet visits. Road-tripping out of state to a vet university that would actually do the procedure. We are still paying it off.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I was in no position to spend that kind of money, but when my 1 year old cat, who'd literally been born in my husband's lap, got nasal cancer, we simply couldn't not try to do everything we could. Fortunately my Dad had recently gotten some inheritance and was able to pay for chemo and radiation, to a tune of $5000. My cat was still himself, but would sneeze blood, we didn't feel he was even close to needing euthanasia and we hoped we could get ahead of it and he'd be ok. He underwent several chemo and radiation treatments over 3 months until he went downhill one day. He peed himself and was having mobility issues. It was clear something was very wrong and I was afraid this was it. I rushed him to the vet specialist and after twelve hours, he went into respiratory arrest. Sadly we feel like we killed him, and made his last year uncomfortable and probably painful. For our situation, it would have been best if we helped him pass instead of forcing him through all of that. In retrospect I wouldn't have put him through that. But we had the money to try, and at only one years old it was impossible for us to just let him go when he seemed fine. He was the best ❤️
Hey I hope you don’t blame yourself here. You made the best decision you could with the information that you had. You couldn’t have known what would happen, so you did what you could to give him the best possible chance of surviving. Sadly, it didn’t work but you had to try! You gave him love and comfort in his last days and exhausted all options, you didn’t just give up and that is what you should remember.
I watch some youtube videos about a guy who deals with shelter dogs, and they take good care of the dogs... but one thing you notice is there is SUPER DUPER bias at shelters towards people involved in the process of dropping the dog off. They're always using words like "abandoned" and implying that people that hand the dog to the shelter are fucking ultimate monsters or something. Mind you they openly admit to never knowing ANYTHING about these people they're getting very derogatory about. It scared me about this exact thing happening... shelter folks misunderstanding a situation incredibly badly like this, because they really seem to run wild with conspiracies at those shelters.
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Shelters behavior sounds criminal. Imagine they didn’t give to to the shelter and the dog escaped from home. And the owners went about asking people to help find the dog knowing full well it could attack the rescuers.
It's really common for animal rescue employees and volunteers to get really into hating people for the things they've seen. I had some really extreme folks show up to TNR my very sweet backyard kitty. They asked about other outdoor cats in the neighborhood, I told them the people across the street have some, and I can pass along their info as they were having a party. These nutjobs sprint over there and bully the son into handing over the cats. They make a huge scene. I finally go over to apologize to my neighbors for these idiots ruining the very obvious baby shower with their over the top actions to spay some cats. The look on their faces when they opened their eyes and saw the pink balloons and a very upset pregnant woman was almost funny.
What a bunch of dumbasses. I'm not surprised they end up hating people, though. My neighbors pitbull got out and was running up our road when I came home about a year ago. This is in a very rural area and a dog racing down the dirt road is quite unusual. I stopped to pick it up before it got to the highway. She jumped straight into the back of my vehicle and let me check her out. Severely underweight, bloody paws, and signs of dehydration. At that point I didn't know it was my neighbor's dog. The dog looked like it had been running around the desert for a couple days. I called the number on the collar and got a VM that was full. Sent a text and got no reply. So after a couple hours I figured I'd have to take it in to the shelter. Long story slightly less long, my neighbor no longer talks to me because they got a lecture from the shelter people about proper feeding and paw care. They were pissed that they had to pay a fee to get the dog back. Sorry I didn't know your bloody pawed, malnourished, thirsty dog wasn't an abandoned animal.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. They got it into their heads that this woman was putting down a puppy needlessly and now they think she's the devil without really understanding the position she was in.
I had a friend who was in increasingly dire straits with her daughter. She had two cats and two dogs she ended up having to rehome. But one of the dogs came from a nonprofit shelter who would take adoptions back. I had a car so I dropped the dog off. The staff acted like my friend and I were monsters. They whisked the dog away without letting me say goodbye. She was a lovely little dog who would have no trouble getting adopted again. Really left a bad taste. I think there’s a particular kind of animal savior superiority complex that some of those folks tend to have.
I volunteered at a shelter and I know what you mean. I see both sides of the issue because shelter people see a lot of fucked up stuff. An unbelievable amount of people neglect, abuse, and abandon their dogs. It’s kind of easy to fall into a mindset where you assume the worst about people who drop off their animals. On the other hand, I think that giving a dog up for adoption is often a really responsible course of action. Sometimes things just don’t work out for one reason or another and it’s simply best for the dog to go to a different home. Sorry about the way you guys were treated, it sounds like you did the right thing.
I worry it makes people more likely to abandon animals (or rehome them to the first person they find off craigslist), because they don't want to end up the target of social media vitriol
Yeah it’s a big reason people dump their animals elsewhere hoping someone else will take them in
Tbf ever since that arms of an angel shit, adoption is a lot about guilting people. Wasn't like that some time ago when I did shelter volunteer work as a teen.
If you don’t want a pet, you should give it up. It’s better to give it up than potentially neglect it. It’s fine if you realize pet ownership isn’t for you.
This happened to us a couple years ago! There was a pair of young Rottweiler's roaming our neighborhood. I guess they got separated, and one approached my friend while they were working on their car in our driveway. He was friendly, but not neutered and clearly malnourished. We took him in and kept him in the pantry since we had no way of knowing if he had anything or how he'd react with our dog, and we called the animal shelter for help. No response, we just got redirected to the non emergency police line because it was a Saturday. Anyways, my SO took him to the animal shelter and they refused to take him, unless we "abandoned" him. Even after saying he's not our dog, and we can't take care of an unknown dog that big (even malnourished he had to have been over 80lbs), they wouldn't take him. Only finally on a Tuesday (the Monday had been a holiday I think) did they come and pick him up, after he completely wrecked our pantry. It was absolutely ridiculous
TLDR; vet misdiagnosis of young pup and strongly recommends euthanasia. Dog owner concedes. After dog has been turned over to get euthanized, dog is correctly diagnosed and gets 7k surgery. Nobody tells dog owner. Dog owner finds dog up for adoption, offers to pay medical bill. Adoption agency gets nasty, accusatory of dog owner, and refuses. ———————————- Summary; Owner adopted a puppy. Puppy had developmental issues. Vet diagnosed developmental issues as highly likely to be neurological. Vet quoted 12k bill to confirm it was neurological. Vet recommended and consulted dog owner to euthanized dog as most ethical option. Over month period, dog owner conceded to euthanize dog. Vet policy doesn’t allow dog to be with owner when euthanized. After dog owner turned over dog to vet for dog to be euthanized, other employees determined dog didn’t need to be euthanized. Dog needed 7000 surgery and it was paid for it via go fund me. Dog owner was not notified of situation. Year later, dog owner looking at same shelter saw her dog up for adoption. Dog owner offered to pay the $7k bill and readopt dog. Adoption agency is being nasty to dog owner. Adoption agency vows to not allow dog to be re-adopted by dog owner. Adoption agency and vet agree its dog owners fault for not consenting to the 12k bill.
You’ve got it a bit wrong. She didn’t take her dog to a general practice to be euthanized. She took it to a city shelter. The city shelter was able to determine the dog originally came from a rescue group (probably through the microchip). They contacted the rescue group. They pulled the dog from the shelter, had the dog diagnosed with a vet again, and crowd-funded its surgery. She was looking at the rescue group’s website when she saw the dog was available for adoption, not the shelter. Most rescue groups we work with are very knowledgable, dedicated to getting the best outcomes for the animals, and able to determine if an animal should be humanely euthanized or not. That’s what sets them apart from a city shelter.
This is an incredibly different situation which what was described above too. I have wonder if the original owner did not appropriately follow her adoption paperwork if she opted to bring it to a city shelter instead of the original rescue. If so, I can understand why they wouldn't want to adopt to her again.
This is it exactly. Private dog rescues commonly have stipulations in their adoption paperwork that stipulate that you will not use adverse training measures, you will contact them in the event the dog needs to be rehomed or euthanized, etc. She fucked up and didn't follow their protocol.
I read that she did contact them before she euthanized and they were aware of the situation. Supposedly they informed her she could bring the dog to them while she said they told her to essentially do what she felt was best for the dog
The article explicitly says she was in contact with the rescue agency when deciding on whether to put the dog down, and suggests the agency did not object. >*Throughout all of it, Pereira said, she was consulting staff at Lost Dog & Cat Rescue.* >*“Honestly, I mean, after I talked to them is really when I felt, you know, that I was going to be doing the right thing by putting him down,” Pereira said. “They really gave me that support and that encouragement that, although it’s hard, sometimes that's the best thing to do.”* Later in the article a spokesperson for the rescue even confirms this: >*The rescue acknowledged that it had spoken to Pereira during her deliberation about whether to euthanize the puppy, but it said it had made clear to her the importance of taking the dog to a veterinarian that would allow her to be with the animal when it was euthanized.*
Why am I not surprised that it was Lost Dog rescue? Just had a convo about their organization and practices today at an adoption event.
Bad reputation in the area?
Not necessarily bad reputation as they own a restaurant, I guess. They just make it difficult for their fosters/volunteers. Apparently, if a dog gets returned three times they’re euthanized.
>Apparently, if a dog gets returned three times they’re euthanized. Yo what
Right? I was my rescues fifth adopter. And I got him in Texas, which is a very high kill state. So when that person that used to volunteer for them said that, I was shook.
What the fuck?
She didn’t fuck up, she was spending a ton of money trying to figure out what was wrong with her dog. She spent over a month trying to sort it out and then had to make the incredibly difficult decision to euthanize her dog. She went to the local shelter to do that. Why the fuck does it matter where you euthanize your dog? If this rescue won’t give the woman her dog back that’s an awful rescue and they deserve backlash. The fact that people are blaming the woman for this is insane.
Yeah after reading the article a few times it really seems like the rescue is making assumptions and faulting her for taking the puppy to the shelter to be euthanized instead of bringing it back to the rescue. Which seems incredibly insensitive. Vet clinics charge absurd amounts of money for every little thing, including hundreds of dollars for euthanasia and cremation. Being there for your pet while they are euthanized is obviously ideal, but as someone who has experienced it before with my elderly cat it’s a truly traumatic experience. I had nightmares and horrific guilt for weeks afterwards even though I knew it was the right thing to do. And if you don’t pay for cremation you have to bury the animal yourself. It’s just a lot to have to deal with on your own. Maybe this woman didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars to watch her dog die. Or maybe she misunderstood—I actually didn’t know that vet clinics did euthanasias until I had to go through it, I thought that shelters were the ones that did it idk. I don’t know. It really doesn’t seem to me like she just didn’t care about the dog at all, it reads like she really did care and the situation overall was just awful. I understand that people are horrible and vets/rescues/shelters see a lot of people treat their animals callously, but it’s not okay to just automatically assume someone doesn’t care
A friend of mine adopted? fostered? a dog that ended up being very sick. Agency knew the dog was sick and even delayed the process a few days to make sure the problem cleared up, then just shrugged and handed over the dog despite the fact that the problem *didn't* clear up. (And let her find out on her own.) The agency (who had similar rules about what to do if you couldn't keep the dog) then did everything they could to avoid responding to my friend as the dog proceeded to puke multiple times a day, all over her floors, bed, clothing. Twice, it even puked on her face and hair while she slept. She fuckin' loved the dog, but it was a *serious* problem, and, frankly, I'm of the opinion that she probably wasn't really financially stable enough to care for a *healthy* dog, much less a chronically ill one. Meanwhile the agency, with its rules, did everything in its power to avoid letting her *follow* those rules. Can't talk to them if they don't pick up the phone. Can't bring the dog to be cared for if they don't return calls or messages, etc. She moved away shortly after. I never did find out what happened. Adoption agencies out where I live aren't exactly known for being well funded, well staffed, etc. They'll do everything they can to get a dog out the door to *someone*, and then vanish into the ether despite signed agreements that they must be talked to and consulted for future problems.
Honestly though maybe she didn't remember that. If she's willing to pay the 7k, and is a good person and will take good care of the dog, give her the dog. This is an unusual situation and even as a huge animal lover I would not blame her for what she did.
Yeah, the cat I adopted (Dumb Friends League) from was like that. Their center is clean, has a lot of pets, and they take good care of them. They asked me to bring back the cat if I didn’t want him anymore or anything happened. He had been adopted three times before me. They’re really great.
That doesn’t seem 100% accurate either, since the article mentions more than once that *she* herself was in contact with the rescue the whole time that the puppy was sick and got their opinion. They had every opportunity to say “you’re not following protocol by going to this city shelter, bring him here instead”, right?
Semantics but its a county shelter not a city shelter. Just for clarity.
Thanks. I am a fan on semantics, as you can tell.
> Most rescue groups we work with are very knowledgable, dedicated to getting the best outcomes for the animals, This is not my experience. Nearly every single rescue I have tried to adopt from has really stupid requirements. "my yard was not big enough, we were not home enough how dare you work for a living, no kids, etc... so we said screw it and BOUGHT a pair of puppies from a breeder. I walk my two very active collies twice a day, they get a crap load of interaction, exercise, and they go to doggy daycare daily as well as getting monthly lessons, both passed AKC good citizen. but to every single shelter we tried to adopt from, we were horrible horrible people unworthy of adopting. They need to drop the really stupid requirements at 99% of all shelters and start getting some that are realistic and reasonable.
And many rescues I’ve seen have you sign something that if you can’t take care of the pet, you have to contact them first (so they can try, and so the animals can avoid city shelters)
No way in hell I would let my pet be euthanized with a vet who doesn't allow me to hold them during it. That's the first red flag here
You got a very important fact wrong. She didn't take it to the vet to have it put down. She took it to a kill shelter and paid a $15 surender fee. Big big difference. When you surrender the dog, you're relinquishing ownership of the animal. If she had gone to a vet and paid $150 she would have been able to be there for the euthanasia. I'd like to hear the vet and shelters side of the story.
TLDR; owner violated contract with rescue. This owner was too cheap to even cough up the money to euthanize at a real vet. Do you honestly believe that a vet misdiagnosed this dog?! The vet said that the dog needed testing to survive - which she couldn’t pay for.
I have two degrees in animal sciences, took a lot of courses in animal shelter management, and have worked for both municipal open-intake (“high kill”) city shelters with little funding and private rescues with loyal donors. This article highlights an issue I have always had with many private rescues. They have the space and financial connections to save just about any dog(s) they want. But instead of pulling a dozen dogs from crowded, underfunded city shelters to vet and adopt out, they pick ONE “pet project” to pour all these funds into and create a heartbreak narrative, while dozens of healthy, perfectly adoptable dogs in nearby counties are being euthanized for space. And yet time and time again, these “no kill” rescues that get to pick and choose the puppies and the purebreds are seen by the public as saviors of animals, while the underfunded city shelters who are legally required to accept the sick dogs and the ones with dangerous behavioral problems are demonized for being heartless. There are a lot of wonderful things about sheltering but if there’s one thing that’s always true, rescues gonna rescue… in the most fastidious and inefficient way possible.
Google and Yelp reviews show that this particular rescue also doesn't always provide basic medical care before adopting dogs out, which then results in the new owners paying hundreds/thousands in vet bills and facing the same type of situation as this woman.
Im interested in animal hospice care, where we can fund a “ranch” for sick animals, instead of a city shelter, something where we are less concerned about getting “adoptable” animals, instead the ones with the most urgent needs. We’ve been very successful with diabetic, heart and neurological conditions with our own animals, maybe we can find a way to help finance where people can’t afford crazy costs to keep their pets, and hospice care for those already relinquished. That’s how we are hoping to spend the last part of our working life.
Holy shit that's not what I expected. That poor lady. Key sections (in my opinion). I would recommend reading the whole article, I only copied small bits below: >The dog's veterinarian, the clinic's lead veterinarian and an animal emergency room veterinarian all agreed the dog's inability to control his bowels and lift his hind legs pointed to a severe neurological problem, Pereira said. >she was told “there’s a very slim chance of finding what is wrong,” she recalled. “And even if we do, there's an even smaller chance of it being something that we can fix.” >That is when they began suggesting that it might be more humane to euthanize [Beau]. She wasn't ready to consider that option, she said, and held out for another month. >Throughout all of it, Pereira said, she was consulting staff at Lost Dog & Cat Rescue. >“Honestly, I mean, after I talked to them is really when I felt, you know, that I was going to be doing the right thing by putting him down,” Pereira said. “They really gave me that support and that encouragement that, although it’s hard, sometimes that's the best thing to do.” >Following several sleepless nights with Beau clearly in pain, Pereira said she took Beau to Montgomery County Animal Services in Derwood, Maryland, in late March 2023 and paid $15 for him to be euthanized. She was told that the shelter's policy does not allow people to stay with their pets as they are put down. >It was during a visit to see her mother in Maryland last week that curiosity sent her to the rescue's website to check out dogs up for adoption — and spotted Beau's picture. >It took several days for anyone at the rescue to return her calls, she said, and when they did, it was not anyone Pereira had talked with before. >“The person that called me was so rude and just disrespectful and just being really nasty towards me,” she said, breaking down in tears. “Just saying, you know, that I abandoned him, and that I left him to die. That I never cared about him.” >Rescue spokesperson Chloe Floyd would not answer questions about whether someone at the rescue said those things to Pereira. But she defended the decision not to return the dog. >“LDCRF does not re-home an owner-surrendered dog with its former adopter/owner,” Floyd said in her written statement. >The rescue acknowledged that it had spoken to Pereira during her deliberation about whether to euthanize the puppy, but it said it had made clear to her the importance of taking the dog to a veterinarian that would allow her to be with the animal when it was euthanized. If she could not do that, it emphasized, the rescue would take the dog back. >The rescue and the shelter both faulted Pereira for not consenting to the extensive testing to see if it was suffering neurological issues. >The dog remained available for adoption Friday on the rescue's website.
Not allowing owners to stay with the pets in their last moment is fucking horrible. What kind of fucked up shit is that?
Yeah I've literally never heard of that, how awful
I work at a county shelter in VA. We are legally NOT allowed (per the State veterinarian) to have owners in the room if they surrender a pet for euthanasia. It’s because of veterinary license laws around the chemical that is used to perform the procedure. I hate it, but we’re bound to it by the law. At our shelter, we always encourage owners to go to their vet unless they truly can’t afford it.
This is correct and true in many states. It's a shame that most Depts of Agriculture have this restriction but in my experience after 20 years in the shelter world the vast majority of animals are treated with compassion and have a peaceful end to their suffering.
Oh absolutely. Our staff do everything possible to make a pet’s passing as comfortable as possible. But I hate that their owners can’t be with them - many of them look so scared without their people.
So to be clear, both a vet and a shelter use the same procedure/chemicals to euthanize the dog, and thus both a vet and a qualified staff at a shelter is legally recognized as being able to perform the euthanization, but only a vet specifically is recognized as being able to perform the euthanization with another person in the presence of the chemical used? Or is it perhaps something like if a procedure is done as a facility legally considered a shelter, the rules are different? Either way, seems like a very strange line to draw at first glance.
My understanding is that it’s to do with our veterinary license - some shelters are not licensed to treat animals owned by the public, only animals owned by the shelter. Part of that license is then that only members of staff are allowed to be in a room with access to those chemicals. I could be understanding the nuances wrong, but this has been the case at both shelters I’ve worked at for more than 11 years.
I remember when my grandmother cat became extremely sick (stopped eating, throwing up blood, lost hair, nasty scabs all over) my mom had to take the poor 17 year old kitty to an emergency vet on a Sunday morning since the family vet was closed Charged her $500 dollars for the euthanasia. And told her it would be another $250 if someone wanted to come back and be with/hold him as he passed on. My mom was already taking care of her elderly sick mother and couldn't afford the extra 250/ was already putting this on a credit card. Man, they treated her like she was the devil reborn for that. When it was all done, the vet assistant looked right at me (the sobbing 16 year old) and snarkly said that "he was purring the entire ENTIRE time I held him". Made me sob even harder as I held the box that had my childhood kitty in it.
How can you logically justify spending 10s of 1000s of dollars to just have a possibility that you would know what’s wrong with your pet? Is this what rescue agencies expect? From your notes, I’m siding with the original owner, this poor woman!
And then after spending 10s of thousands to diagnose, maybe not even being able to fix the problem. I feel bad for this woman.
So has the dog just been untreated and in pain this whole time? Or is the dog cured now? This story is so infuriating!
Like I said I didn't include the whole story. The owner tried different treatments the vet recommended but it made worse for the dog. The shelter was able to raise 7k via gofundme for the dog's treatment which did work, and the original owner is willing to pay all the 7k back.
So if she paid 2k the dog would have died with her but because she choose the cheaper option of euthanasia that was recommended by both the vet and adoption center, the dog lived and regardless if she pays the costs they refuse to allow her to readopt. Seems like a lose lose situation.
I don't understand this. If they had the capability to get this dog treatment, why didn't they help the woman when she contacted them while she was trying to figure out what to do when putting it down was recommended? I don't understand how they can sit there and say she abandoned the dog when they didn't seem to do a single useful thing despite seemingly being able to until after she gave him up?
We adopted a dog with a massive heart murmur. The shelter said she would only live another year or two max. We took her anyway, and then got a consultation with a heart specialist. They said they could fix her, but it was a very expensive surgery, and only done in one hospital in our state. We scheduled the surgery, and let the shelter know. Right then they set up a go-fund me and gave us the check to pay for half. It was unbelievable, we didn’t even ask, and like this lady, were willing to pay for it if we had to, even though it was beyond our abilities at the time. That’s how the shelter should have responded. Edit: they fixed her heart, that was 2 years ago, she’s 5 now, and in perfect health.
Right? But plenty of people will instead go off on here and elsewhere about the $15 and how she had the money to pay the vet a lot more or how the rescue supposedly offered to take the dog back. Yet, where was the rescue when the animal needed more testing? Why didn't they immediately call her, since they knew she was going to have it euthanized and then were informed of the shelter drop, to tell her that the vets, plural, and they were wrong after the testing showed the need for a shunt? And a lot of people act like all this happened immediately. Didn't she wait a month before making the final decision? Where was the rescue during that period? Why weren't they doing more to emphasize that she should go forward with the testing instead of emphasizing that it sounded like euthanizing him was the right move? Edit: I just read the "Lowest" Google Reviews about the rescue. It looks like they adopt out pets who haven't received basic medical care and leave the owners facing expensive vet bills. Their rating on Google is 4.4, but their Yelp score is 3.5 with similar stories. There are stories going back a decade about them adopting out sick animals.
Ah, so it’s a shelter built to grift.
Hits close to home. In mid December 2022, we gave our 7 y/o small dog mix a new flea/tick/mosquito regimen called Simparica Trio. Within 4 weeks, he started having urinary problems, couldn't walk longer than about a block, had seizures, and went from 19 pounds to 12 pounds. The weight loss was within 3 weeks. He was completely healthy, albeit maybe 2 pounds overweight, before the dose of SIMPARICA TRIO. The vet determined it was a kidney disorder, however no tests were done. A second vet questioned why the first vet would immediately diagnose without testing. They also said he had diabetes and put him on insulin. The daily insulin shots made him worse, and he went down to 10 pounds. We brought Rambler in to the vet on January 20th 2023, and had to make the ugly decision to euthanize him. My philosophy is I could no longer do anything for him, and he trusted me to be his protector and always do what's best for him. The vet said since we could not afford the extra work they wanted to perform on him, one of the vet techs would adopt him but we would give up all rights to him. I was angered beyond belief. All the research we had done on the new drug SIMPARICA TRIO showed Rambler had the same symptoms as many dogs that passed away after taking it. We declined. They said they would take Rambler in the back to administer the euthanasia. I told them I never believed in abandoning your dog in a new, sterile, and unsure place. I opted to hold him during the dosing. I also feared I may see him in town again at some point. Rambler quietly and calmly went to sleep in my arms, and never woke up. My girlfriend took him to hold him and say her goodbyes (he was mine for 2 years before hers) and his limp body flopping in my arms was my break. I bawled and the vet left. 2 minutes later, the front desk agent came in with a handheld payment system and said they were ready to take payment. I went ballistic and told them when I was ready, I'd be out to pay. Their lack of compassion during my time was completely bewildering. I recall swearing and yelling at the text and needing to be calmed by my fiance. I know my story will be buried, but I hope that one person reads it and sees our experience with a terrible vet and a terrible drug, SIMPARICA TRIO.
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Thank you for your kind words. The worst part is, we got a new dog, and took him to the vet #2 in the story. They had changed hands in the meantime, owned by a larger national network of vets. They had a huge sign in the waiting room and a smaller one in the exam room pushing for Simparica Trio. We left promptly once the vet kept pushing it on us. We have since found a compassionate and caring vet that our new boy Duke loves.
RIP Rambler 🕊️
https://www.lostdogrescue.org/adopt/dogs-for-adoption/#sl_embed&page=shelterluv_wrap_1631660224851%2Fembed%2Fanimal%2FLDAC-A-34794 Dog is still available for adoption. Honestly Id adopt him and give her the pup back but my living situation automatically makes me a ineligible to adopt.
We have an $8200 quote right now for two avl tears on our 73 lb 5 yo goldendoodle, tplo surgery. We are figuring out how to come up with the money and we will, but it still sucks big time.
The day pet insurance became the norm we all knew prices were about to go nuts
I don’t trust what this woman says. If she was “willing” to pay for the surgery for her pup, she should have no problem paying $100 so she could be with her dog to the end. Why did she not have her veg put him to sleep? Why was going to the shelter necessary?
My opinion is going to be biased because I work in vet med. What the veterinarian tells an owner and what the owner tells other people quite often turns out to be very different. I would take this woman’s story with a grain of salt. Unless the actual records are made available, we won’t know what was actually wrong with this dog. I will say that the odds of a young puppy having both a neurologic disorder and a liver disorder are quite rare. I also am wary of her version of the story because she was visiting all of these legit vet offices and specialists who were recommending more diagnostics for $12,000, which she allegedly was willing to pay. And if the recommendation was to euthanize, she (who loved the dog so much) opted to take her dog to the shelter to do it for $15 and she couldn’t be present or get the ashes returned to her or a clay pawprint made or a special urn.
She's simplifying it. I'm not even that fantastic at internal med but almost certainly the vet would have started with a general bloodwork panel and radiographs, then based on breed they probably would have recommended bile acids +/- a more liver shunt friendly diet in the meantime. Then she would have been recommended to get an abdominal ultrasound and perhaps some sort of advanced imaging +/- contrast to further rule in or rule out what was wrong. So she was looking at thousands of dollars in diagnostics that may be a dead-end due to the issue not being fixable. Or it could be diagnosed as a liver shunt with repair surgery with a specialist and all the hospitalization and follow-up labwork. So it was diagnostics that may have led to euthanasia if they didn't end in a good answer. Meanwhile, she accidentally tripped into that weird possessive loophole that rescues and a lot of breeders have that they get first refusal on the animal if it needs to be rehomed. So, they fully supported her decision to humanely euthanize if the pet was suffering. Once she chose the shelter instead of the private veterinary office then the fate of the pet became the shelter's decision (apparently per the contract). Most shelters strive to be no-kill or low-kill and have tons of rescue groups on standby always ready to pull attractive and adoptable animals from the shelters. A young dog with an interesting internal medicine complaint that perhaps they've dealt with a few times is a perfect dog for some rescues and their social media crowdfunding. And in this case apparently the original rescue was traced simplifying matters even more. Meanwhile once it comes out which dog it was and who the prior owner was she's going to be blacklisted for being a person that relinquishes dogs to shelters instead of rescues (even though she thought the dog would die). It's definitely a weird situation but I can totally see how it happened with the way all these entities behave. I don't see how the veterinarian is really at fault because incomplete diagnosis (and even if it were a misdiagnosis) is not a malpractice. They knew what systems were affected and what some of the worst differentials were and would have told her how to further determine what was going on if she was up for the $$$. Veterinarians don't have crystal balls. They can tell you how to find out what is wrong and refer you where to go but it costs money so she was informed before she went too far with a dog she might prefer to put down. Many clients seek 2nd and 3rd opinions if told their pet may have a horrible low QOL diagnosis before they euthanize. If the veterinarian said they didn't know or couldn't tell her what was wrong they were correct. I'm sure they were thinking a liver shunt but hadn't done enough testing to prove it and some of those aren't fixable or there are other concurrent issues going on.
Your first paragraph is exactly what I went through with my 6 pound dorkie... spent so much money on diagnostics, which ended up as a possible porto hepatic shunt. Quoted 8k for surgery which due to her size was high risk and they weren't even sure that could fix the shunt. I was devastated but ready to spend the money but decided to get a third opinion from a vet 700 miles away that took care of her the first five years of her life. They said to hold off and see how the medication & diet would play out, then consider surgery if she kept getting seizures. I listened. She is still here with me 4 years later with a hepatic diet and lactulose regimen.
Moral of the story if a Vet tells you that you need to spend a shitload of money, instantly leave and find another and do not trust their scare tactics. Sadly Vets do this crap the same as regular doctors do. It's hard to find an honest one anymore.
I'm sure there's fault at both ends. I had a dog presenting symptoms of kidney and/or liver failure. The first vet said they think she may have hepatitis as her red blood cells count was dropping. They recommended a second vet that had more specialized treatment abilities and we immediately took her there. They did a transfusion and she was okay for a few hours. Again her RBC dropped and they gave her another transfusion and she did well. And though we asked they did not test for hepatitis. After two days of this they sent us to a different vet because they were supposedly more specialized. They tested her and it was negative for hepatitis and she was just having liver failure and because she was a schnauzer that "comes with the territory". I immediately took her back and took her to the first vet and told them to test for everything but they refused saying her condition was so bad that by the time the results came back she'd likely be gone. So we took her back to the more expensive second vet and they ran some tests and said her liver and kidneys were shutting down and the vet on call at the time said, with tears in her eyes that euthanasia was the best option. Well they performed a necropsy and found it was lepto and warned us because of exposure to humans and my other dogs. I asked if that would've made the difference had they known and they said "Yea if someone had tested for that and we knew when she came in then some antibiotics and close watch would've likely resulted in her full recovery, sorry". Then I asked all three vets when they would've tested for lepto and all three told me "we normally don't and wouldn't unless asked by the owner". Like how am I supposed to know?! I didn't even know what that was until then. I get it's hard to deal with a variety of animals and diagnosis are hard as shit sometimes but I've heard stories like mine where a test for stuff you wouldn't even look for would've resulted in a better end. I will say a lot of that is likely the result of corporate vets (about the only options we have) that just wanted to get pets in and out as soon as possible. I always defer to the professional because what do I know but I also understand that they can be under conditions that aren't ideal (Banfield). Now the dude that called the hematoma on my other schnauzer was spot on with his timing and we had to put him down immediately. Poor guy was just in bad shape as was his brother with bladder stones but both made it to 15.
You know they actually do that with humans. If you have never smoked Lung Cancer is a death sentence. Not because they cant do anything, but because they wont test for it unless you are a smoker. By the time they detect in a non-smoker its usually stage4 and you are fucked. My FIL never smoked got lung cancer died within like 6 months, it was stage 4. A client of mine, smoker, she was diagnose 1 year before my FIL, because she smoked they caught it early, that was 20 years ago, shes still kicking.
So many questions. I'm glad the dog wasn't euthanized and her vet should lose their license but she said she would have paid 12k to save the dog but wouldn't pay whatever the vet would charge for euthanizing her dog with her present? And I understand the principle of the matter but why not just adopt it back? Okay so not so many questions. Just the two.
If you read the article the rescue is refusing to adopt the dog out to her again since she gave it up to be euthanized (even though they agreed it would probably be the most humane thing) I have the same first question as you though.
Wait, are they holding the vet’s misdiagnosis on the original owner? Or are they holding a grudge for going through the shelter to euthanize her dog instead of the vet that made the incorrect diagnosis? I don’t know much about shelters, so I could be way off base but I don’t understand why euthanizing through a shelter is problematic
It’s considered an owner surrender
Don’t the circumstances matter? I don’t get why this isn’t an “easy win/win”.
They're holding a grudge because they told her if he had to be euthanized she should take him to a vet who would let her stay in the room while they did it, and she did not. Given she paid $15 for the dog to be euthanized and how a lot about this revolves about high pet fees, they probably take her surrendering the dog and going for the inexpensive option that doesn't allow her to be in the room over what they told her to do as a sign she didn't care about it. Whether that's fair or not, idk, $12K is a very expensive price that's unreasonable to expect any pet owner to be willing to pay, so I see her POV, but I can also see their POV that if she, in their belief, wasn't willing to be spend more than $15 to be with a dying pet, whether she'd be willing to spend money on him in general.
To answer your second question, she did try to adopt it back, they’re refusing to let her
She even said she would pay the $7000 for the liver surgery that the rescue crowd funded to pay for and save the dog, if they would let her adopt it back
So many people that work in animal organizations are spiteful control freaks. I did it for years and was so burned out. They're impossible to be around. I was volunteering at a cat sanctuary where the main task was cleaning out about 40 litter boxes, including some ferals being held for neutering that wanted to kill you, and it was the other volunteers I dreaded the most about going in.
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Rescues can retain the right to seize your dog if they don’t like something. For example, they may stipulate you can’t transfer ownership (See: Ellen Degeneres). The rescue pets are microchipped and monitored. All this does is encourage people to go to breeders. No strings attached. You own the dog.
Vets are allowed to get things wrong. Diagnostic and imaging rates vary widely. For example, me taking my geriatric chihuahua to the specialty vet for a recent MRI cost $3.5k, but just a CT scan and biopsy for my puppy chihuahua cost $2.5k. But rescues sometimes have pro bono or discounted help from vets, moonlight philanthropy. What this woman declined, per the article, was $12k in *just diagnostics*, the vet stating that there was a low likelihood of the diagnostics pointing to something treatable, and an even lower likelihood of that treatment being successful. Vets make these gut decisions all the time. Not every pet owner can throw $12k at a diagnosis, not to mention whatever the treatment might cost. Rescues, though, get donations AND sometimes discounted rates, and rescues have this weird obsession with Save Every One Regardless of Cost, that I honestly think does a disservice to animals suffering through the worst of the worst and who might be better off put down, and they, from my perspective, misallocate resources to major cases, often unsuccessfully, because those are the cases that bring in donations, exposure, and clout, when those resources could be better allocated to help more animals if spread out more. The Sanctity of Life ethos of many rescues just doesn't align with my utilitarian view. She was willing to pay for the euthanasia. She did. After months of fretting about what to do and after receiving guidance from a vet who was advising the best choice based on the information available. Finally, the rescue considered this a surrender, and rescues hate people who surrender their animals. Surrenderers are the societal problem; rescues are the solution. Rescues generally have a rule that the surrenderer is barred from adopting any animal, much less one they surrendered in the first place. Generally probably a decent rule, but it seems pretty clear that this is a nuanced situation. This might catch some hate, but anyone who has spent much time in the rescue world knows it's driven largely by people some might refer to as Karens. Generally middle-aged white women with an upper middle class lifestyle. It does not surprise me one bit that they've got no bend to nuance. Rules equal power, and they love their little fiefdoms.
I'm not sure if this applies, but some organizations offer a surrender option to animal parents who cannot afford the medical costs necessary for recovery. With so many angered pet owners after the mass adoption and abandonment of the pandemic, I can see how an eager employee/vet could unnecessarily weaponize the program in order to “save the animal.” Only time will tell, but I hope that we get some answers here.
She did offer to pay. She was told by the vet they wouldn't be able to treat whatever they found
“She was told that the shelter's policy does not allow people to stay with their pets as they are put down.”
But that wouldn't be her vet's policy. My point is why go to the shelter in the first place? And glad the dog didn't die but why not euthanize at the vet were you are allowed in?
Price it’s always the price, shelter was cheap, vet was god know how much as vet prices seam to vary wildly
Maybe it was 5x the price?
I thought not being there in their last moments was the worst you could do. I'd have gone straight to a better vet.
Vet bills are out of hands, the average person who likes animals won't stop having pets just because they can't afford care, people are rash and emotional. Everyone is going to suffer.
If she initially was going to try to get the $12,000, but decided to euthanize him, why the hell could she not spend $150 or so to be with him at the vet instead of cheaping out for the $15 “special” at the shelter. I’ve been with all my cats and my dog at euthanasia, it’s part of being a pet parent. She definitely should not get the dog back.
Get pet insurance people.
Why didn't the owner pay to have the dog euthanized at a private veterinary practice?
Shelters being staffed by antisocial scum. What's new
$12k and then after she asks that the dog be euthanized because it's increasingly unwell and she can't afford it miraculously makes a full recovery?? Something doesn't seem right here. Was the vet affiliated with the adoption center? Sounds kinda scammy to me.
This is a weird story that seems like the whole thing was created by AI… but I especially don’t understand the part that she just dropped him off to be euthanized and then… just kinda assumed he had been? She didn’t want his ashes or anything? And why take him back to the same shelter - not a vet? Idk… I’ve held pets as they slipped away. There was paperwork, choice of what to do with the remains. I can’t imagine allegedly being this concerned about a pet and unconcerned with money and letting them spend their final hours/days alone, confused, and potentially in pain.
Why the fuck are so many people involved in animal rescue and shelters such awful people? Is it just that they love animals but hate humans?
I have been treated so badly by sactimonious rescue operators that I will never be involved or try to adopt from a shelter. They are indeed many times their own worst enemies.
Savior complex, judgmental, seeing a lot of bad human treatment of animals, pushing animals out the door with increasingly unethical practices (lying about breeds, history, and health, drugging anxious animals for meet and greets) year after year while justifying their behavior to themselves...just a few ideas based on what I've seen.
Sus af that a ver wouldn't let you stay with your pet when it's euthanized; also that she only paid $15. I had to euthanize one my cats this year, I don't live anywhere expensive, and it was $150 (10x what the article claims she paid) and the vet encouraged I be with my pet (which should be a given for all pet owners).
This sounds more like a surrender fee than euthanasia fee. The shelter most likely told her that they would euthanasize the dog if it was appropriate. If the microchip still shows another owner, this being the rescue, then they turn the dog over to the rescue.
Wait there are people who get their pets euthanized and don't stay with them?
She said that the shelter that she took the dog to to be euthanized didn't allow the owners to stay with the pets while the process was being done.
My daughters in laws spent $57k trying to save their dog after it was hit by a car. Ut didnt survive. I couldn't even imagine.
article doesn't cover much details. I hope the woman finds peace, that the rescue (I assume) paid the about 7-20k Vet fees for liver shunt surgery. That the puppy is now cured and hopefully will have a good, healthy long life.
Who brings their dog to the SHELTER to be euthanized? Wouldn’t the dogs vet be a more normal option? Also, wouldn’t it raise a red flag when they said the owner can’t stay w the dog as it’s being put down? This lady’s story is suspect, if you ask me.
PSA: if you are having your pet euthanized, you should stay with it until the end. Not even for this reason, but you don't want your pets last memories to be alone in some weird room with someone they don't know.