Mike and I have owned dogs all of our married life. We just love our little canine buddies. Over the years we have learned a lot about caring for them, getting them in for neutering, vaccinations, illness and injury. Gradually over the years, a lot like the current housing prices….dog ownership has become extremely expensive, and likely out of financial reach for many people, who would/could be fine loving pet owners.
I have had some tremendously kind, compassionate and caring veterinary and pet grooming services. I appreciate all that they do and did for us and our pets. However, I have also seen the price of all things dog related rise exponentially. And yes, I know that Veterinarians and techs have school loan payments and debt and expenses associated with their clinics. Still, I was blown over the first time I was hit with a $1000 bill for an overnight stay for one of our pets a long time ago. I learned to ask for an itemized list of needs and then work with them do things sequentially or in some cases not at all if they were elective. Because of that (and now our pet insurance) we have had both healthy pets AND not broken our bank. Vets have been more open to this kind of “choosing wisely” than my human doctors have been.
In all these years, I have had only TWO really rotten experiences with a veterinary service. The first was years ago, when I made a very bad mistake of buying a pekinese from a puppy mill lady here in Bangor (my own huge mistake). The pup was stinky, but we figured we could clean her. She had mange when we got her and a serious skin disorder. She gave mange to my older dog. We had to treat them for weeks, then months. The vet was selling me tiny tuberculin syringes with a tenth or 2 tenths of a cc of Ivermectin in each one to give my pets….and charging me through the nose. I found a multi dose bottle of the medicine at the pet feeds and needs store, for less than $25. So there was that screwing. That same pup had a ton of issues…skin issues, nares stenosis, fleas, heart, digestive, kidney etc etc. The more I treated her the sicker she got. She got a huge skin reaction from the expensive flea treatment recommended by the vet. We were at the vets way too often. When she was finally old enough for neutering, the vet said he would fix her nose at the same time. Oh, but on surgery day, he forgot! He said he would not charge me for her second anesthesia and nose surgery, but of course he did…..and he said I couldn’t have her back until I paid! I paid, then I started my quest for a decent vet. When I got her medical records for my new vet, I discovered that she was in kidney failure according to her pre surgical blood work. Of course he did the expensive elective surgery anyway. No wonder she was puking all the time and losing weight. Her new vet said she had multiple medical issues and failure to thrive. So, I got this sick dog from a puppy mill and a vet who didn’t pay any attention to her sickness and did expensive surgery that she should never have had. I took that vet to the Veterinary board. I went to the hearing but was not allowed to speak. He sent a representative. He got the cursory slap on the wrist, and I got all my money back from that horrible vet. I had her in my home for about 4 months, and it broke my heart when I took her back to the seller…so she could take on all of the medical issues and bills,and sadly to euthanize her in the near future. She accused me of neglect and being a bad owner. Of course that was a real slam from a puppy mill person.
I didn’t think I would ever get another dog after Louie. He was the best, and he was the one who got mange from the puppy mill dog. When he was 14, he got extremely sick in the middle of a trip to Kentucky. We turned around from just outside Washington DC, and came home. I knew we’d be no good if we had to euthanize him in a strange place on the road. It was compassionate, skilled and sweet Veterinary staff at the Veazie Vet Clinic near my home that helped us to guide him over the rainbow bridge. I will never forget their kindness. We got a sweet card with Louie’s footprint on it a few weeks later. I still cry when I think about that day, but I also love the people who got us through it.
Now we have Stanley, our tiny shih tzu. He is different from Louie, but every bit as lovable. And our sons have dogs, Rocky and Leroy. Some days it is doggie heaven around here….and loud and messy, but fun.
Last year Rocky had a neck and nerve issue that is not uncommon in French bulldogs. After a week of pain, and pills and an exam by his local vet, he jumped from my sons bed to the floor. Then he couldn’t walk. He had sudden onset paralysis, and that progressed with incontinence. This is a dire dog emergency. Because he needed a neuro specialist, off he went to the Maine Veterinary Medical Center in Scarborough Maine 2 hours away. I have written a blog about that day and beyond. Suffice to say that experience was horrible. After driving with an anxious Frenchie, in an ice/slush/snow storm to that clinic, and waiting 6 or 7 hours in his car in wet clothes, the staff told him they couldn’t take care of Rocky that day, he would have to go to Boston. Someone on the neuro team, who had been there all morning working on a different dog, had tested positive for COVID. So, they all had to go home at 2pm, and of course this was a Friday afternoon. I wonder if that person was more positive for COVID at 2pm than they were at 7am? I’m pretty sure that with Brian waiting out in a cold wet parking lot, that he would not have been exposed, and Rocky wasn’t at risk of anything except further paralysis. They had demanded a $5000 down payment with another 5,000 due after the surgery for his care that day and I spent about an hour on the phone fighting to get most of it back. They should have given it all back. That wait, then dismissal, and failure to medicate Rocky so he wouldn’t wheeze and flail all over the back seat floor on his way to Boston was their fault. His suffering was increased and prolonged because of the MVMC. That was my our experience with them. I will never recommend them to anyone.
He was sent to Boston to Angell Veterinary Clinic and he got amazing and efficient care there, and we are eternally grateful for that. It was also very expensive, but the care was outstanding.
I’m attempting to give examples of good vs bad or moral vs immoral vet care and caring. Pet care consumers (and sadly, that is exactly what vet care is…a consumer product and if you also get compassion and kindness that is a big bonus) can either be a practice’s best advertisement or their worst critic. Dog owners emotions run high, because we consider them a family member, not a thing to own. We pay dearly for their services and they need to earn our good Yelp reviews.
Puppy Jaxx
The story about Jaxx and his owner (links below) brought back some latent feelings about that clinic in southern Maine. I didn’t know the dog or the owner, so I got to know her, as well as I could through a messenger…hours of messaging. I don’t have documents, and I have not talked with MVMC. But I believe this woman and that is my impression and opinion of what she has told me.
It’s a wonder I could reach her, because she came under attack from the veterinary world and others. The group badgered her, called all sorts of things and she was threatened too. It got so bad, she had to block hundreds of messages and shut down her social media. When I saw her interview on TV, I sensed that she was suffering. What was happening to her elicited some of the same emotions and issues that I have seen over and over in medically harmed human patients. Since that time, the MVMC released a carefully crafted, medically detailed, and defensive PR statement authored by a PR professional who I happen to know. Apparently they have been threatened and harassed too, and of course their fans blame the dog owner, and even me in some cases, because I spoke up for her. The whole two sided truth is not in that PR release or in any newspaper article before or since. The true owner is a hard working Mom, who took good care of her pup. He had is vaccinations just a few days prior to him snacking on a wooden skewer. She had no idea he had done that and thought he was sick from vaccines. In fact she found out about the skewer the same time the vets did…after the xray. She had also prepaid and scheduled his neutering surgery. The owner did not have deep pockets or a PR rep or the corporate status and ability to have an article printed in the BUSINESS section of the Portland Press Herald. She is at home sadly missing her dog buddy, heartbroken and so is her family. Suffice to say that the incorporated clinic and many of their associates from all over this country painted a completely different picture of her. Now her dog has been sold off to someone else for the balance due on the surgery. Rumor has it that a clinic employee has the dog. Did that staff person pay for him? Or was there an employee perk for that new owner? If true, is that even ethical? When she sent police to the clinic to find the whereabouts of her dog, they were told he went to a rescue. She called area rescues hoping to retrieve him , but of course he was not at any of them. She had gathered the money from friends and relatives…but it was not before the clinics random paying deadline. It was however within a few hours after surgery, that same day. In all likelihood, and if his conditions was as dire as in the PR statement, he was medicated, resting and recovering right at MVMC. I hope for all I am worth that someone will do a full and fair investigation into this and write her truth. She is not what she is portrayed to be, and she was not fully informed. She signed to release her dog under great duress, without full information about his condition and/or the finality of the agreement. She did it to save her dogs life, and because it was the only option she was given to do that. She deserves to get her dog back. That would be the right thing to do.
I have often been criticized and attacked for my truth, and so far nobody has even heard Jaxx’s owners truth. She has also suffered attacks and some from the Veterinary Community….imagine that! This is not the first time I have helped an underdog to reveal their truth, and it won’t be the last. Even my cousin reamed me out. She is an animal control person in my hometown. She deals with the worst of the worst, but Jaxx’s owner is not like that. I don’t deny that there are awful people who do not deserve the loyalty and love of a dog, but Jaxx had a sweet owner. I admire my cousin, respect her work and I wouldn’t want her job, but she is wrong about this owner.
I hope that this blog will make some people come to their senses about this and consider that even if the clinic did the “legal” (in their eyes) thing, was it the right/just thing? I question the legality because the owner was not fully informed. She learned full details when the PR release went out. She had already paid some for his care, couldn’t they have collected the balance due after the surgery, and if she failed to fork it over, then they could hold him for ransom, like the vet I described earlier in this blog. Were they decent? Could there have been some sort of mediation before this whole mess blew up? Is there a better way to approach payment for Veterinarians? Should pet insurance be better advertised and promoted, because before Rocky’s debacle, we didn’t have insurance for our little guy. Veterinarian care is scary expensive and many clinics will not work with the clients for affordable payment plans. Some only offer very high interest plans for credit. Corporate Veterinary care is more and more like corporate human healthcare all the time. It’s a good thing that humans are not owned, because a lot of them would have been turned over to get them the healthcare they needed.
There has to be a better way to keep good owners and their pets together when emergency catastrophic and extremely expensive care becomes necessary. I’m glad Jaxx survived his ordeal, and that was because of veterinary skills and because his owner got him there in time and loved him enough to sign a paper so he could live.. But, his owner is devastated and has been vilified. That is just not right! Fixing this would take some very serious people skills and kind people to exercise those skills.
https://wgme.com/news/i-team/mvmc-responds-to-i-team-investigation-maine-veterinary-medical-center-jaxx-german-shepherd
https://www.pressherald.com/2022/06/13/scarborough-veterinary-hospital-gets-dogpiled-over-viral-puppy-tale/?fbclid=IwAR1nnEuQfX7Me6kaZQPK0xf4tdn1wcMWAAPksmwB87KJudNxPEJo1-FOABE
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2022/06/17/opinion/opinion-contributor/dont-always-believe-what-you-read-online-and-never-make-death-threats-joam40zk0w/?fbclid=IwAR0f6K9aHmoqZKu5IBYKQTds4Yu_q6z-A90EDo_x4W3nJUFWzNXmYApxcT8
https://www.pressherald.com/2022/06/17/letter-to-the-editor-story-on-surrendered-pup-took-business-side/?fbclid=IwAR1wnbBJp-2apIAjVuoZct9V7BDtqtUJIWrXXVlFOryQX7jHWy_WZz1pWJA
