Reply to She signed to euthanize her dog last year. Now he’s up for adoption.

Forum Index » Pets

Reply to "She signed to euthanize her dog last year. Now he’s up for adoption."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I mean, the dog needed a $7k surgery. Most normal people wouldn’t be able to pay that. [/quote]

We surrendered a dog to Montgomery county in order to save its life.

We’d just adopted the dog about 6 weeks before, and while crated, he ate a substantial amount of a blanket that was used for bedding. He ended up with blocked intestines and required surgery. The animal hospital (on Nebel Street in north Bethesda- don’t EVER go there, btw) quoted us $8,000 for the surgery plus more for recovery and follow up care.

We were heartbroken. We couldn’t afford that. We were considering having the dog euthanized. The techs said if we surrendered the dog to the county, the county would pick up the tab for the surgery, thus saving the dog’s life - but we’d never see the dog again.

So we cried together as a family and said goodbye to our dog and signed the papers and surrendered him to Montgomery county. The hospital started prepping him for surgery immediately.

Right before we left, one of the techs told us she’d call us because she needed to tell us something but couldn’t talk to us about it at work. We were puzzled. But it made sense shortly afterwards…

A few hours later, after we were home….and feeling empty and heartbroken and devastated and crying as we cleaned up all of the dog toys and his crate and tried to remove any reminders of our dogs presence …. the phone rings.

It was the Dr at the animal hospital. The Dr who quoted us $8,000 plus for the surgery. She said “it wasn’t as bad as initially thought, and the surgery was now only $2,900 instead of $8,000.

We were confused. We said “we’ve already signed the paperwork to surrender the dog to the county”….”we’re happy that he’s going to be OK, but we’ve already surrendered him”.

The Dr then said “oh we can just throw that paperwork out”. You can get your dog back right now. Just come pick him up and pay, he can go home tonight”.

At this point, we were already an emotional mess and had just endured the further trauma of sanitizing our home of any reminders of our new dog, and had convinced ourselves that we did what was best for the dog in order to save his life. We would just have to accept that we had to give him up to save him…

So we said we couldn’t really afford $3,000 anymore than we could afford $8,000…. which probably wasn’t too far from the truth…we might have been able to, but it would’ve been a real squeaker and left us vulnerable to another emergency. The dog was saved. That was the most important thing. He’d go home and live - but with some other family. Not us. So we accepted that.

A couple hours later, the vet tech from earlier called us. She was off work now and was able to speak freely without anyone overhearing her.

She told us the dog would be absolutely fine, and the county only pays $1,200 for such surgeries. That’s what the county would be paying them for our dog. Not $2,900. Not $8000+. Nope. $1,200. The hospital quotes to the moon, hoping they’ll get people to pay it. If they can’t, they offer the surrender program, just like they did to us. Then after the procedure, they come back again with a lower quote and offer to “make the whole surrender thing disappear”….  Hoping we’d go for it. We didn’t. So they got what the county pays. $1,200. We could’ve easily afforded $1,200. We would’ve jumped at that. But they quoted us $8,000

We almost euthanized the dog because of the original $8000 quote! And we were heartbroken to give the dog up, but at the time we thought it was the only way we could save his life, and we were GRATEFUL for the chance to give him up if it meant it would save his life. Now we find out it was just a pricing strategy to soak us tor as much as they could get out of us, and $1200 would’ve been enough?

And we would’ve never known any of this were it not for a disgruntled employee telling us about the whole scam.

We never pursued any action against that animal hospital (on Nebel Street in north Bethesda) but I will tell as many people as I can what that place did to our family. The anguish that they put us through.

So I’ve learned enough about animal hospitals to give the woman in this story the OP posted the benefit of the doubt. She may have been in a situation just like the one we were placed in.

[/quote]

:shock:  :shock:  :shock:  :shock:

This should be illegal. What a scam!!! [/quote]
Yes, this story sounds horrible, and if I’d gone through what this family went through, I’d be super angry too. I truly feel for that poster and their family. They did the most loving, selfless thing they could do under terrible circumstances. However, if you look at it logically and remove emotion from the equation, scans can’t necessarily tell vets everything that’s going on internally. It can be difficult to predict how involved a surgery will be. Emergency vets have to get approval before the surgery to make sure clients will pay. What would this family have said if the vet had given them a quote of $3000-8000? They didn’t feel they could afford even $3000, so the outcome would still have been the same; they would have had to surrender the dog so someone else paid for the necessary life saving surgery.

PP says they could have “easily” paid $1200 for the surgery. If $3000 would have dangerously depleted their emergency funds, then obviously $1200 wasn’t going to be “easy” for them, even if it was doable. Let’s say they were offered the same rate of $1200 that the county shelter allegedly would pay. What would they have done if there were costly post-surgical complications? Could they have come up with another $500 or $800? What were they going to do if the dog ate something he shouldn’t again before they replenished their savings? Dogs who eat a “substantial” amount of blanket don’t tend to have only a single instance of eating something they shouldn’t.

Finally, as to the vet tech’s assertion that the county shelter would have been charged only $1200 for the same surgery, how do we know that that price was accurate? It may have been a ballpark estimate. It may have been the amount that was charged for another dog’s surgery due to “dietary indiscretion,” but that surgery may have been less complicated. Even if it was accurate, veterinarians can only discount their work so much and stay in business. Do you really want them to donate free labor to responsible pet owners who do have some money instead of donating it to shelters and rescues that couldn’t possibly save homeless animals without that kind of charity? The system works the way it does to maximize the number of animals saved. People take on the responsibility for an animal’s care when they adopt it. People who can’t afford the necessary care can’t afford that pet. It’s heartbreaking, but that’s the reality.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics