What to do?

994 Views 8 Replies 8 Participants Last post by ladyshadowhollyjc, Aug 10, 2012

Fade

Discussion Starter · Aug 9, 2012

someone came into day with a very old dog.The dog is extremely ILL and the lady gave us a sob story about how she has no money. So we gave her a break on the treatment and held payment for 1 week.

To many this may seem like no big deal but I have thousands of dollars of unpaid bills from people with the same sort of sob stories. We feel bad for them we try to help and in the end we rarely ever see them again to make payments.

what bothered me about this lady is she basically said it was only the situation she was in now making it hard to pay. but looking through her file she never has done any sort of upkeep on her dog not in 5 years. there is always something with money with her.

On the phone today she told me this "I don't want my dog to suffer over something like money because you won't let me pay you back for the labs and x-rays that is just stupid. You should be willing to pay." Honestly I feel bad for people. I really do but it is not my fault she has a dog she can not afford.( and hasn't been able to afford in years!) The doctor would normally be happy to help but the dog is very old and he feels that even with the hundreds of dollars of diagnostic work we would mostly likely eat. the dog is on its way out.

I explained to the lady that we have to pay the lab for the service and apologized for her situation. What should I tell people like that? Is it so difficult to understand that a vet is a business too and if we took every person that has money problems and told them they could come back and pay we would probably have to close our doors. The few cases we do take NEVER get paid it is so sad. We save someones dogs life and never see them again. all of them seem like "nice" trustworthy people.

and then i sit here and feel bad about it. I feel bad for the animals. Ive felt bad about it all day.

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aiw

· #2 · Aug 9, 2012

It sounds like you're doing everything you can. Its a really wonderful thing to help someone in crisis, especially over a beloved pet but you can't give away everything or you would no longer be able to help anyone. My sister had a cat who developed polyps in her throat and ears, after about $1,000 in vet bills they figured out that a $5,000 surgery was the only thing that could save her life. My sister is a student and although fully capable of caring for Sukis regular bills such an expensive surgery was beyond her means. The vet helped as much as she could with Suki's bills but in the end couldn't swallow the cost herself (understandably). The vet instead organized for the humane society to take ownership of Suki and for her to get the surgery there. In the end the humane society decided to euthanize Suki instead of paying for the surgery. We were devastated and furious with the HS since the only reason we gave her up was to save her life but we are still very grateful to our vet for going above and beyond in an attempt to help her. It doesnt always work out but the effort's not lost and even if the owners are ungrateful its all about the welfare of the animal anyways.

I've digressed a little but the gist is do what you can and try not to blame yourself for what you can't, there are factors here beyond your control.

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