Treatment of strays or lost pets in vet practice – covering costs

Out-of-hours work is always filled with the unknown and when, on a Saturday afternoon, one of my colleagues received a telephone call about a stray animal with a suspected broken leg, I imagine the familiar slight sinking feeling took hold.

Under the oath we have all taken to become RCVS members, we are responsible for the welfare of all animals committed to our care. This can, however, become a complicated situation with “stray” animals.

The first difficulty is establishing whether they are, indeed, strays or just lost, and whether we are able to reunite them with their owners. When they are injured or unwell, this exacerbates the difficulty of the situation, as it involves decisions about the extent to which the practice is able to provide treatment. However much we all wish to be able to fix everything, the financial considerations always have to play a part of the decision-making.

Lack of awareness

The stray in question was a young lurcher brought into the practice by a concerned member of the public because it was limping. It was clear the dog had instability in its leg and a radiograph confirmed a fractured humerus. It was provided with analgesia and kept “cage rested”. The following day, we started to make attempts to locate an owner. The dog was not microchipped and had not been reported as “lost” to either ourselves or the surrounding practices.

We posted a photo of the lurcher on the practice’s Facebook page, as previous experience has shown this is a very effective way of reuniting owners with their pets. The post also stated the dog had fractured its leg.

The strong reaction to the post from the public came as a bit of a surprise. As well as comments of sadness about the situation, multiple negative comments appeared towards us as veterinary professionals, such as “surely the vets have a moral duty to this dog” and “it’s not all about the money, surely that’s not why vets chose their role” – and further implications that we, as vets, were uncaring and unwilling to fix problems where no financial gain exists. A few implying inadequate provisions had also been made for the dog, despite it having been provided with analgesia, crated on strict rest and given appropriate emergency treatment.

These comments highlighted several points to us – not least the need to be incredibly clear when posting on social media. It had not been explicitly stated on the post we had given the dog pain relief, just that we had been looking after it. It created feelings of frustration and sadness among staff that anyone could assume we had not done this. It also showed very large numbers of people can be reached incredibly rapidly – and they are more willing to offer strong, opinionated views online (often without full information) than they would do face to face.

A growing number of slightly worrying posts have appeared from veterinary practices through their social media pages regarding client expectations. It appears a growing problem with the costs of veterinary treatment exists and an expectation of clients for practices to provide them with a high standard of service for a negligible cost. The lack of awareness of the cost of human treatment due to the service the NHS provides means people often do not appreciate the costs involved in medical treatment. It is clearly a source of frustration for many practices.

This is more of a problem in “owned” pets, but is also applicable for stray animals. We would love to provide “gold standard” care to all patients. However, we are also aware this is not possible in all situations.

As vets, we will always provide multiple options for appropriate treatments, and guide clients through the decision-making process of what is best for them and their animal in that specific situation, keeping the animal’s welfare as our top priority.

Finding funds

When it became clear we were not going to be able to find the owner of the dog, the practice tried to obtain funding from a number of sources.

The RSPCA was contacted, but unable to provide any support as the client had not telephoned them before bringing the dog to us and, therefore, the case had no log number. This has highlighted the need for vets to make clients aware and ask them to contact the RSPCA prior to bringing an animal into the practice, if it is suspected funds may be needed. The amount of funding the charity is able to provide is also fairly minimal – particularly in a case where major surgery is required.

The local dog warden, who has some council funding, was also contacted, but, again, only able to provide enough funding for the dog to be euthanised.

Although aware this would not be an unethical option, the practice staff would have been incredibly saddened and angry about the situation if this was the only option available. The amount of energy multiple staff members poured into sourcing funding and coming up with a solution to the problem was quite inspiring. A local rescue centre contacted us to help and was brilliant in assisting us. We also used the positive powers of social media and the internet.

The rescue centre agreed to try to rehome the dog, now named Woody, and set up a fund-raising page to attempt to gain funding to cover the costs of his treatment. These crowdfunding methods have been discussed in the media as a way to raise large funds relatively quickly. Once the page had been set up and the rescue centre was on board, it was agreed surgery could be performed to repair Woody’s leg. We would then try to raise enough funds to cover the practice’s costs of the operation.

A slightly disheartening aspect is none of those who posted negative comments have actually donated any funds – yet – but there is always time.

We have not quite reached the target to cover the costs, but hope to harness the more positive powers of social media to facilitate this.

A big positive of this case was seeing how the whole team pulled together to come up with a solution.

Woody’s leg is healing brilliantly. He is being fostered by a staff member while the rescue centre finds him a new home.