Heat Stroke
So Tuesday (15th) we had this guy come into work for an emergency. He looked like your typical construction worker, didn’t seem very bright, didn’t look like he had seen a shower in a couple days.
Apparently he decided to lock his 6 month old lab up in a metal shed all day (and it was pretty damn hot on Tuesday, 90+ degrees I’m sure). So now his dog has had a heat stroke. He asked if he should bring him in (apparently he didn’t think to bring the dog with him). Coryn told him yes, or the dog was going to die.
So about 15 minutes roll by and he comes in with his dog on the bed of his truck (how nice). Technicians go out and carry the dog in and begin administering treatment.
Meanwhile, the guy is filling out the registration paperwork, and we’re asking him all the necessary questions to figure out what was going on. A client over hears this and starts screaming at him about animal abuse (which she has every right, cause that’s pretty much what it was). She asked him why he kept the dog in a shed like that all day in this heat, and the guy answers “Because I was at work and don’t want the dog in my house.” She asks him why doesn’t he keep the dog in the house, doesn’t he want the dog in the house to play with and he says “Because I don’t like dogs.” So we asked him why he had a dog then and he said “For protection.” wtf?
So he finishes up the paperwork and sits down, and we start entering all of it in the computer. He has the nerve to get up and ask me if he can go home and shower while his dog is in the back dying. I was like “Um, no, you need to stay here in case we need to get authorization from you for treatment.” Apparently he didn’t understand this so he’s like “But I’m just going to be gone for a few minutes.” So I tell him sorry, that’s procedure. At this point I’m beginning to think he might abandon this dog here, so I’m telling everyone to keep an eye on him.
So he gets up again and asks if we have any magazines to read because he’s bored. wtffffffffffffff. No, sorry.
I call the technicians and tell them to put the guy in an exam room before he bolts. The Dr. eventually comes in and she’s pissed. She starts asking him all kinds of questions.
“Sir, how hot do you think it was in that shed?”
“I dunno 120 degrees?”
“Would you be able to sit in that shed all day long without food or water?”
“uh…..no”
The poor dog in the back is moaning in pain, diarrhea and vomit everywhere. We got a $300 deposit from the guy and told him we’d call him later that night, because the dog was going to have to stay in the ICU.
Apparently the dog died over night. The Dr. said there were wood fragments and such in the dogs mouth, like he was trying to eat wood or claw his way out of something.
I think the Dr. is going to press charges against the guy for animal cruelty because she’s asking all of us to write-up statements as to what was said.
Good.
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9 Responses to “Heat Stroke”
June 17th, 2004 at 4:31 pm
I am disgusted.
Very disgusted.
I can’t believe people would treat animals like that…no wonder I have 3 dogs and 3 cats now.
June 18th, 2004 at 12:59 am
OMG! I think I am about to cry!! I can’t believe someone would do something like that. I hope that guy gets what he deserves!
June 18th, 2004 at 9:46 am
I don’t know how you do your job.. I couldn’t do that
and my mom wanted me to be a vet.. yeah right
June 18th, 2004 at 11:21 am
Yeah, it’s starting to scare me working at a Vet. I’ve become less emotional about some of the trauma there because I see it all the time and we have to keep a certain composure around the clients.
June 18th, 2004 at 12:46 pm
Know exactly how you feel, seeing some of the animals that come into the wolf-dog rescue. I hope your office is able to gather enough evidence against him.
June 18th, 2004 at 8:38 pm
Serves him right.
What stupidity.
He might as well get a security sytem.
July 20th, 2004 at 2:14 am
It lasted for minutes and was completely metallica chilling.)After the Canadian classicist, lesbian polymath and MacArthur “genius grant” wallpaper winner’s much-acclaimed verse-novel casino Autobiography of Red (1997)–and exactly playboy a year after Men in the Off Hours–comes playboy a second book-length, mostly-narrative girl poem: this charming, edgy, insistently aim express intertextual and finally heartbreaking poker
July 23rd, 2004 at 6:28 am
That is SO wrong. Someone should put that GUY in a shed in high summer with no water. Not only that, but lab puppies are SO cute, that makes it DOUBLY wrong. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have dogs. (and btw, labs are pretty much NO protection, they’re too sweet and friendly, unless he was planning on abusing the dog even more, to make it mean. Protection my a**!) Grrrrrr.
July 24th, 2004 at 12:37 pm
It’s disgusting that he would treat a dog that way, but that customer shouldn’t have really have gotten into it that way. There’s a really snotty atmosphere in a lot of clinics, and no wonder people are so defensive about their animals these days. NOT that that man wasn’t horrible, but just in general. People must be more friendly and try to help people learn not condemn them…and on the other side, people must not get pets if they aren’t going to look after them properly.