Beloved Cat Euthanized By Mistake

Hi guys,

I read this Petside article this morning that made me sick with anger. A pet cat was taken to the vet to receive a flea treatment but was euthanized by mistake because of a mixup in the paperwork. The cat's owner is devastated because the cat was all she had left of her daughter who died in a car accident.

This is a nightmare. Can you imagine dropping off your precious cat to get a flea bath and coming back to pick her up, only to be asked if you want to pick up the cat's body?

http://www.petside.com/article/cat-killed-tragic-mistake?nlcid=ps|09-26-2012|

 

I would be suing the ever loving HELL out of them for that. If someone did something like that to one of my babies, I don't even want to think about how I'd actually react to what they'd done, when they gave me the news. I might well end up being locked away for gratuitous bodily harm, or murder.

 

That's horrible! Even based on the paperwork I don't understand how they could make such a mistake, regardless of what the woman's son filled out or signed, the vet should have been double checking that. And I totally agree with the above post, I'd be taking severe legal action against that vet's office so that something like that would never happen to another family again.

 

You would think that they would look at the cat and notice that she was perfectly healthy. Who puts down a healthy cat?

 

It's heartbreaking that the cat used to belong to her daughter that died in a car accident. I'm actually angry for the poor lady. If that happened to me, I would probably snap and start throwing things and yelling.

 

That is terrible, the poor lady must be devastated...can't imagine how she must feel.

 

That's so awful.

I can relate just a little bit to the mixup, though. When we took my cat in to be declawed, they had her under anesthesia and her belly already shaved to spay her instead. They called us in a panic because well, she had already been spayed (thankfully they saw the scar instead of opening her up again). My mom explained that she was in there to get declawed and they switched procedures.

Unfortunately that means that she had her claws ripped out, came home not being able to walk, clean, scratch, etc.... and her belly was shaved as well, so that when it started coming in again, it surely itched like crazy and she couldn't do anything about it. She was so miserable. I was a kid at that point and had no idea it was going to hurt her that much in the first place, but it was even worse that it nearly crippled her for several weeks -and- she was missing half her hair.

 

Wow that's insane, isn't there some sort of double check done before they kill the cat? This seems like a devastating mistake. i agree she should sue the hell out of that vet, it won't bring back the cat, but it seems to be the only way companies learn these days!

 

Having just come back to this thread, it's made me angry all over again. I was saying elsewhere that the animal care industry has a lot to answer for in terms of fees, practices and how they conduct themselves physically, and ethically. I sincerely hope the person who did it, loses absolutely everything. I want to swear a lot, but I shan't. I'm not here to do that.

 

That is horrible. Such sad news. That is why I never leave my cat's side when I take him to the vet. You don't know what goes on back there and I don't want to traumatize my cat.

 

That is so horrible! Oh, dear. I can't even imagine how devastating that might be, and hope I never have to deal with anything like that. Honestly, I started to tear up just reading it and thinking about my own cats. Mistakes happen in life, but what a miserable one to live with. I bet the vet/person who did it feels terrible about it though.

 

That is awful to hear. Though I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to mention it to your vet, just to make them more aware of how irresponsible that was so they take better care of your cats when you bring them there. Maybe they will change some of their procedures as a result, who knows?

 

Our vets? Or the vet that did this? Apparently this particular vet had already had some malpractice incidents.... including being put on probation. I don't know why they were allowed to continue practicing like that.