Vet reprimanded for not putting down a 8 month old kitten when advised by a skin specialist the condition it had was curable

[blankout]

www.vetsurgeon.org/b/veterinary-news/posts/herefordshire-vet-reprimanded-for-failing-to-euthanise-cat-and-then-taking-it-home

Sad that a vet can't make a decision to not kill an animal that is very young, has a curable condition, when they are willing to give them a loving home.

Have you read the article? She behaved appallingly. Imagine being his owner and thinking he's been PTS.

Also the cat had to be pts a few months later so did she prolong its suffering?

Sorry, the cat was presented for euthanasia, and instead of doing that she took the cat home, had his microchip removed, neutered him, and kept him for herself without informing the owner?

Okay I get disagreeing with euthing the poor thing. But surely vets can't just take animals because they disagree with the owners decision. There must have been an option in between.

I can't see where it says Shadow was pts a few months later though.

I found more information. The owner was told the truth, and then told they had to pay for the treatment they didn't want! And she wasn't even really the owner - she was a rescuer who had recently taken Shadow on.

The cat had MRSA and was pts two months later.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/oct/07/vet-reprimanded-for-home-care-of-happy-cat-she-was-told-to-euthanise

Put to sleep a few months later on the insistence of the owner, there was a curable condition according to the vet and a specialist.

How did they find out? Did the vet continue calling it shadow? Surely most moggies look the same?

It said at the end of the guardian article that the cat had been brought by a third party and she believed it had no owner. I a bit sorry for her, she clearly loves animals and got a bit carried away. It's one thing to pts an animal that is suffering but to pts one you consider to be reasonably healthy and likely able to recover. I couldn't do it personally.

Your title is incorrect. The vet was reprimanded for lying about PTS the kitten.

How does it usually work? Does a vet have to perform euthanasia on any animal just because the owner requests or does the animal need to meet certain criteria? Surely, if the vet didn't agree it was necessary this should have been communicated with the owner and a plan drawn up eg return in two weeks if no improvement. Highly unprofessional to take a pet home against the owners wishes and then charge the service. Poor cat would have been unsettled and confused on top of everything else.

I hope this helps people understand now that if anyone says “a vet would never put a healthy animal down” they are talking bollocks.

The issue isn’t that she didn’t put the animal down. She would have been perfectly within her rights to refuse. It’s the deceit involved that’s the issue and rightly so. I think a reprimand was appropriate.

That's not what the article says - it says the cat's condition deteriorated so that ithad to be put down. That was the absolutely decisive fact, for me. It means that everything the vet did simply resulted in a couple of months more suffering and instability for the cat.

I think that the vet behaved with appalling dishonesty, and that she made some very ill-judged decisions. The reprimand seemed appropriate. Hope that she is able to pull her career back together and continue as a vet, though.

She then sent the person who brought her the cat a bill for keeping the animal.

Very poor judgement. As a vet I'd expect better.

She castrated the cat and removed its microchip without the owners permission!! She knew she was doing something unethical or why remove the microchip?!

She then charged the owner for it all.

The cat deteriorated and had to be put to sleep a couple of months later.

Imagine having such a poorly cat that you come to terms with putting it to sleep, go through the grief, then have to do it all over again a few months later after the vet surprising you with your cat being alive, giving you false promise it can be cured, and charging nearly £509 for it all! Sounds horrendous for the poor owners.

In addition to its extremely distressing condition that even prolonged treatment failed to cure, the cat also lacked a home (was being cared for at a rescue I think?). Taking into account all of its circumstances, it does seem that euthanasia was an appropriate welfare decision.

The vet was completely entitled to say "No, euthanasia isn't justified," if that was her professional opinion. But according to the article, she didn't make that judgement at all (and certainly didn't communicate it to the client). The reason she kept it alive was her own distress, not the cat's interests.

I do sympathise to some extent. I think it was really stressful being a vet during the pandemic. But she got things very wrong.

EDIT: The cat was being cared for by "someone who regularly rescued cats" rather than at a rescue as such. Still suggests a lack of a stable long-term home. An unofficial 'rescuer' does raise questions

The vet was willing to give the cat a home.

Quite frankly I think it's awful that a person can come in wanting a young animal they acquired recently put down, when a specialist gives an opinion that they have a curable condition and a vet can't make a decision to keep the animal alive and care for it at their home.

Caveat: I don't have pets

But why isn't there an option to "officially surrender" if the vet doesn't agree with the decision to enthuanise?

(Also my reading was the owner was asked for the treatment cost when they demanded the animal back?)

She could have made that decision, if she had done it openly and properly, and if she continued to take professional advice from colleagues about a case where her reactions were skewed by stress relating to having recently euthanised a lot of animals. She was reprimanded for specific significant failings, which were of a sort to completely undermine the client-vet contract.

Well I think they were right to reprimand her, but also right to recognise that her intentions were good. Basically it wouldn't put me off attending her practice.

Why didn't the vet just tell the owner she would rehome the cat?

One specialist thought the condition was treatable. It sounds from the article as though others disagreed ('SM consulted several vets and the cat was scheduled to be put down'). It turned out that the specialist who thought it was treatable was wrong, as the cat then deteriorated and had to be put down. That's not a criticism of the specialist - medical experts often disagree, in humans as in cats. But this wasn't a situation where a healthy treatable cat was being put down for no reason.

As others have said, it would be completely fine for her to advocate for treating the cat, or even to offer to rehome it herself. But lying about it and pretending the cat had died is not okay, and I wouldn't be comfortable going to a vet who thought it was okay to deceive like that.

The business of the cat being taken on by a rehomer and the vet thinking there wasn't an owner is very confusing, and it sounds like there's a lot going on that isn't fully explained in the article, and I suspect that might also explain why the vet acted as she did.

@stormsandsunshine decoration several months later and being put down is irrelevant. The opinion at the time of the assessment was the kitten appeared healthy and a specialist felt the condition was curable. It sounds like the kitten was back with the person who wanted to put it down and decided to so again based on a "deterioration". That's not to say that this was predictable or that it occurred at all from a factual basis.

I recently had to put a cat to sleep that had been homeless for 2 years (I had her for 10 months before PTS) and I find this story a bit strange.
Why didn’t the “owner” stay with the cat during euthanasia and didn’t arrange what was to be done with the dead cat?
Didn’t the owner have a discussion with the vet before in order to discuss possible treatment options or why that was impossible?

The deception was what she was reprimanded for.
She could have offered the owner the option to sign the kitten over to the practice.