It’s 1am. Lady calls and says that her older, small dog delivered a dead puppy last night. Now, there’s another puppy stuck in the birth canal and she wants to get it out. Lady has no money. Lady says her credit is too sour for our emergency vet credit application. Lady says she has no friends who would help. Lady does not have a car, and is therefore unable to get to an emergency clinic from her poduck town anyhow.
In 7 years of answering emergency phone calls, I’ve had probably a dozen like this.
Fuck the lot of you right in the ear.
Fuck you for not using one of the 6 local low-cost spay/neuter programs
Fuck you for not keeping your dog away from intact males
Fuck you for not ponying up the cash after your bitch got pregnant
Fuck you for waiting through 2 days of labor before calling a vet
Fuck you for being angry that I can’t help you in the middle of the night for free
Fuck you for being insulted when I suggest humane euthanasia as the cheaper alternative. You’re not going to kill your dog over this? What the fuck do you think you are doing to the dog?
I don’t know. I tried to give her the numbers for other emergency clinics nearby, since their money policies might be different, but she refused them, saying that she didn’t have a car anyhow and so couldn’t get to a vet tonight. Basically, she thought that all she would have to do is get the stuck puppy out and everything would be fine. She got more somber when I explained that there is more wrong now.
I don’t get calls like this very often, but they ruin my night. At least this one didn’t accuse me of being a heartless, animal-hating bitch.
Ohhh, Pullet. That’s maddening. I’m sorry that you had to face that and be professional.
When my chance to go back to school came up and I decided I wanted to be a pharmacist, my husband said, “Well, you love animals so much, why don’t you go be a veterinarian?”
One reason. I love animals, sure, but I don’t have the stones to be cool in situations where some jackass needs a good beatdown for what they’ve done to their pets through neglect or stupidity. I’m glad there are people in the world who have made it their job to help. I can’t. Not without jail time.
Oh sweet! The joys of emergency duty! How I miss those weird calls not!
I still don’t understand why would people wait until ridiculous late hours to call emergency clinics to take care of the animal, instead of taking it as a walk in to a less expensive clinic during the day. Okay, I can understand in some situations, but in the scenario described above (and others that I’ve encountered), it just leaves me thinking “WTF?”.
What makes me mad is that I encounter cases of people who have money, yet they’re not willing to help the animal, or get mad at our prices (hey, you’re calling at 1am at an emergency clinic, what you expect?), vs people who really do need help, want to give it to their dogs, but cannot afford it. And sadly, many times we cannot do much about it.
Thinking about the cases you do help makes it better. While I do like emergency duty and medicine, clients are one of the reasons I’m trying to not touch private practice a lot and go into the wonders of pathology (where I’ll be dealing with crazy vets instead of their crazy clients).
I am thinking of going into veterinary pathology too! Sure, you may not have living animals to interact and play with, but then you could always get a pet.
I think a study was actually done trying to figure out why people will suffer with something for days and then, at 3:00 am, suddenly decide it’s bad enough to go to the ER. I’m not sure what was found exactly, but I remember it had something to do with having arbitrary thresholds in their heads - i.e “when X happens it must be really bad so I better go to the doctor.”
She discovered our dark secret: Any treatment a vet might do can actually be done with a spoon and some masking tape. We just invent fancy tools to charge you more money.
Working with commercial producers is looking better and better. And has pathology to boot!
This is exactly why I’m not in practice either. I did a pathology residency right out of vet school, and now I read histology slides from lab animals in drug studies. It has its boring moments, but at least I don’t have to deal with wantwits like the one the OP describes in the middle of the night. Also, the pay and benefits are better.
How I miss those weird calls not!
