Bad Veterinarian Experience

Our experience with Dr. Washington at VCA Countryside was not a good one. We urgently had to take our 15-year-old dog Cookie to be euthanized. We chose this veterinarian because our regular veterinarian is 30 minutes away while this one is no more than a couple of minutes away. Cookie had an aggressive and malignant tumor removed by our regular doctor. He gave our dog 3 to 4 months to prepare ourselves of the fact that our beloved dog was going to have to be euthanized. She was doing extremely well for a while. However, this morning, she awoke with what appeared to be multiple areas of cysts near the tumor causing her excruciating pain. She collapsed and we tried to lift her, but she screamed in pain. We were able to use a blanket as a hammock to get her there. Once there we requested that Dr. W give Cookie a sedation shot since she was in so much pain. It didn’t seem possible that a catheter could be successfully placed without really causing unnecessary pain. Dr. W refused this request instead choosing to place a catheter in an un sedated dog who could barely be moved without causing pain. Despite requests to not touch her where it was so painful, the assistant abruptly grabbed our dog firmly underneath where the tumors were to steady her during the catheter placement, causing our dog to scream in excruciating pain. My wife was already extremely upset and told the assistant that she hurt our dog. The assistant raised her voice saying that she had to. In truth, she did not have to grab her right in the tumor area. Realizing her error, Dr. W then sedated our dog but persisted in defending the assistant and arguing loudly with us about it. This caused the experience to be stressful for us and for Cookie. The argument escalated to shouting though I felt the doctor should have tried to de-escalate it. Eventually we left in shock and frustration to go to another vet minutes away, carrying out our sedated dog. The second vet simply euthanized Cookie with a simple injection in the thigh, which stopped her heart without any additional drama, peacefully and without causing additional pain. This veterinarian treated us with compassion, kindness, and took care of our beloved dog in the manner expected.

Dr. W was unprofessional on all accounts. She refused a request to administer a simple sedation, which would have avoided the entire situation. She then persisted in arguing, defending her untenable position not even apologizing for hurting our dog, when obviously the distress of pet owners in this situation should have been considered. It shows very poor judgement to escalate an argument in this situation rather than just saying something like “We understand you are upset, and we are sorry we hurt your pet. Please let us take care of this”. Instead, she became unreasonably defensive telling us she would not stand by why we “maligned” her assistant and insisting her decision to not apply a simple sedation shot was the right decision. She said that arguing was upsetting the dog while she herself continuing to argue. She even stated that the dog was already in pain and implied that therefore it didn’t matter if the assistant hurt her. She stated that the sedation shot would have been painful anyway, so it didn’t matter if Cookie had pain from a sedation shot or through placing a catheter. Sorry Dr. W, even I know that these two are not even close. A catheter placement requires manipulating the animal by muzzling, finding a vein which may or may not turn out to be a viable one requiring multiple attempts, frightening an animal, etc. while a sedation shot is one prick from a needle which would have provided sedation quickly.

I cannot recommend this veterinarian for these reasons: lack of empathy, lack of common sense, unprofessionalism, lack of ability to work with pet owners in distress, and inability to satisfy a simple. ethical and often used request that was in the animal’s best interest.