Living Dog Blood Bank

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#2
Yea I've seen this story floating around various places and jesus. It's just so disgusting that I don't even know where to start.
 

xpaeanx

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#4
I think this was one of the plots in the Beethoven movie?

I couldn't even imagine how the families of the animals feel. It's just so horrible.
Also, if I worked there and saw that I would have turned him in so fast. I can deal with some things, that would not be one of them.
 

Romy

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#5
Scary thing is I've seen people on facebook claiming to be current and former employees popping up to defend this guy. The victim blaming is horrid. So many people (including the supposed employees) are blaming the owner for not staying with the dog to "see it through". Sorry, but if you pay someone for a service they are legally obligated to provide that service. Nobody should have to supervise a veterinarian to make sure they're not breaking the law.
 
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#6
Yea, there are SO many miscommunications that can occur, so much displaced grief/guilt/anger that can drive people's opinions of vets, and I've heard a lot of really bad "disgruntled ex-employee makes false accusation" stories, so I am usually pretty quick to reserve judgment on wait for both sides to come out and/or assume innocence, but... there's just really no way to misinterpret this, I think. And the one guy either quoted in the article or who wrote in the comments (can't remember) who was talking about how awesome the guy was and how up to date his medicine was and then said "granted that was about 30 years ago..." Really? What does that have to do with anything happening now? *boggle*

Even on some vet subscription sites he's got some apologists who are just sure some shining truth is going to come out, but jesus people come on. I mean, I doubt the "organ harvesting" stuff is true because there really isn't any reason to do it, but the man undoubtedly kept this dog in poor conditions AND even if his intentions were some kind of "I just couldn't euthanize the poor dog" that is totally unacceptable, not heroic and there's no reason for it to stay AT the clinic in a filthy cage.

What is really bizarre to me though is that there just really isn't THAT much need for blood transfusions even in pretty busy emergency clinics that the dog would have visible evidence, so what the h*ll? When I was in vet school I had a dog in their blood donor program and on average they needed us to come in for a draw maybe once every two months and sometimes we would go 6-9 months between draws. Granted, they had multiple dogs in their program but this was at a large metropolitan vet college/referral center, back in the day when they were almost the only referral center in town.
 

krissy

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#7
What is really bizarre to me though is that there just really isn't THAT much need for blood transfusions even in pretty busy emergency clinics that the dog would have visible evidence, so what the h*ll? When I was in vet school I had a dog in their blood donor program and on average they needed us to come in for a draw maybe once every two months and sometimes we would go 6-9 months between draws. Granted, they had multiple dogs in their program but this was at a large metropolitan vet college/referral center, back in the day when they were almost the only referral center in town.
That's the weird part to me too. Summit was a blood donor when I was in vet school. In general they used each dog every 3 months. Occasionally Summit would get called in a little early simply because he was one of the few universal donors they had that could be in at the drop of a hat. We were once called in a panic because they needed DEA negative blood RIGHT NOW for a dog in surgery who had already used their last 2 bags. They literally went from the collection room to surgery and handed the bag to the anesthesiologist... who said in amazement "this is still warm". The tech (who was also a friend of mine) said "Yeah, that's from the emergency on call dog".

Granted... Summit always looked like he had JUST donated blood because of how slowly greyhound hair grows back. In 3 months when he went for his next donation it still looked like he'd been shaved the day before.

As in all professions there will always be bad apples. It's unfortunate that that's the case, but it's true of doctors, lawyers, cops, judges, computer programmers, writers... etc. :(
 

*blackrose

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#9
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Do...rt-Worth-Vet--Accused-of-Abuse-257530311.html

Lots of other info on that link... I don't know, seems to me the guy probably has serious mental problems.
The whole situation is just so...bizarre. Not only the fact that he did it, but that no one thought anything was wrong with what he was doing.

On a lighter note, when I read the article and it was talking about the unsanitary conditions of the clinic and they mentioned "animal organs in jars" I was like...so? LOL That's the only part that wasn't a giant red flag. One of the vets I worked with had a shelf for his weird "trophies", like a vial full of dead fleas that came off of one dog, or nasty, nasty teeth. (He used them for educational purposes, but they were still gross. Ahahaha)
 

Ozfozz

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#10
The whole situation is just so...bizarre. Not only the fact that he did it, but that no one thought anything was wrong with what he was doing.

On a lighter note, when I read the article and it was talking about the unsanitary conditions of the clinic and they mentioned "animal organs in jars" I was like...so? LOL That's the only part that wasn't a giant red flag. One of the vets I worked with had a shelf for his weird "trophies", like a vial full of dead fleas that came off of one dog, or nasty, nasty teeth. (He used them for educational purposes, but they were still gross. Ahahaha)
I don't see a problem with keeping the "weird" stuff either. It's pretty cool TBH, although growing up in a "medical" centred family, I guess it's somewhat normal to me lol.
 

krissy

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#11
I don't see a problem with keeping the "weird" stuff either. It's pretty cool TBH, although growing up in a "medical" centred family, I guess it's somewhat normal to me lol.
I think every clinic has a couple jars of odd things. One of my technicians keeps a box up on a top shelf labeled "Box of Oddities" in which she keeps formalin jars of really cool things that have come through. She has a couple of kitten fetuses from pregnant cat spays, some bladder stones, ticks and fleas, a femoral head eaten away by cancer, etc. But we don't leave it out on display or scattered helter skelter. They are in their box up on a shelf in the treatment room where clients aren't going to accidentally wander across it. I love the box of oddities personally.
 

AliciaD

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#12
This story is so messed up.

The only pet I've had euthanized was my cat Figaro, it was so hard, I stayed in the room with him, but then afterwards the vet clinic offered to bring him to the crematorium where we picked up his ashes later. If I ever found out that those ashes weren't Figaro's it would really mess me up.

God, I can't imagine believing that you've made the difficult and painful decision to let a beloved pet go, only to find out 6 months later that they were alive and yet out of reach.

This is so messed up.
 

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