"Jesse Conway took his mother's 8-year-old cat, Lady, to get a flea bath at Broadway Animal Hospital in Gardner last week when he unknowingly signed forms agreeing to have the kitty put to sleep." The vet gave Conway the wrong forms by accident, and Conway says "nothing was explained," and that he did not realize what he was signing.

  • Boundegar

    Well at least they didn’t make her wear an inflatable horn.

  • http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

    That’s been an irrational fear of mine every time I take my little gray bastard to the vet.

    • disillusion

      Doesn’t seem so irrational now does it?

    • Ipo

      Change vets! 
      My vets know my animals by name.

    • travtastic

      Thoughts like that always fly through my head, but I’ve been going to the same vet for 14 years. They’d be more likely to accidentally euthanize me than my cat.

  • ldobe

    It’s very sad, but I’ve had experiences like this in veterinary emergency clinics.  My yellow lab Toby, who’s very healthy and turning 11 in a week, was admitted a few months back when we noticed he had tremors.  We had called ahead explaining the symptoms to the receptionist, and were doing an emergency checkup.  After the doc had taken a look at Toby, he surmised that our family pet had some bad idiopathic pain, but didn’t seem to have any originating cause other than that I had over exerted him a little earlier in the day playing with him.

    The vet left the exam room to write a prescription for tramadol for Toby, but as he left, a nurse came in and handed me some papers to sign saying it was the standard release.  I ALWAYS read these kinds of things, and did this time too.  It was an authorization form to euthanize Toby.  Not the medical care release indemnifying the vet hospital of legal liability for malpractice, which was what the nurse said it was.  Fortunately, we were wrapping up the exam, and weren’t going to leave Toby overnight, AND I read the form, so it wasn’t even a close call.

    When I brought this horrific screw-up to the vet’s attention, he didn’t apologize, instead he said this “happens sometimes”.  His explanation was that they euthanize so many animals the nurses only deliver that form most of the time.  I guess the hospital indemnification comes on the euthanasia form as well, so that owners don’t have to sign two forms before having their animal put to sleep.

    I think it’s symptomatic of the larger problem that veterinary hospitals see euthanasia as a preferable alternative to the owner getting a second opinion.  Few people have health insurance for their animals, and the procedures that can preserve or increase quality of life for pets tend to be very expensive.  So many pet owners are faced with the choice of either a procedure or therapy they can’t pay for, or putting their animal to sleep.

    • Ean Moody

       Hooray for another person who reads paperwork. I cringe inwardly (and sometimes outwardly) whenever I see someone pick up a form, flip to the last page without glancing at it, and sign on the dotted line.

      I’ve actually had a freelance client who sent me some paperwork to sign that (through maliciousness or carelessness, I couldn’t tell which) would have given him the copyrights to my entire body of work. I reversed the sentence so that I owned the copyrights to all of HIS company’s work, signed it, made a note of the change and highlighted it, and then sent it back to him with a note asking him to initial that he’d seen and understood the change on page X.

      He signed it.

      If I was more of a bastard I could have really squeezed him for money. Instead I just pointed it out on the day he tried to cut my pay by about 65% after all the work had been done. He wasn’t pleased*, but neither was I, and with a client who pulled something like that I just wanted to collect my check and never deal with them again…

      *Understatement. I’ve never seen someone turn that red or splutter that much.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Did you report the incident to the appropriate authority? Bad vets should be driven out of business.

      • ldobe

        I didn’t report him.  At the time I had been panicking, because I thought Toby had eaten something poisonous (due to the tremors) and was just too relieved to get outraged when it turned out he wasn’t poisoned and just seemed to have sore joints and would be okay with just a little rest and some pain killers.  I was so glad for the good news that he wasn’t dieing from his stupidity.  I’ll look into reporting them to the BBB or the AVMA.

        By the way, Toby’s fine now.  He’s just getting a little older, but doesn’t look it or act old, even though he’s almost 11.  So I’m taking it easier on him, walking him a shorter distance, and limiting high impact playing like fetch or catching frisbees.  It’s weird, most labs don’t live past 12, but I can’t imagine Toby going downhill fast enough to die in a year.  He’s a healthy dog, with good hearing, eyesight, no hip dysplasia, a couple of small lipocysts (benign according to the regular vet, and very common according to personal experience with dogs), no senility, no problems walking, weighs 68 LBS (while most labs are morbidly obese and often can weigh between 78 and 120 LBS), and full of energy.

        Is he a freak of nature or what?  Maybe he got good genes, or longevity promoting in-utero effects, since he was the runt of his litter.

        • surreality

           As someone who grew up with Labs, we’ve had quite a few live to about 13 – enough that I think of it as normal. However, these animals were all from breeders and we paid top dollar knowing their family history (pure breeds do lead to more health problems, or can at least, but the family history and breeding were good so they wouldn’t have early hip issues and so on and so forth). I knew a friend’s lab that lived to 15. I would say he’s lucky and healthy and got the good end of the genetic stick :) Even our labs that made it that old generally spent a couple years acting “old” before they passed.

          • ldobe

            My guy is a purebredish too. The sire was an English variant hunting dog, and the bitch is an American variant show championThe breeder was actually my mom’s cousin, but we didn’t gen ANY family discount. We paid $900 for the runt of the litter because I was enchanted by him. And I’d do it again if I had to pay out of pocket (I was 12 when we got Toby).

  • blaise0701

    As a veterinarian, I think that there are a few things that don’t add up here:

    My first reaction to the ‘flea bath’ is that this is not considered a viable treatment for fleas and would not be offered at a veterinary practice unless they are very out of date with over a decade of treatment recommendations. So, either the vet is really really out of date here, or the story as told by the owner isn’t accurate (or perhaps the owner’s son).

    Second, very few vets in practice will perform a euthanasia on a healthy pet without lengthy discussion with the owner. For legal reasons, the owner should also be the one to sign the paperwork, not a relative, neighbor, etc. At the very least I would ask for proof that the person who brought the pet in is authorized to make medical decisions for the pet. So again- either this vet made a tremendous error here, or something is fishy.

    My first reaction, which is admittedly defensive since I am a vet, was that maybe the son was lying and deliberately took the cat to get euthanized. This sort of thing happens- neighbors that don’t like a barking dog might bring the dog in for euthanasia. Even if this is the case, the vet probably should have verified with the actual owner that this is what they want.

    While this certainly could be due to negligence at the veterinary practice, let’s not ignore the possibility that there may be more to the story than is immediately apparent. 

    • Ean Moody

      It’s also possible that the customer uses the wrong word when they describe it. The cat is getting a “flea treatment” and the son/mom calls it a “flea bath” because they figure it’s the same thing.

      Also, it might have to do with the area/attitudes. Some places I’m sure are very reluctant about euthanizing pets, but I’m guessing there are others where they have to euthanize a huge number of animals that are mostly healthy with only minor medical problems. I’m thinking poorer areas with an overpopulated pet problem, for example, where the owners simply can’t afford to take care of even a slightly unhealthy animal.

    • ldobe

      I have some friends in Idaho who had several cats that were relatively well-behaved, but a neighbor didn’t like.  He set up live traps at the very edge of their property and started trapping their cats.  There were no county ordinances prohibiting outdoor cats, so the guy didn’t have any legal right to trap them.  They didn’t do any damage to his property, and actually cleared a vermin infestation under his deck.  Eventually the guy was tired trapping the cats and one night actually used some pheromone to attract them all, then poisoned them.  Depraved lunatic really hated cats.
      The Sharif was called, he didn’t want to deal with the dispute (lazy or confused or busy I guess), so he referred the whole thing to the county game warden.  The guy got a small fine for trapping without a game tag or permit, and using pheromone attractants “out of season” as if there’s a hunting season for neighbor’s pets.

      Point is, I’m sure disputes like this happen in towns all the time, where angry, depraved or vengeful neighbors take neighbor’s animals into the vet and will try to have them quietly euthanized to “solve the problem for good.” Since they feel so maligned they think they have the right to kill other people’s animals.

      Edit: I don’t know of any success stories where non owners have gotten vets to kill a healthy pet, but knowing people generally, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are lunatics that try this all the time. I’d expect that successfully tricking a vet into killing someone else’ healthy animal is very uncommon.

      • http://profiles.google.com/julielada Julie Lada

        Only  no, it doesn’t happen. Or at least if it does, it is very rare. We vets don’t just let someone come in the door, brand new client, brand new animal, and say, “I want this perfectly healthy cat euthanized.” and we go along. We can and do refuse service to people who suspect of this sort of thing, and yeah, it happens and we turn them away. I had it happen at my clinic while I was a technician with a vengeful ex-husband. We called the ex-wife and had her come and pick up the cat.

        It’s getting a little tiring seeing people malign vets as some sort of robotic service where we have to do what people tell us to. We’re not ignorant of this sort of behavior, we’re pretty good about sniffing it out, and when an animal that is apparently healthy is brought to us for euthanasia, we don’t just go get the syringe. We ask quesitons and if we don’t like the answers, we tell them to leave our clinic. Usually after scanning for a microchip while the technician is “getting a weight in the back” so we can contact the real owner.

        • ldobe

          I’m sorry. I don’t mean to malign vets, and I know that the VAST majority, probably close to or above 99% are very ethical, do their best at their work, are diligent, and work hard not to do any harm.

          I’m trying to point out that there are a lot of crazy people who would try to have neighbors’ pets euthanized simply out of spite, or convenience, or because they’re mentally unstable.

          And in the same way that there are some unethical doctors, who do procedures no questions asked, I’m sure there are a few vets out there who are more concerned with doing business than practicing medicine.  It’s not the norm, or even very common.  I’ve never personally known a vet that offered or seemed willing to do an unwarranted euthanization.  I’m sorry that I haven’t been careful in conveying what I mean, and I certainly understand that veterinary medicine has it’s own set of medical schools, standards, licensing, best practices, and severe consequences for breaking the laws and rules related to animal healthcare.

          I love vets, and the world would be a terrible place without them.  If there were no vets, a number of my own animals would have had significantly shorter, more painful, and lower quality of lives, and one or two would have died without immediate veterinary care.  When my lab Toby was a puppy, 4 or 5 months old, he had to have his stomach pumped after he ate over a pound of Halloween candy (and in all honesty, any human who eats that much candy probably needs their stomach pumped).  He would have died without our regular vet’s willingness to keep his doors open an extra 3 hours that time of year.

          It goes the same with any profession, and it’s a fact of humanity, so I honestly shouldn’t pick on vets specifically since the presence of confirmation bias is so clearly obvious.  I’ve never been bait-and-switched by an auto mechanic, and that’s said to happen all the time, but I don’t harp on that.

          In summary, thanks for setting me straight, and letting me know I need to think more about what I’m saying and how I’m saying it.

  • Ean Moody

    This is why every person should be taught to READ potentially important things before they SIGN them. I’m willing to bet that form had something like “FORM 12-B: Consent to Euthanize Pet” in bigass bold letters across the top. That, and it certainly contained a lot of language expressly giving the vet permission to intentionally kill the pet without legal retribution. That’s the kind of stuff that should have thrown up red flags if he even skimmed the forms he was signing.

    I love the statement “they never explained anything to me” in cases like this. Sorry guy, but yes they fucking did: they gave you papers explaining what you were agreeing to, and asked you to sign off on them. That’s the whole point of papers like that. They aren’t just trying to hassle you; they want to be sure you know what’s going on, and signing is your way of saying “yes, I understand this and agree to it”. If there’s something that you don’t agree to, or something that you don’t understand? It’s your responsibility to ask for more information or refuse to sign.

    These are medical forms we’re talking about here, and he just signed them without reading? They could have said anything: They might have obligated him to thousands of dollars worth of cat surgery, confessed his history of animal abuse or…. well… exactly what happened. I can’t come up with a more hyperbolic example than what reality provided.

    It’s a shame a cat had to die because of someone’s laziness, but maybe he’ll pay more attention down the road and things will balance out in the end…

    • ldobe

      On your point about these papers not being meant to hassle people, but inform.  Yes medical papers are definitely informative, and are usually presented at a time and place where one can ask for clarification.

      EULAs and TOS agreements are much different.  They’re specifically written to be literally indecipherable to anyone who hasn’t had six to eight years of law school.  They’re designed to be impossible to understand while giving away the signer’s rights en mass.  It’s horrible, and I feel we should require some legislation that all clauses in these kinds of agreements must have a real-world English translation.  They may choose to have the official document in legalese, but they must include an explanation in plain English that’s shown along side so that anyone who’s asked to agree can actually understand what they’re agreeing to.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      It’s a shame a cat had to die because of someone’s laziness, but maybe he’ll pay more attention down the road and things will balance out in the end…

      I’m not sure that you can really balance out death. But yes, everyone should read what they sign.

  • june2012

    This is absolutely horrific! I have no words – other than, why the fuck didn’t the owner (or the son of the owner) of this innocent and completely healthy cat READ the fucking papers before he fucking signed that poor cat’s life away? I cannot believe that a vet – even a vet with tons of patients to tend to in a busy clinic or an emergency triage situation – would just have a nurse come in, hand the guy the form, and then, after the horrible deed is done to the poor cat (God love him), the guy comes back and says, ‘I don’t know what happened.’ I’m sickened and outraged by this. And as for the vet or the vet’s assistant, did no one come over to this man and say anything along the lines of, ‘Do you want a few minutes to be alone with your cat before we do this? Is there anything we can do to make you and your cat more comfortable before we do this? Will you be okay after we do this?’

    I know, from personal experience, that when my beloved cat Shadow had xrays and showed she was riddled with tumours, the vet sat me down, put his hand on my shoulder and told me the devastating news. He asked me if there was anyone I wanted to call, or anyone I wanted to be there with me, and if I wanted to be there while he gave Shadow the lethal injection, and would I be able to emotionally cope with what was about to happen to her. Yes, I signed the legal documents, but before I did that, he brought them out to me and told me what exactly it was that I was about to read and about to sign, if I decided on euthanasia as an option.

    So…between the stupid ass of a man not reading the legal document and signing his cat’s life away, and the vet not making absolutely sure this man knew what he was signing or at least, explained to him what that document was…I’m equally disgusted, horrified and so terribly sorry for that poor cat and its owner, this man’s poor mother. I cannot even begin to imagine how his mother has reacted to this devastating news. My sympathies to her for her loss, and to her poor sweet cat, Lady. May she rest in peace.

  • voiceinthedistance

    That’s nothing.  I took my Lexus in for an oil change last week and they had it crushed.

    Something . . . does . . . not . . . add . . .up . . . here.

    The vet should at least have it stuffed for free, since it should at least still be in good shape (visually).

  • DewiMorgan

    With only one side of the story, it’s hard to tell what happened.

    Was the form just headed something like “Waiver”, and vaguely phrased? Or was it something clearer, and he was just too [rushed, distracted, illiterate, naive...] to read it?

    It’s also possible that the forms were carefully explained, read, and signed, but he didn’t want to admit to his mom that he hated the cat: I personally find that unlikely from hist statements in the linked article, which come across as sincere, but that’s just me.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001443259034 David Davion

      Maybe he’s a politician…

  • june2012

    I kind of get what you’re saying, DewiMorgan, but even if that scenario were true – if this guy actually hated the cat (how anyone can actually hate a cat is beyond my comprehension, in the first place) and even if he lived there with his mother and with the cat that he might’ve hated having around, it’s just not something a normal human being does – especially if your poor mother happens to love that cat. How about trying to find another home for the cat? How about telling his mother how he hates the cat and wants her to find another home for the cat? But to euthanise a cat for that reason? To hate a cat THAT much?? As to want to send her to her death…deliberately and intentionally?!

    I may well be the one who is naive here, if that is the case. I choose to believe that is not the case – that this man may be a lot of things (see my first post) but to hate a cat that much? Or to want to see his mother suffer the devastation and profound sadness of such a loss? Deliberately? I cannot and do not want to believe that.

    You’re right in one regard and I agree – it IS only one side of the story. I don’t know the people or the vet. The victims in this, however, are the poor cat Lady, and Lady’s devastated owner (the mother, not the son). And again, even if the guy was too rushed/ too distracted/illiterate/naive/whatever, before you sign something like this (and I doubt a consent for euthanisation would have something as vague as ‘waiver’ on it…I don’t know and can’t say for sure – can blaise0701 clarify this, being a vet himself?).

    Euthanasia is a big deal – even in a very busy veterinary clinic. So I would think that any vet or any vet’s assistant that was about to give such a consent form to anyone, would make sure firstly, that the person is who he/she says he/she is and that he/she understands what procedure is about to take place once this consent form is signed. A euthanasia consent form cannot be the same type of form as a consent to a flea bath or flea treatment…can it?

    • http://profiles.google.com/julielada Julie Lada

      “Euthanasia is a big deal – even in a very busy veterinary clinic. So I would think that any vet or any vet’s assistant that was about to give such a consent form to anyone, would make sure firstly, that the person is who he/she says he/she is and that he/she understands what procedure is about to take place once this consent form is signed. A euthanasia consent form cannot be the same type of form as a consent to a flea bath or flea treatment…can it?”

      No, it can’t. And no veterinarian would euthanize an animal before going over a euth form in detail with the owner. And as was pointed out above, legally we cannot accept the consent of a second party – it has to be the actual owner. Doing this sort of thing is illegal and it can open us up to lawsuits and loss of our license to practice medicine. I do not believe a word of this story.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        I do not believe a word of this story.

        Why? Malpractice like this isn’t all that uncommon in human medicine. Doctors remove the wrong limb or organ occasionally.

        • http://profiles.google.com/julielada Julie Lada

           Because of all the reasons mentioned above. Vets are pretty good about covering their asses when it comes to things that can get them sued or their license revoked. This wasn’t just a simple oversight – major breaks in protocol on numerous levels had to occur. The sheer number of people who would have to have had serious missteps in their job performance (at least one receptionist, the technician, the veterinarian and the “son”) – as well as the reason stated above about flea baths being practically nonexistant these days – makes this story highly suspicious.

  • Richard

    Was the vet’s name Mr Chinnery, by any chance? :o)

  • june2012

     The vet DIDN’T apologise for that? He not only should be ashamed of himself morally and ethically, but he should be struck off. And this is a veterinarian we’re talking about? A medical professional who is supposed to be helping the quality of life of the animals that are brought into his office?1 All he could say to you was ‘happens sometimes’? Okay…the steam is now coming out of my ears after reading this. Outrageously negligent, at the very least. I’d have taught him a lesson by at the very least threatening to take some sort of legal action against him as a vet or his practice. It doesn’t matter how many animals are brought in to be euthanised, or how crazy busy a practice gets. You just do not do this sort of thing nonchalantly and lightly. For fuck’s sake! On a much happier note, Thankfully, you read the form and saved your beloved Toby’s life. All it takes is common sense. For our pets’ sakes, collectively, read before you sign ANYTHING!

  • http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist

    What? You did WHAT?

  • Simper

    Just today a vet unnecessarily vaccinated my kitten for the second time.  I’m sick and could not physically take her to get spayed but I arranged everything last week including an extra phone call to confirm that they had the full vaccination report saying she was fully vaccinated (it had to be transferred from another vet’s office). When the kitten was returned home I found out that something didn’t get recorded correctly so they re-vaccinated her and I ended up paying for a a round of second unnecessary vaccinations. Granted this isn’t anywhere near as bad as them putting her to sleep but it does show vet’s screw up and don’t always check or double check to make sure they have it right. It also shows that despite my best efforts to ensure that the vet got everything that they needed they still managed to either lose paperwork or improperly record it. I don’t understand how it happened since the vet said it was their policy to not schedule the procedure until after the animals are vaccinated completely. If that is the official policy and the cat’s records are missing the necessary vaccinations but has been scheduled, then someone messed up somewhere and it needs to be addressed. Either way red flags were apparent and they were ignored. It would have taken 10 minutes max for my vet to pick up the phone and call me or the other vet and confirm which vaccinations that she had but they chose to rush through it and just give her new ones.

  • SamSam

    It seems that actually, contrary to the claims of some of the vets above, that it really was a fuck-up.

    http://www.telegram.com/article/20120925/NEWS/109259861/0/business

    The vet thought that man had come in to get his cat euthanized, because of a mix-up of identities and appointments. They gave him the forms to sign and asked him a few brief questions (did he have rabies, whether he had thought about post-mortem care), but apparently never said “so we’re going to kill your cat, right?” and the man thought that these were just standard questions for all new intakes, and didn’t read the papers thoroughly.

    I’d say the chain of events that led up to the fuck-up was probably similar to that of doctors removing a limb from a patient who went in for a kidney transplant, but the result was worse, at least for the cat…

  • june2012

    That poor, sweet cat. Gone. Forever. It’s heartbreaking that she died for absolutely nothing except a horrible series of events gone completely, tragically wrong. My thoughts go out to Lady’s owner, and of course, Lady herself. May she rest in peace.