… which needs cleaning and stitches, so you take him to the vet and he fixes him up, and sends y’all home.
One week later, you notice that the wound isn’t healing and, in fact, is looking worse, so back he goes.
The wound was obviously itching and he was using his claws to scratch (IMO). he was sent home without one of those white collars which would prevent that, and now that he’s been taken back, he’s being sent home with his paws taped up so that he can’t scratch, but we’re still being charged for another suturing session.
whenever my kitties have stitches, I put them in an Elizabeth collar (that cone thing) because they do not understand about leaving itchy bits alone to heal.
Were I your vet, I’d have taped kittypaws or given collar at the first visit.
*probably taped paws AND collar for facial lacerations.
I manage three clinics currently and you might just discuss this problem with the vet. If the cat was obviously itchy (some may not show the same behavior at the office as they do at home) and no collar was ever option, you may have point in receiving some break in the cost of re-suturing. However, many animals do not itch excessively at their sutures during the course of their healing and many owners are reluctant to use collars unless necessary. If your cat was obviously itchy in the first 1-3 days, I would say you share some responsibility in letting the vet staff know that kitty was bothering the suture site. We call owners the day after any appointment and if a client mentioned itchiness, we’d probably recommend the collar then if it wasn’t something we had insisted on. We’d also probably give the client a break on the cost- not free but perhaps just charging for the anesthesia and not the surgery portion or something like that unless we felt too much time had gone by or the owner failed to follow directions.