So I worked this weekend at the doggy daycare, it was a pretty busy weekend (35-ish dogs) but I only had a real problem with one dog- the 4mos great pyrenees puppy I mentioned/pictured in my previous blog.
Sunday morning I caught the puppy with it's face buried in the mop bucket drinking the soapy/bleachy water!!! I immediately got it out of the bucket and filled a bowl with fresh water for it to drink. Long story short it spent the next 2 hours drinking then vomiting water. After these 2 hours I contacted my boss and we opted to try giving pepto bismol to prevent vomitting before calling the vet. 40 minutes and 3 piles of cherry-scented pink vomit later my boss called the vet and here's where I get to my point:
It was a Sunday so all of the vet clinics were closed and we do not have an emergency clinic in town. However, one-and ONLY one- clinic in town keeps a vet on-call for emergency purposes when the other clinics are closed. The vet did not answer and my boss left a message- this is pretty common. The problem is that we didn't hear back after an hour- left another message, didn't hear back the next hour-left another message--it took nearly 5 hours before the vet even returned the call! Next issue: He asked if his clinic had seen the puppy before-no-then said that his clinic isn't "credited" to see pets they haven't seen before and that we should take the puppy to see it's own vet. A) This has never been a policy of theirs as they are the ONLY emergency service in town, they have always been available to any emergency (this very vet just saw my cat for an emergency call in March w/o having ever seen him before) & B) He is well aware that he is the ONLY vet available on a Sunday! He kept saying it would be $150 just to come in and see the puppy and my boss kept saying money wasn't an issue we just wanted the puppy checked and he ultimately refused to see the puppy even though my boss was willing to pay the emergency fee!
Does anybody else feel this is negligence on the part of the vet? Albeit I was pretty sure the puppy only needed some antiemetics and fluids (after approximately 8hours of vomitting), but had this been a life-or-death emergency that dog would have been dead hours before the call was even returned! I think if the vet is the only on-call vet he has a responsibility to keep his phone with him, answer/return calls as soon as possible and offer emergency care to anyone willing to pay the emergency fee (especially since that has been the policy for as long as I have lived here-15years- & I have shadowed at this clinic in the past so I know what their rules are unless they've changed drastically since March).
That's my rant-- I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! Also, I am happy to say the puppy started keeping food/water down later that evening and other than a minor infection (no relation to the bleach) the puppy was all clear at her vet check the next morning.
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