Last night every emergency vet hospital closed their doors on us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our mini Goldendoodle puppy was screaming when she squatted down to potty last night. It was so heartbreaking and we had never heard or seen her behave like that before. She would squat and try to go and scream and cry. We got so scared and we called the nearest emergency vet in Vienna, who told us she likely has bowel obstruction but that they are at full capacity and cant take her. We desperately called 4 more places only to be turned down. We drove to Hope emergency vet clinic where we were standing outside the door with our puppy and the doors were locked. We called the number indicated and were told they cannot take us.

We were a mess thinking our puppy is going to die and finally an emergency vet in Manassas said they will take a look at her if we drive over. After a 40 minute drive, we finally got her medical care.

WTF is going on. Are pets who need emergency care allowed to die?

It is really scary when your dog is sick or has an emergency, and I'm glad your dog is now OK. But your perspective in this post is really twisted and all about you. Every single dog and dog owner that was filling up those emergency vets also had a crisis.

In the end, you had to make 4 or 5 phone calls and drive 40 min. That is not the end of the world. Be grateful you live in a place that has that many options.

[Anonymous]

This actually almost sounds like a troll post - "they closed their doors on my mini Golden Doodle" Perfect choice of breed for this type of post.

[Anonymous]

This thread might be the best reason not to encourage breeding. It seems the system is alread overloaded with shelter pets. We don't need to "design" more animals when there are plenty already and none of them can be guaranteed care in times like this.

When someone says they have a Havapoo or Cavapoo or whatever, I know that dog didn't even exist as a breed at one time. Meanwhile, hounds all over are available.

[Anonymous]

In my experience, OP, yes many vet practices are over capacity right now. Even the ASPCA poison control hotline is running really long waits. (I discovered both when my dog counter surged cooking food that was full of onion.)

What was most difficult for me is that I recently had to work really hard to find a vet to euthanize my very elderly cat that had been on hospice care. Both Friendship had Lap of Love had been providing care, but they were running 3-4 day waits for euthanasia. My spouse and I spent a morning calling vet practices to ask them to please euthanize our cat that day, which was a pretty terrible way to spend our last hours with a family pet.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for giving us a picture of how things are right now in a vet emergency, OP. I'm sorry your little pup had to suffer but I appreciate knowing about this situation.

[Anonymous]

It was annoying when you posted this on the Foodies group and it is annoying here. Your pet isn't "allowed to die." Places are at real crisis capacity.

[Anonymous]

I am confused about what op thinks veterinary hospitals operating at capacity are supposed to do when she shows up. Throw another emergency out the door and treat her dog?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You had to make 5 calls and drive 40 minutes. Big freaking deal.

Be better, pp. No need for meaness. When your pet or someone you love is in pain let us know how five calls and driving 40 minutes is " no big deal"

Sorry op!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You had to make 5 calls and drive 40 minutes. Big freaking deal.

Be better, pp. No need for meaness. When your pet or someone you love is in pain let us know how five calls and driving 40 minutes is " no big deal"

Sorry op!

Five calls and forty minutes is perfectly reasonable in the current climate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am confused about what op thinks veterinary hospitals operating at capacity are supposed to do when she shows up. Throw another emergency out the door and treat her dog?

Triage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused about what op thinks veterinary hospitals operating at capacity are supposed to do when she shows up. Throw another emergency out the door and treat her dog?

Triage

Right. Is triage unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused about what op thinks veterinary hospitals operating at capacity are supposed to do when she shows up. Throw another emergency out the door and treat her dog?

Triage

Right. Is triage unreasonable?

1. Animals can't talk so triage is much harder.

2. They do triage as much as possible.

3. They were at capacity. So who would do this triage?

4. You do know that a concept in triage is to just let some go that can't be saved, right?

[Anonymous]

Imagine being this entitled. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's an awful situation. Even though it's awful, they can't care for more patients than they can care for, and if they were maxed, they were maxed.

OP, if they had admitted your dog, would you have been okay if they left your dog to take an unnoticed turn for the worse and die in the corner, just so they could keep seeing more emergencies that kept coming through the door? Would you have said "oh, well," or would you have argued that they had first responsibility to the animals already under their care?

I don’t understand what that means. Why can’t a vet come provide emergency care for a puppy? It’s an emergency

And this exemplifies why you are the type of person who should not have bought a pandemic puppy. If a practice says they're full, it means they have as many patients as they can take care of with the staff in their facility. They can't fit your puppy, if they did, they wouldn't have enough staff to care for her. If there's not enough staff, something might get pissed, an animal may be severely injured or die.

I am so over pandemic pet owners who are in over their heads.

Yeah, they should’ve just let those pets be put down in the shelters.

Would that have been the end of the world? A standard practice for decades to control the animal population when there are limitations on who can care for a population? And there are limitations. There aren’t enough vets. More vets aren’t graduating. They are committing suicide at record numbers, so there is a limiting factor. Given a choice between more suicides of vets and putting dogs down, I know which I’d choose.

OP, your post is rude and does indeed imply that vets did something wrong. It’s really crude. I understand that part of what’s making vets’ careers awful are the pet owners; if I were you I would ask myself if I were one of those pet owners adding to the stress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused about what op thinks veterinary hospitals operating at capacity are supposed to do when she shows up. Throw another emergency out the door and treat her dog?

Triage

Right. Is triage unreasonable?

1. Animals can't talk so triage is much harder.

2. They do triage as much as possible.

3. They were at capacity. So who would do this triage?

4. You do know that a concept in triage is to just let some go that can't be saved, right?

It can also be a regional area triage with a cooperative real time data system, as mentioned above. Experienced techs can do that, as RNs do this in hospitals. And yes, for many things, it is pretty clear how serious the emergency is, and, of course, for some, not as apparent. But it's a start.

What I've learned from this thread is that there is a crisis that wasn't really happening before in terms of service, but some of the endemic and specific issues have been building up, with a pandemic illuminating and exacerbating the problems. The vets are correct about a lot of things, of course, but the owner who is scared and expecting care from local ER providers as usual while not realizing what's happening really doesn't need to be raked over the coals as an entitled suburban Karen who doesn't even deserve a dog. If the veterinary community really believed that of people in her position, they wouldn't be also offering specialty services such a dog water PT, laser work for skin, ophthalmology or especially oncology. We interact entirely differently with our pets than even 20 years ago, and that is how the veterinary field grew to what it is today. It's like developments built with no infrastructure changes, like roads and schools. We are all Tricky- Woo's owner now, admittedly.* We don't realize there is a problem until it's a crisis. Over the years, we've had a few crises, and I was very frightened, which I guess is why they are called Emergency centers.

That is not to say that the vets need some understanding, our (client) realization of the situation, and compassion, not to mention kudos for hard work in a pandemic when the spotlight is in other places. More should be written about it, social media platforms associated with centers need to get the info out, pay needs to be increased, and yes, it's time to work with technology to help streamline emergency situations within a region.