# Need urgent advice possible vet malpractice



## Clintonhipfner (May 11, 2017)

Okay this is really hard for me because we would like to just put our boy to rest but I just need further advice I also expect some flak on this one because I know we have lots of vet loving people who have had great experiences with veterinarians that know and love the animals they treat so please before you decide to write something rude please remember I just lost my boy and this is one of the hardest things an owner can do because now I'm going to hafto relive this until I can get him and us the proper justice.. None of this was right!!!!! 

Okay on about the 26th we started to notice our boy was starting to have a loose stool that eventually turned to diarrhea, and then there was blood in his stool we moisten all of his food due to him being an older rescue it was just easier on his remaining teeth.. so at first we thought it could have been from the food.

but after a day of it not getting better we had done some research and called a few vets in our city which really surprised us none of them seemed worried at this point, they said to just to continue him on his normal food and water and to monitor him we had asked If giving him bene-bac would help and they said yes that would be fine 

at this point it was starting to get bad but he was still eating and drinking I tryed to give him some orally he took a bit but not as much as I'd like so we put some in his food and his stool was getting progressively better than it had been the day before, diarrhea was gone still black stool with streaks of blood through it but major improvements..

My active boy was still running, jumping playing with his ball he was our oldest hog 4 years old, but he was the most full of life hedgie he literally jumped he knew if he was going off a small edge such as our couch( we have the legs off it because our netherland loves to be under everything) But sputter was fearless he'd pop that front end off and away he'd go trucking and running 90 he had so much spunk

Saturday morning I moved his hut and found my boy had lost like 1/4 of his size in the night and had even deficated in his house and he had only done this a few days prior when he had bad diarrhea.. sputter was so smart he pooped on his tray under his wheel not on his wheel he'd hop off and do his business either he'd stop or he'd do it on the fly but barely ever on his wheel. I immediately scooped him up and put him on me and I knew he was very very*sick he hadn't touched any of his food or his water so we got 3 cuddle sacs his giraffe his bear a baggy of his food and our carrier and we took him to the small animal vet with the best reviews in our city that, worked on hegehogs

we got him there and after about 15 minutes a vet ran out to us and grabbed our carrier and ran with him.. a little late now that i think about it but she was running so made me feel a bit better after an hour they had an intern take us in and get all of our information.. and I know she's an intern and she's learning.. but she didn't even know if hedgehogs get immunizations... thankfully she was just collecting our information, but we made sure she got every detail.. and I mean every..she said the doctor would be in to see us shortly that she was working on Sputter.. 

The doctor came in and told us when he got there they put him on oxygen and he ended up getting out of his hedgie bag and running around.. all of this made us feel so much better
*
We decided to have the fecal test,skin scrape, blood test and x rays done to find out what was wrong with him.. I had told her we had to have additional money sent because I only had a bit over half of the initial deposit she stated it would be 500 dollars.. and she also stated that if it was mites they would be burrowing mites and we would have never seen them.. I told them no invermectin shot if it was somehow mites, we would prefer the revolution treatment and since it was the weekend,

Now Sunday the lab was not open and she could not do anything till tomorrow, she made this little head gesture of how hedgehogs ball up when you go to exam them I told her I wanted him given an antibiotic to go with his probiotic we gave him and she ensured it would be absolutely necessary to keep him overnight. I gave her his giraffe and his baggy of food and another cuddle sac and asked to see him.

She brought us him in his cuddle sac ontop of his Blankey and the bottom piece of our carrier just as if she had pulled him out and just set him in in there we got to see him quickly and he was all balled up, but he and looked a little bit better from the oxygen so we said our goodbyes and left

As soon as we got home we started researching and found that if it was a mite it would have been the sarcoptiform mite and the reason we never seen them is because they are always burrowed and we had treated him a week or so prior for dry skin We have 2 more female hedgehogs and they both also have dry skin but not as bad as Sputters had gotten his skin eventually got really flaky and dry and he had really bad dandruff. we have tried olive oil and oatmeal baths, just regular oatmeal baths an eventually vitamin e olive oil rinse with Luke warm water after an oatmeal bath with smashed oats and a few drops of aveeno baby safe collidial oatmeal wash but nothing seemed to be helping we keep his cage clean we use fleece liners there's nothing in his cage that can harbor mites besides the liners and his stuffys But we change them daily and freeze the stuffys every few days so they couldn't be either but we went with her first impression.

The next morning at 8 we called in to have her call us before she started on him she didn't phone us back till 9:45 and she told us he had been up and running around again we stressed to her that we did not want the tests done if she thought it was mites we just wanted him treated with revolution until he was strong enough to do the tests.. she said If she wasn't confident in it she wouldn't be saying to go through with it she would just use a mild anesthetic so she could put him under and give him the revolution..

My wife went down there to pay and when she got there the doctor came out and told her he was dying she had run the tests his red blood cell count was at 8 it should have been at forty, she said whatever it was it was slow going and he had it for a long time she told her basically he was going to die this horrible horrific death and we would watch it if we took him home.. and while my gf was balling she said she had tryed to contact us lastnight that she came in around 10 o clock and he still hadn't eaten she said she called us but she was calling long distance and there was no answer..

My wife came home and came through the door balling and explained everything to me we were to go get him at 4 she would call us.. she didn't call till we were already on the way there at quarter to 5 

We get there and wait another half hour for them to bring him to us and he comes out in the same snuggie we had brought him in initially ontop of the blanket.. she had his baggie of food and our extra snuggie no carrier.. she said he's kind of pale from the vitamin shot we gave him and she said when you feel like you would like to we could bring him back for euthanasia.. I asked her for our carrier and she had to go look for it another 15 mins she finale brings us it and I was trying to ask if i could give him ensure and what to put on his dry skin she just shushed us along and said don't worry about it the main thing would be to get him to eat he still hadn't ate?????

We got him home I got him out of the carrier and onto my hand we blended up his food and immediately tryed giving him food and water and he took it down like my sick little champ.. i tryed to just give him a bit i wasnt sure if i needed to massage his abdomen like a baby to burp him and i didnt want to give him to much

So I finale had hope we can do this but he now had no use of his back end from the testing we did not authorize..he drug himself out his bag and we put him down on our bed and wrapped him up even took a picture because he looked so relived to have just made it home the color came back into his face and it even gave him some strength.. a bit over an hour later I tryed feeding him again he again ate the food down and drank the water but he was just so weak I took him into his cage and set him down so he could see he made it home and he was so excited he pulled himself right in his hide and he just looked finale like he was comfy I put his hide on him and when I came back to check on him a bit later he had passed.. 

His giraffe did not come home, we havent went and picked it up yet but we called in and TOLD them to have it ready.. his food was not touched I didn't count the kibbles but I took 3 scoops it was all there.. we figured we were doing the right thing by taking him there.. and I want to tell myself it was the right thing and that we did all we could for him.. whether he was too far along or not why did she not feed my animal? we told them he had not eaten all day the day before we took him in and she just let him die beside his food because he was to weak to eat it.. then she told my wife he was up and running around how could that have been when he hadn't eaten in 3 days who in anyone's ****** right mind would think a senior sick hedgehog, would live through any type of major testing like that... we stressed to her we did not believe he was strong enough.. and both our cells are local, she was covering her ass for not feeding my animal, but since she lost everything of his that she claimed to have set up with him we believe we can go after her for incompetence at the very least I understand he was dying.. and I understand it is selfish of me to want to fight till the very end but he was still taking the food and water he wasn't spitting it out he still had some fight.. if we would have known she wasn't going to feed him we would have never brought him there I don't believe this girl should be able to continue in this field of work.. 

thank you for all your opinions I just feel like before we go any further we should ask what others who know a bit more about hedgie vet practices... like is it normal to just let a lethargic animal die beside it's food... or don't you atleast try to get something into them.. isn't that what we pay them for? 

Honestly I'm not the best at spelling nor is my English the greatest.. I'd appreciate to not get torn apart for how my phone auto corrects and texts.. thanks


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

Unless you know exactly what was done when you weren't with him there's no way you can say they didn't treat him properly. I'm not sure what you were expecting. If you really want to go ahead with a malpractice suit against the vet you'd need some expert advice (another vet) to say what she did wrong and what she should have done differently. You seem upset that you waited 15 minutes when you got there but do you know exactly what was being done in the clinic for those 15 minutes? It would be one thing if she as sitting around having coffee or playing on her phone and a completely different thing if she was busy with another animal. I have waited much longer than that to see a vet, even with an appointment. There is no way you can say for sure that she didn't try to feed him, my vet would have used a syringe ready food not dry food. She may have tried and he didn't eat it. What testing did she do that you feel to to hard on him? 

What treatment was given that caused the loss of function in his back legs?

I'm very sorry for the loss of your baby and I know its a hard thing to deal with.


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## Clintonhipfner (May 11, 2017)

We were supposed to pick him up at 4 he did not get brought to us till 5:45 then we had to wait an additional 15 mins while thy found his things, they told us she set up with him and assured us he would have his things

So 2 hours sorry in may grief I over explained it, we have been talking to a zoologist and also other vets and the fact she knew he hadn't eaten for 1 day in my care and another 24 hours in her care and she lied to us in the morning and said he was up running around.. how could that be ?? she did tests that did not need to be done we told her of she thought it was mites we would rather him just treated with revolution and given an antibiotic to go with the probiotic we gave him rather than doing a skin scrape and also a secondary skin scrape because they found NO Mites and no Eggs he came back Yellow dehydrated and starving he was just struggling so hard to make it home

And if that were possible no one would win malpractice suits they don't let you back there for a reason

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...essary-treatments-fleece-trusting-owners.html


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## Clintonhipfner (May 11, 2017)

I believe sheave judgements on us on our grief I believe when she came in if she even did go in at 10 o clock she lied to us and said she called us?? She was covering her ass and she threw it in while we were so distraught we didn't even take it in till after he was gone just like his giraffe thst they lost I'm sending a relative to pick it up today because I don't ever want to see that place again.. we're in the process of talking to global news...no animal should go through the treatment he got


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

I still don't know what tests or treatments you're talking about. My vet allows me into th back and allows me to be present when my dog was spayed and every time I e taken an animal in I stayed with it during tests and treatments. I've never heard of a vet not listing treatments and tests on the bill.


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## Draenog (Feb 27, 2012)

First of all I'm sorry for your loss, it's always painful and difficult to lose them. 


Your post was very hard to read due to lack of structure and bad grammar (and please use punctuation marks next time...) so I am trying to make sense of it, apologies if I got anything wrong.

If I got it right, your hedgehog had the following symptoms

- diarrhoea and blood in stool 

then you kept him like this for a bit and gave him bene-bac.
After a few days he got worse, didn't eat and you took him to the vet.

They examined him and did several tests.
Why did you ask for antibiotics? You had no idea what was wrong with him. It makes no sense to just give an animal antibiotics "to go with his probiotics" when you have no idea what's going on. Antibiotics are quite harmful and shouldn't be given as if it was an over-the-counter drug. 
Then for some reason they/you were talking about mites; none of his symptoms sound like it had anything to do with mites. It's unclear to me how mites came up in this scenario. I also don't understand why a hedgehog needs to be put under to give it revolution. You literally just drop it on the skin between the shoulder blades. No anaesthesia needed. 

How do you know they didn't feed him during the night, by syringe for example? Did you ask?

If he was that extremely poorly why did you take him home/why did they give him to you while before you said he *had* to stay overnight because he was in such bad shape?
Where is the whole lack of red blood cells in this story? He had blood in his stool + anemia so the most obvious thing would be internal bleeding. Where did the whole blood in his stool problem go?

What testing did you not authorize? Why weren't you there yourself when they tested him? Everything they did should be on the bill, so you know what you're paying for. How could they "secretly" test him? And for what? 
The problem wasn't the food, the problem is why nothing has happened with a possibly internally bleeding, anaemic hedgehog (from both sides - yours and the vet's). Why did you wait several days before taking a bleeding animal to the vet? It sounds like he bled to dead, regardless of whether he'd eaten or not. It just makes no sense to me. Sorry for all the questions but half of this story is so unclear it just doesn't add up. We're only hearing one side of the story here so I really can't tell you whether or not this was (all) the vet's fault. From the sound of it he was really poorly when you brought him in, but in the end the vet suddenly did it?


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