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[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.

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This makes no sense to force a family to surender a dog vs. help it get the medical care and be back with its family.  I have to question these rescues and shelters.  Dogs have attachments and its trauma to have a dog in a shelter and rehome it especially when it has a home.  They wouldn't do that to a child so why is that ok for a dog?  That's inhumane.[/quote]

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