To make a formal complaint to the vet surgery?

[Undies1990]

Today, after taking my cat to the vet, he was given back to me in the car park by the vet. The vet put the cat box on the tarmac behind my car and to my absolute horror, my cat escaped because the door of the cat box hadn't been closed/locked properly by the staff inside the vet surgery.

Covid means customers cannot go inside the vets and have to hand over their animals in the car park.

I am relieved that I did eventually manage to get hold of my cat and put him back into the box after a very stressful time in the car park which is right next to a very busy main road. The vet was extremely apologetic but I didn't complain at the time because I was stressed, shaking and just wanted to get my cat home.

AIBU to make a formal complaint or should I just let it go? Mistakes happen and all that ...

Vet nurse here ,very sorry this happened to you and your cat but also massive sympathy too for the vet who is probably still re living it .
It is so hard at the moment the way we are working and an accident like this is one of our worst nightmares .
I am quite sure this will have been discussed with the team with extra care taken from now .
I hope your cat is ok .

Humans are the priority . The vet and staff are human.

Give them a break, I doubt for one minute they wanted to deliberately harm your pet.

Hi, I’m a vet, although not your vet! She will be beating herself up tonight, I guarantee. Cats getting loose from boxes in car parks is a thing, although usually happens to owners not staff. Part of my standard protocol pre-Covid anyway was to check carriers before owners took them out of my consult room, pull on the top and the doors to make sure they were secure, as many people don’t know how their own carriers work. I used to teach final year vet students, and securing cat carriers was one of the “yes this seems obvious and it isn’t exciting but if you don’t know how to do this you’ll look stupid” things I tried to drum into them!

However even then, some carriers are just insecure (broken, or just not strong enough for a big cat - not saying this is the case here OP) - recently when taking a cat back out to its owner in the car park, the box I was carrying just fell apart completely, despite having checked it before I picked it up. The cat made an instant bid for freedom but somehow I managed to throw myself sideways and rugby tackle her and caught her before she got anywhere. Sustained an injury myself!

It can happen to the best of us. Our jobs are ridiculous right now - at least at my practice, caseload is actually increased at the moment as many neighbouring practices are still declining some ‘routine’ procedures (but they still need doing!) and everything takes twice the time it used to keeping to distancing and working with all the PPE. I’m working 2-3 hours extra each day to try and get everything done, so generally 8am till 9 or 10pm most days. I am completely exhausted and I expect most in my profession are. If you spoke to your vet face to face at the time and you could see how she was taking it seriously, then I would expect she will be reviewing her own protocols anyway and very likely discuss in it with her colleagues as well. If you still need some closure or peace of mind about it, then perhaps just talking straight to her about it again - request a phone call with her perhaps - just to say how upset you are and has she made any adjustments to protocol - would be all I would do. If someone did that to me I would be trying to express my sincere regret at the incident and seeking to reassure them that we were aiming to not allow a repeat occurrence.

Glad your cat is ok OP! It’s understandable to be upset about this.

Absolutely complain! Your beloved pet could have been killed running into the road. This is not some minor matter.

Cat boxes are a nightmarish design at the best of times, and coupled with them being plastic (many types of which get weaker over time), rarely used and covid protocols, it's a real nightmare.

As a cat owner of over 20 years it was only on a vet visit last year that I found out that many of them are designed to unclip all the way around to get access to a reluctant cat . The vet who did that promptly broke one of the clips putting it back on (they had gone brittle, not the vets fault) and although the whole thing seemed secure enough to keep using pre-covid, you've prompted me to replace the cat carrier because a car park handover is far riskier than a handover behind three doors and me carefully carrying the box securely knowing it's weakness. I'm off to look at the zip up one mentioned upthread. Suggest everybody else with a cat here reviews how safe their carrier is before they need to use it in an emergency, too.

I’m not convinced that the zip ones are safer. It only needs a tiny gap for a cat to work at for it to open up enough for the whole cat to escape.

Argh. That's a good point. My dog managed to do exactly that with her zip up crate.

Maybe just a polite email to express your concern and ask them to make sure they are more careful.
Can guarantee the vet feels dreadful, it’s one of the biggest worries with the whole car park thing.
I’m sure your basket was great and the vet was just being careless but some owners bring their cats in completely broken boxes, actually saying, be careful the box is dodgy. I had one a few weeks ago that got out of an unsecured basket as the owner was taking it out of the car. I had to leg it across the road and through peoples gardens until I caught it, felt quite ill for the rest of the day !
I always triple check now as nearly got caught out by a basket with two doors, nurse had opened one and I didn’t realise.
I really like the old fashioned top opening wire ones, safe secure and only one door, plus they don’t sort of bend and make gaps like the plastic ones .
So glad your cat is safe op.

My favourite!

www.petplanet.co.uk/p35798/cat_carrying_basket_white.aspx?ptm_source=google&ptm_medium=shopping&ptm_campaign=10to20_79871&campaign=324014531&adgroup=46903834783&keyword=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzbv7BRDIARIsAM-A6-1_NNnYAEZDmm1_Z6mE8pqnE9u5MCTaWPdRw2MdOMm8LW_-vglFGnYaAtwgEALw_wcB

The vet who did that promptly broke one of the clips putting it back on (they had gone brittle, not the vets fault)
I keep a stash of zip ties in my consult drawer for just this issue!
Most secure baskets are metal wire ones IMO. You can fit a cover over for cats that prefer to be hidden away.

The thing is that you are not dealing with a giant, faceless, slapdash organization. You're dealing with a small, conscientious workforce who are all there because they care a lot, and what almost happened to your cat is their worst nightmare. So I'd let it go. They'll all be ultra-careful in future, especially with your animals.

I would not recommend a zip up carrier, My neighbour used one for her cat , the 1st time the cat managed to undo the zip , fortunately they were in the house at the time testing it . she tried assorts of ways to secure the zip with very little success.

I have a old plastic one , the type that the top comes off I did not know the plastic could become brittle , I have had mine for about 15 years with no issues but I do remember it been I wateringly expensive as I needed a good one to transport my polecats in .

My current cat sleeps in it most days now