R.i.p.

[dukedogsmom]

Well, here's the mission statement from www.invma.org:

Mission of the Indiana Veterinary Medical Association

The Indiana Veterinary Medical Association promotes animal health, animal well-being and public health, advances the veterinary medical profession, and is dedicated to the highest standards for professionalism and ethics.(updated 3/2007)

Sure doesn't sound like this vet is following that.

[lute]

I should have pointed this out in the origonal post. The vet did ask the techs if any of us could take the dogs home. If I didn't bring the puppy home the other day I would have scooped the Pittie pup right up. The vet was not happy about doing this. He works for another vet. He had to. He complained about it the whole time. He wanted to save the dogs, but we simply couldn't.

[mr.chiwawa]

He didn't HAVE TO he could have refused and made the other vet do it. He could have called the local shelters and seen if they could take them. What a lame excuse

[finn's mom]

I wouldn't work for a vet who allowed that. Rest in peace, beautiful dogs, you are in much better hands now.

[Miss Z]

He didn't HAVE TO he could have refused and made the other vet do it. He could have called the local shelters and seen if they could take them. What a lame excuse

Now I'm not condoning putting healthy animals down, but...

He may have had to, as lute said, he works for another vet. Turning clients away is bad for business, and I know that it's wrong, but that can be a difference between being in a well payed profession or out hunting to get it back. Making another vet do it makes no difference. The dogs are still PTS.

Yes, he could have called the shelters, but what if he could only get them into a kill shelter? Then they'd have just suffered in cages, and 99 times out of one hundred it would result in the same outcome - euthanasia. Even in a no-kill, shelters are not pleasant places for animals to be. Sure, the workers do their best, we are always slaving away at the shelter I volunteer at to make things as best as possible for our animals, but the result is no where near perfection. Dogs can stew in their kennels for months, even years. My heart is torn another inch every time I walk down the corridors of my shelter and see all the sad faces behind bars.

Plus, if he had refused, what's to say this woman (who sounds an absolute headcase anyway) would have just abandoned the dogs onto the streets that evening? Or worse still, 'disposed' of them herself?

It is tragic that these animals lost their lives prematurely and it shouldn't have happened. But their blood is on the hands of the woman, NOT the vet. At least these dogs are now free from any further suffering they might have had at the hands of the woman.

OK, off the soapbox now. I just don't see why people are so quick to blame the vet when far worse things happen in veterinary surgeries all the time. Quite frankly, if most pet owners knew what goes on in the practice outside the consult rooms, quite a few people would be a little surprised.