omg... that makes me angry just thinking about it. *shakes head* some people.....
The only thing that makes me more angry/sad is the dogs that came in when I worked in the clinic who had to be groomed under sedation for their once a year strip down. I just don't understand how difficult it is to treat these aniamls in a way that would provide the needed social skills for it to not be extremely dangerous, (for the groomer) for them to be groomed.
We had a chow in last year who's owner's couldn't even touch it. The vet clinic on the other side of town and been seeing it for years and had finaly told them that if the dog came back it would be for euthinasia - period. The dog was dangerous and could no longer be treated. The owners wanted advice on flea and tick preventative and were told about products like frontline after making it clear they could not give anything to the dog in pill form. They then got very angry that frontline would require them to touch the dog which they weren't sure they could do on a monthly bases. Arrggg! They were also very specific on the fact that the collar and leash had to be put back on the dog for them by us since they couldn't touch the dog or take hold of it's collar to clip the leash on. They had the leash slipped through the handle to make a make-shift slip lead as it was. They wanted that repeated since they wouldn't be able to unsnap it if we didn't do it their way. The refused blood work on their dog prior to sedation, which of course is always reccomended. How the techs would have drawn blood I dunno but thats not the point. They flat out lied to the reception staff stating that the blood panal had been done a month ago and everything was fine. So the dog was sedated, blow dart style since we couldn't get him back out of the kennel once we got him in there. Underneath that matted dirty grimy coat we founds fleas, ticks, open wounds, infection, maggots... the works. The owners were called and notified and REFUSED treatment of these ailments stating that he would be fine, he always was like that and after all he was just a dog and therfor not worth the 100 dollars or so they were spending just on the groom. They weren't spending one single cent more than they had to. These people rolled up in a benz for heaven sake.... With two groomer's working on him it took us two hours to get the worst of the coat off. It was awful, I felt so bad for the dog more because of his owner's lack of concern than his current condition really. After all that work and the back and forth with the uncaring owners the dog never recovered from the anesthetic most likely due to some other underlying health issues that may or may not have been detected with the blood work. It was upsetting when we wasn't waking up and wasting waking up and the owners were pissed b/c he was goingt o have to stay the night. He passed in his sleep in the night.
As upsetting and sad as that was, it was probably a blessing...
Of course we were blamed and the owner;s threatened to sue, blah blah blah.... you get the idea. All for the dog they couldn't touch and who was 'just a dog'. They were more upsett that they had spent the money to have him vacinated three months prior than they were about him actualy being gone.. Just awful.
I left the clinic shortly after that, but am told that these people are still clients. They proudly purchased another chow chow who according to the reception staff well on his way to becoming just like their old one.
