[Pawsed]

Don't know how many of you have seen this, but it's horrendous to me.

Owners Who Chose to Remove Dog's Eyes Over Treating Infection, Give Up Blind Pet After Surgery

Louis is now looking for a new forever home that is willing to help him adjust to the changes in his life

people.com

 

[Thecowboysgirl]

I saw this story but it didn't make sense to me. How could removing the whole eye be cheaper than treating an infection? Wasn't that the reason stated that they chose to remove the eyes?

I have had a boarder with chronic eye problems who SHOULD have had his eyes removed (he was blind anyway) and the fact that they didn't was inhumane in my opinion.

So I'm not sure what to make of this article.

 

[Pawsed]

It doesn't make sense to me either. From the article, it seems there was treatment available. Why remove the eyes instead?

 

[Sabis mom]

Some people should never be allowed to care for a living thing. Some vets should have their licenses revoked.
Why do you guys show me these things??!
I need a license to hunt Humans.

 

[Jax08]

Before we kill the vet.....Vet's have no legal rights to animals. If someone brings in an animal for euthanasia - the vet can either refuse or do it. They can't take the animal without the owner signing it over. So....we don't know the severity of the infection. We don't know if the vet felt that the people wouldn't treat so removing was the only choice to relieve the dog's pain. We don't know anything. What we do know is vets have a very high rate of suicide. So maybe we don't kill the vet without any real knowledge of facts.

 

[Pawsed]

Actually, I blame the owners primarily. But the vet has the right to refuse to do such a procedure. He could even offer to treat the dog for free. I don't see that he doesn't hold some responsibility, too.

The vets I have used over the years often had patients they treated without charge. They took them in and found them new homes when the owners couldn't pay for treatment. Some dogs had horrible problems, and needed expensive care, like a little dog that had been drug behind a car, grinding off parts of 3 of her legs. She was successfully treated and one of the aides in the clinic took her home to live. She did remarkably well and lived a very happy and active life, in spite of her torture.

And don't give me the excuse that they can't stay in business without being paid. That may be true, but our current vet says he had the best year ever last year, with all the new Covid pups. He said that every vet he knows had the same experience. They were all busier than they had ever been before. He also said that many vets got large business loans from the stimulus bill that they will never have to repay.

I know that I don't have all the facts here, but it seems that any vet with any integrity would not do this to a dog that had an otherwise treatable condition. Maybe that was not the case. Maybe this is just a ploy to get some sympathy for this dog to find it a home. I wish we knew more.

 

[Jax08]

I don't know the details and I don't think it's right to pass judgement on the vet and make implications of killing them.

 

[NiabiTheGreat]

I don't understand it. Like was said, treating an eye infection is waaaay less expensive than removing, not one, but BOTH eyes. I've treated, goats, horses, cats, and rabbits for different types of eye infections. So bad, some not so bad. Even when we needed to treat for a week or more the cost never went above $300. No matter how bad it was! Removing both eyes would end up $2000+(Between the cost of removing/anesthesia, as well as the care and visits before and after). So that to me just doesn't make any sense.

What I think COULD have happened, and this is just speculation. The dog had a bad eye infection. The vet said "Okay, we can try to treat this but the dog is painful and I just don't think she will get vison back or the infection will go down. I think removing the eyes would be the best choice for her(him?, I forgot)". Owner just couldn't be there enough or went to college, moved, family passed away, had kids, dog wasn't comfortable around kids, etc(Still, stupid of an owner to do it, but I can sorta understand why). The owner told that to the shelter and shelters tend to come up with sad stories that gets dogs adopted. Now, I absolutely love most shelters and what they do. They just want to help them. But they also need to make space for all the new ones and some people don't adopt them until there is some sad story behind the animal. Most the time the stories are just speculation(like I am doing here). I fostered an APT puppy last year, for a few weeks. He was young(as in less than 15 weeks) and very unsocialized. Terrified of people, and yeah, I thought maybe he was abused. Just because that's what everyone else was thinking and saying(he was found on the side of the road) but I really think he was just scared of people. Didn't matter who, he would take forever to warm up and was nervous around sounds and people moving in quickly. He was like a feral cat.

Another thought is, perhaps the dog was born like that, or a previous owner removed the eyes for, again, bad infection or injury. Something happened to them, or the dog got out(could explain the "untreated injuries") New owner found her or purchased her then dog had maybe some underlying issues like resource guarding, SA, DA, Barked a lot. And they turned her in and just made up the story on the spot about what happened to the eyes.

If it is a totally true story, yeah, it is disgusting and the owner is a huge idiot. Poor dog deserves a good home.

 

[Jax08]

I don't understand it. Like was said, treating an eye infection is waaaay less expensive than removing, not one, but BOTH eyes. I've treated, goats, horses, cats, and rabbits for different types of eye infections. So bad, some not so bad. Even when we needed to treat for a week or more the cost never went above $300. No matter how bad it was! Removing both eyes would end up $2000+(Between the cost of removing/anesthesia, as well as the care and visits before and after). So that to me just doesn't make any sense.

Exactly.... Look at all that logic happening here. Thank you!

So is this a sympathy story for the rescue?

 

[Thecowboysgirl]

I've seen a lot of articles like this that were totally propaganda in my opinion.

I'm not willing to jump to any conclusion.

The more knowledge I have, the less likely I am to believe these tearjerker articles. I've seen some on topics that I do have knowledge of and in those cases I could tell it was baloney. This one, I don't know. But I still cant see how removing both eyes is the cheaper option and if that logic fails the whole thing is suspect.

 

[Pawsed]

I would like to believe this was just propaganda and there was a legitimate reason for removing the eyes.

I totally agree that none of this makes sense.

I hope this poor dog gets a good home and my first thought was to try to take him in myself if I could. I'm sure that is what the rescue wants and I am just playing into their hands. What they are doing works, at least on me.