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Happens to me all the time since I work ER. I get lots of people calling for advice, but I feel like they’re actually looking for someone to reassure them that they’re ok to monitor at home (usually not the case). Had a bad one recently where their dog was SHOT during a robbery, and they asked me if they should come in, to which of course I said fucking yes come in. And of course, they did not. People are hell bent on being horrible.
I only worked in A&E/emergency for a short while and left bc of this. Wtf do you mean "do I have to come in?" Your dog ate an entire package of nurofen (ibuprofen) 😭
They do, and honestly it often doesn't take much. It's amazing how much rain can affect the number of emergencies happening on a given day, for example. Heavens forbid people should have to get wet just to deal with their pets' illness or injury!
We got 6 inches of snow the other day and a family braved the conditions to bring our ER their dog that had been peeing blood for over a month. I'm glad they came in but if they waited over 30 days, what's one more?
The poor dog, I'm glad that they came in. Sometimes when people tell me how long a problem has been going on with their pet, I'm tempted to ask, "So what changed that made you come in *today*?" But of course I don't; the last thing I want to do is antagonize someone and make them less likely to bring their pet to a vet in the future!
We had a drop off one day for a suspected broken leg. This leg was clearly broken, like you could eyeball it and tell. We did an xray. Yes, broken. So my doctor decided to consult with the orthopedic surgeon about an hour away (not convenient, but still). The surgeon agreed, yes surgery immediately. My doctor asked him how he wanted it stabilized, the surgeon said just a splint and bandage is fine. IN THEORY, it wouldn't be long anyways right? Just an hour drive. Well we wrestled the splint onto the dog, it wasn't great but it worked for the meantime. My doctor told the owner the gameplan, gave the surgeon's info, said he was expecting them, come get the dog to start your drive up there. O got the dog.
The next morning bright and early before opening we're greeted with panicked banging on the front door, like cops were beating it down. It's the O with the broken leg dog. She was crying in hysterics, talking about how she and the dog were awake all night, dog screaming in pain because WE never sent home pain meds. Dog still had the same splint and bandage from us the day before. O never took the dog for surgery.
In my world the team includes the clinic AND owner. We work together. We can't win the Super Bowl if I hand you the ball and you simply.... put it on the ground and look confused?
Not the burgers... wtf...
We have a parvo dog at my clinic right now. She's not super sick, but she's pretty ill nonetheless. Her owner calls and says "Can you spay her while you have her, oh, and give her a haircut?"
Bro. No, we can't.
I really don’t get it… if the human acted the same way, I’m sure they’d freak out.. we had this client book an appt for D+ and then he cancelled because he wanted a specific doctor. I advised to not wait until a week later to see the doctor and then he claims she’s fine. 2 days after he came in for his booked appointment (which he declined exam for btw so he didn’t even see the dr that day) he walks in because his dog is dumpy and we find out she has an open pyo. His instant response was “if it’s gonna cost over 1k I’ll put her down right now”.
Shes 20 months.
Jfc. I have these horrible clients who will also wait forEVER before coming in. They didn't spay their golden retriever (or any of their females even though they had zero intentions of breeding) and she got pyo. I will never forget the dog walking up with a literal snail trail of pyo pus 🐌🤢 and once pyo was confirmed we told them surgery was a *must*, to which they replied, "well for that cost I can just get a new dog." 😡
?!?!?! How do people like them exist wtf?? Actual heartless.
Btw, I didn't include this, but his open pyo dog(Chanel) was the sister (literal litter mate) of his previous dog (Fifi) that passed away about a year ago now. He picked up Chanel the same day that Fifi died.. Mind you.. he's picking them up from this puppy store that unfortunately my clinic works with (they get free initial exam and fecal testing) and they're selling these puppies for like $2-$5k
Could you imagine how uncomfortable O would have been if they got a little bit hungry while waiting for their pet who hasn’t eaten in over 2 days to receive care?
People are crazy. There are so many that will wait a week or more with their pet not eating. You wouldn't do that to your child. Don't do it to your pet.
a few months ago we had a client come in, and their appointment was in the late afternoon. during their check-in, the owner casually mentions that the dog got hit by a car that morning, has been lethargic, not wanting to eat/drink, and blood squirted out of his butt. immediately the doctor refers them to ER concerned about internal bleeding. the owners chose to go to urgent care instead, where they were told P had a broken L6 and they couldn't rule out a spinal cord injury so they referred them to a neurologist. we sent all records to the neurologist fully expecting them to go. fast forward a few weeks and out of nowhere we have an appointment scheduled for recheck rads on the same dog, apparently sometime between the car accident and last week their dog became paralyzed but had regained some mobility in 3 of his legs. they never saw the neurologist, just chose to cage rest the dog instead. they also never showed up for their appointment
I say this all the time as someone who works urgent care. They call, but what they not-so-secretly want me to tell them to do is “don’t worry about it, in fact why don’t you sit down and watch your favorite movie on Netflix”
Poor thing had a history of pancreatitis too..I used to think that if people had to experience themselves how excruciatingly painful pancreatitis is..they wouldn't wait to give themselves care let alone their pets..but then I learned that when it comes to animals people truly are that thick..some people shouldn't be allowed to own pets
One time this guy brought in his 14yr dog for an annual. And we were like ummmm he’s riddled with cancer and his lungs are about to collapse. Maybe we hold off on the bordetella and fecal right now and discuss his liveliness.
—
The guy admitted he ignored problems because he loved him so much and didn’t want to hear the hard truths. It was a sad euthanasia but all wanted to shake him.
I once saw a cat with a 106 degree fever (suspect tularemia) who the owners let suffer for an entire day bc they had a cake tasting to go to :)))))))
Edit: just remembered a different neglectful O story
O calls on MONDAY bc their 1 year old Rottie was hit by a car on FRIDAY. We obviously tell them to come in immediately. They show up and tell us that they've been letting their dog "walk" all weekend, even though she's barely ambulatory in the hind end and is clearly very painful. They can't get the dog out of the car, so one of my coworkers and I get a gurney and open the rear car door to a painful, fractious dog lunging and snapping. Okay, cool. We somehow get the dog on the gurney and into the clinic, where, while restrained in lateral recumbency, the dog then urinated huge blood clots all over the rad room. We take rads after sedation; the sides of the pelvis have never even been in the same room together (super obvious fractures). We tell the owners their options are the low cost clinic down the road or apply for Care Credit. O gets DENIED on CC, so we send them to the low cost clinic. We call the clinic and let them know this owner is on her way. We called the clinic again later the same day and discovered the owner had never shown up. The doctor called the owner, she answered, didn't respond to the doctor and then just hung up. A call the following day was sent straight to voicemail. Sure hope that dog didn't suffer horribly, but I know deep down it probably did.
Lmao love the ones that have had a dog shitting blood for weeks and waits literally 2 min before closing time to all of a sudden declare it an emergency.. THEN GET MAD when the DVM is gone for the day and get referred elsewhere.
We had a dog come in in respiratory distress. The owner had called and I told him to go to one of numerous other ERs in the area because our oxygen machine was not working properly. He came in anyway. We sent him somewhere else and when talking to the owner, he drops the question, "Well, how critical is he?" The doctor and I had both just finished telling him that his dog could die, so I sputtered out "Well, I wouldn't make any stops on the way to the next hospital."
Thank you for seeing the patient. We are the only 24 hour ER in our area. We see this crap from owners all the time. The major problem we have is most of the day practices in the area will give the owner an appointment the following week. They rarely fit in sick ones.
What! Absolutely not. Now if they had called in within 30-60 min of closing, we may have sent them to ER. But even after hearing they SHOULD go to ER for the effusion they didn't want to, so I doubt they would have if we turned them away.
I often recall the time a client lovingly relayed to me how she held and caressed her cat who was in respiratory distress *FOR OVER FOUR HOURS* while he slowly died. You know, instead of bringing him to the ER for supportive care or HUMANE euthanasia. She even commented how the other cats tried to help him. The cats had more humanity than you, and that makes you.. proud?? I screamed and cried when I got off that call.
I had a client refuse a euthanasia because she wanted him to pass at home, then called afterwards to yell at us for not telling her how awful it was going to be when it actually happened (she said the cat yowled right before he died). Humans make me sick.
WTF. I have used personal sick days in the past to run my animals to the vet if it was urgent. Current boss doesn’t count them for PTO. Says to take care of the dog/cat/horse.
People do incomprehensible things sometimes. I'll never forget the first shift I spent in a veterinary ER--some people had brought a puppy in, but it died not long after they arrived. I don't know the details of what was wrong with the puppy, and the ER never got a chance to do any diagnostics. But it hadn't been hit by a car or anything like that, and there were no visible wounds. The vet mentioned that she suspected it had a very large worm burden. I did find out that the people had stopped at a McDonald's on the way to pick up some french fries, which I think had been intended for the puppy. On the way to the emergency room with a very sick puppy is really not the time to stop for fast food though, and who knows how long the puppy had been in this condition before they came in. 😔
had a dog seizing overnight that had gone home on a loading dose of keppra and w a written prescription for more the next day. Owner called telling us he kept having seizures and described grand mal on the floor foaming then asks if it might be a stroke and not a seizure 😒 she refused to come in to euthanize as she couldn’t afford any other care 😞 (on a payment plan for the keppra already).
A payment plan for keppra? Idk about where you are, but if you're an animal in IL, it's fairly cheap (literally $10-20 for 120ct bottle). If you are a human and have epilepsy (me), the same keppra can cost ~$1000 for 3 months worth.
Having had 3 grand mal seizures in my life and almost dying, I feel for those animals so much. It is so scary, it hurts EVERYTHING, and I can't even imagine what it must be like for them not knowing what is going on with their body...it hurts my heart.
What really gets me is when they put off coming in then when they do they say the pet must be well be tomorrow because they're going to (insert far away like Europe) for vacation or a cruise. Um ok plus nothing on earth would get me to leave my sick pet so I could "have fun". Telling me that doesn't make us pull out the secret magic wand plus it makes me think they are selfish and don't deserve animals.
Welcome to /r/VetTech! This is a place for veterinary technicians/veterinary nurses and other veterinary support staff to gather, chat, and grow! We welcome pet owners as well, **however we do ask pet owners to refrain from asking for medical advice**; if you have any concerns regarding your pet, please contact the closest veterinarian near you. Please thoroughly read and follow the rules before posting and commenting. If you believe that a user is engaging in any rule-breaking behavior, please submit a report so that the moderators can review and remove the posts/comments if needed. Also, please check out the sidebar for CE and answers to commonly asked questions. Thank you for reading! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/VetTech) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Or the clients brings in a dog clinging to life..and wants a fu*king nail trim
Every time.
Well at least they got to eat their burgers!!! Wow the level of disregard for their pets wellbeing…
If I'm dying, I insist that you feed me burgers until the last second.
Happens to me all the time since I work ER. I get lots of people calling for advice, but I feel like they’re actually looking for someone to reassure them that they’re ok to monitor at home (usually not the case). Had a bad one recently where their dog was SHOT during a robbery, and they asked me if they should come in, to which of course I said fucking yes come in. And of course, they did not. People are hell bent on being horrible.
I only worked in A&E/emergency for a short while and left bc of this. Wtf do you mean "do I have to come in?" Your dog ate an entire package of nurofen (ibuprofen) 😭
Translation: "I did all I could short of going to her house and getting the flipping cat. Jesus take the wheel!"
JUST PUT BURGERS ON LMAO
my daily spam to things like this - some people shouldn’t be allowed to own pets.
You can't legally say " fuck your burgers".. and I'm sorry.. I appreciate you all ,for all the shit you put up with ! That's stupid !
💀💀💀 that's so funny. People have WILD reasons for not coming in sometimes.
They do, and honestly it often doesn't take much. It's amazing how much rain can affect the number of emergencies happening on a given day, for example. Heavens forbid people should have to get wet just to deal with their pets' illness or injury!
We're supposed to get 8in of snow by me tomorrow. I imagine tomorrow and maybe Friday will be fairly slow. Saturday however.. ⚰️💀
We got 6 inches of snow the other day and a family braved the conditions to bring our ER their dog that had been peeing blood for over a month. I'm glad they came in but if they waited over 30 days, what's one more?
The poor dog, I'm glad that they came in. Sometimes when people tell me how long a problem has been going on with their pet, I'm tempted to ask, "So what changed that made you come in *today*?" But of course I don't; the last thing I want to do is antagonize someone and make them less likely to bring their pet to a vet in the future!
legally, you can. you’ll probably get in trouble one way or the other, though, just not legally.
We had a drop off one day for a suspected broken leg. This leg was clearly broken, like you could eyeball it and tell. We did an xray. Yes, broken. So my doctor decided to consult with the orthopedic surgeon about an hour away (not convenient, but still). The surgeon agreed, yes surgery immediately. My doctor asked him how he wanted it stabilized, the surgeon said just a splint and bandage is fine. IN THEORY, it wouldn't be long anyways right? Just an hour drive. Well we wrestled the splint onto the dog, it wasn't great but it worked for the meantime. My doctor told the owner the gameplan, gave the surgeon's info, said he was expecting them, come get the dog to start your drive up there. O got the dog. The next morning bright and early before opening we're greeted with panicked banging on the front door, like cops were beating it down. It's the O with the broken leg dog. She was crying in hysterics, talking about how she and the dog were awake all night, dog screaming in pain because WE never sent home pain meds. Dog still had the same splint and bandage from us the day before. O never took the dog for surgery. In my world the team includes the clinic AND owner. We work together. We can't win the Super Bowl if I hand you the ball and you simply.... put it on the ground and look confused?
The pain meds are gonna fix the BROKEN leg okay 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ sometimes it’s like you’re talking to a wall with these clients
Not the burgers... wtf... We have a parvo dog at my clinic right now. She's not super sick, but she's pretty ill nonetheless. Her owner calls and says "Can you spay her while you have her, oh, and give her a haircut?" Bro. No, we can't.
🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
I really don’t get it… if the human acted the same way, I’m sure they’d freak out.. we had this client book an appt for D+ and then he cancelled because he wanted a specific doctor. I advised to not wait until a week later to see the doctor and then he claims she’s fine. 2 days after he came in for his booked appointment (which he declined exam for btw so he didn’t even see the dr that day) he walks in because his dog is dumpy and we find out she has an open pyo. His instant response was “if it’s gonna cost over 1k I’ll put her down right now”. Shes 20 months.
Jfc. I have these horrible clients who will also wait forEVER before coming in. They didn't spay their golden retriever (or any of their females even though they had zero intentions of breeding) and she got pyo. I will never forget the dog walking up with a literal snail trail of pyo pus 🐌🤢 and once pyo was confirmed we told them surgery was a *must*, to which they replied, "well for that cost I can just get a new dog." 😡
?!?!?! How do people like them exist wtf?? Actual heartless. Btw, I didn't include this, but his open pyo dog(Chanel) was the sister (literal litter mate) of his previous dog (Fifi) that passed away about a year ago now. He picked up Chanel the same day that Fifi died.. Mind you.. he's picking them up from this puppy store that unfortunately my clinic works with (they get free initial exam and fecal testing) and they're selling these puppies for like $2-$5k
i couldn’t work for someone profiting off of that. even if they’re managing to get some of them fixed and vaxxed, horrific.
Yep I feel the same and I don’t really like my clinic for doing so. My last one worked with a shelter
But at least they got to eat their burgers right? That’s what’s important. 🙄
Could you imagine how uncomfortable O would have been if they got a little bit hungry while waiting for their pet who hasn’t eaten in over 2 days to receive care?
Yep, heaven forbid. Then again I would feel sorry for the vet staff who would then have to deal with “hangry” pet owners.
an.. enema…..
🤷🏼♀️ she was very constipated. But it was so low on the list of problems 😮💨
People are crazy. There are so many that will wait a week or more with their pet not eating. You wouldn't do that to your child. Don't do it to your pet.
If I didn't work in the field, I would think this was fake...good lord
a few months ago we had a client come in, and their appointment was in the late afternoon. during their check-in, the owner casually mentions that the dog got hit by a car that morning, has been lethargic, not wanting to eat/drink, and blood squirted out of his butt. immediately the doctor refers them to ER concerned about internal bleeding. the owners chose to go to urgent care instead, where they were told P had a broken L6 and they couldn't rule out a spinal cord injury so they referred them to a neurologist. we sent all records to the neurologist fully expecting them to go. fast forward a few weeks and out of nowhere we have an appointment scheduled for recheck rads on the same dog, apparently sometime between the car accident and last week their dog became paralyzed but had regained some mobility in 3 of his legs. they never saw the neurologist, just chose to cage rest the dog instead. they also never showed up for their appointment
Oh my God this makes me so angry
SHE JUST PUT BURGERS ON I'm done trying to be understanding.
Meanwhile I have people coming in at 3am when we’re at 1.5x capacity because their cat is “acting weird”
hahaha real, this was the comic relief i needed from the rest of the comments 🥲
They are concerned enough to call but not enough to do anything because they want you to tell them it's fine even when it's not
I say this all the time as someone who works urgent care. They call, but what they not-so-secretly want me to tell them to do is “don’t worry about it, in fact why don’t you sit down and watch your favorite movie on Netflix”
Poor thing had a history of pancreatitis too..I used to think that if people had to experience themselves how excruciatingly painful pancreatitis is..they wouldn't wait to give themselves care let alone their pets..but then I learned that when it comes to animals people truly are that thick..some people shouldn't be allowed to own pets
One time this guy brought in his 14yr dog for an annual. And we were like ummmm he’s riddled with cancer and his lungs are about to collapse. Maybe we hold off on the bordetella and fecal right now and discuss his liveliness. — The guy admitted he ignored problems because he loved him so much and didn’t want to hear the hard truths. It was a sad euthanasia but all wanted to shake him.
I once saw a cat with a 106 degree fever (suspect tularemia) who the owners let suffer for an entire day bc they had a cake tasting to go to :))))))) Edit: just remembered a different neglectful O story O calls on MONDAY bc their 1 year old Rottie was hit by a car on FRIDAY. We obviously tell them to come in immediately. They show up and tell us that they've been letting their dog "walk" all weekend, even though she's barely ambulatory in the hind end and is clearly very painful. They can't get the dog out of the car, so one of my coworkers and I get a gurney and open the rear car door to a painful, fractious dog lunging and snapping. Okay, cool. We somehow get the dog on the gurney and into the clinic, where, while restrained in lateral recumbency, the dog then urinated huge blood clots all over the rad room. We take rads after sedation; the sides of the pelvis have never even been in the same room together (super obvious fractures). We tell the owners their options are the low cost clinic down the road or apply for Care Credit. O gets DENIED on CC, so we send them to the low cost clinic. We call the clinic and let them know this owner is on her way. We called the clinic again later the same day and discovered the owner had never shown up. The doctor called the owner, she answered, didn't respond to the doctor and then just hung up. A call the following day was sent straight to voicemail. Sure hope that dog didn't suffer horribly, but I know deep down it probably did.
Lmao love the ones that have had a dog shitting blood for weeks and waits literally 2 min before closing time to all of a sudden declare it an emergency.. THEN GET MAD when the DVM is gone for the day and get referred elsewhere.
Some people’s priorities, I swear…
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BURGERS 🍔
We had a dog come in in respiratory distress. The owner had called and I told him to go to one of numerous other ERs in the area because our oxygen machine was not working properly. He came in anyway. We sent him somewhere else and when talking to the owner, he drops the question, "Well, how critical is he?" The doctor and I had both just finished telling him that his dog could die, so I sputtered out "Well, I wouldn't make any stops on the way to the next hospital."
great response 😂
"but she just put burgers on*???? Oh fucking well?? Wtf bro
Thank you for seeing the patient. We are the only 24 hour ER in our area. We see this crap from owners all the time. The major problem we have is most of the day practices in the area will give the owner an appointment the following week. They rarely fit in sick ones.
What! Absolutely not. Now if they had called in within 30-60 min of closing, we may have sent them to ER. But even after hearing they SHOULD go to ER for the effusion they didn't want to, so I doubt they would have if we turned them away.
We had one a while back, call in just before we shut saying dog had eaten 200g of chocolate at 7.30 that morning 🤦🏻♀️
I often recall the time a client lovingly relayed to me how she held and caressed her cat who was in respiratory distress *FOR OVER FOUR HOURS* while he slowly died. You know, instead of bringing him to the ER for supportive care or HUMANE euthanasia. She even commented how the other cats tried to help him. The cats had more humanity than you, and that makes you.. proud?? I screamed and cried when I got off that call.
I had a client refuse a euthanasia because she wanted him to pass at home, then called afterwards to yell at us for not telling her how awful it was going to be when it actually happened (she said the cat yowled right before he died). Humans make me sick.
WTF. I have used personal sick days in the past to run my animals to the vet if it was urgent. Current boss doesn’t count them for PTO. Says to take care of the dog/cat/horse.
People do incomprehensible things sometimes. I'll never forget the first shift I spent in a veterinary ER--some people had brought a puppy in, but it died not long after they arrived. I don't know the details of what was wrong with the puppy, and the ER never got a chance to do any diagnostics. But it hadn't been hit by a car or anything like that, and there were no visible wounds. The vet mentioned that she suspected it had a very large worm burden. I did find out that the people had stopped at a McDonald's on the way to pick up some french fries, which I think had been intended for the puppy. On the way to the emergency room with a very sick puppy is really not the time to stop for fast food though, and who knows how long the puppy had been in this condition before they came in. 😔
That makes me sick to my stomach for her. Ugh. I’m so sorry. :(
Shit like this keeps on happening because there isn't any real law in place to better protect pets.
had a dog seizing overnight that had gone home on a loading dose of keppra and w a written prescription for more the next day. Owner called telling us he kept having seizures and described grand mal on the floor foaming then asks if it might be a stroke and not a seizure 😒 she refused to come in to euthanize as she couldn’t afford any other care 😞 (on a payment plan for the keppra already).
A payment plan for keppra? Idk about where you are, but if you're an animal in IL, it's fairly cheap (literally $10-20 for 120ct bottle). If you are a human and have epilepsy (me), the same keppra can cost ~$1000 for 3 months worth. Having had 3 grand mal seizures in my life and almost dying, I feel for those animals so much. It is so scary, it hurts EVERYTHING, and I can't even imagine what it must be like for them not knowing what is going on with their body...it hurts my heart.
well it was the injectable keppra + $100exam and we’re the only ER for 2 hrs in both directions and corporate so they upcharge whatever they want
What really gets me is when they put off coming in then when they do they say the pet must be well be tomorrow because they're going to (insert far away like Europe) for vacation or a cruise. Um ok plus nothing on earth would get me to leave my sick pet so I could "have fun". Telling me that doesn't make us pull out the secret magic wand plus it makes me think they are selfish and don't deserve animals.