When going in for routine checkups try to be with your pet during the exam. Abuse, accidental or not, by a veterinary assistant or veterinarian, may occur and if something ever happened to your pet in your absence, especially during a routine exam or procedure, you would never forgive yourself. Anything bad is less likely to occur if you are there with your pet whenever possible.
When things do go wrong it may be due to careless actions, pure and simple. Also, older pets do not always do well when boarded in kennels. They may not eat and when you get your pet home it may die soon after due to the stress it suffered and do not always count on the kennel to call you or even tell how your pet may be suffering when you call-in to check on your pet.
To restrain an unruly cat or dog the person in charge may actually use one of those “slip-noose” leashes and dangle or hang your pet in mid-air until it stops struggling and goes limp for the animal handler. This type of restraining procedure obviously makes your pet suffer and is considered by many in the veterinary business to be unnecessary and unethical. Some even feel it should result in criminal punishment. However, the restraining unruly pets at vets practice takes place behind closed doors and always out of sight of any pet owner.
In the case of humane shelters, employees there could be selling your discarded pets to research labs where they may end up used in painful, lingering, horrific experiments or research testing. Even if you ask shelter employees what will likely happen to your pet, they may just tell you your pet will probably be adopted but this may not be the case at all. Some shelters’ greedy, unscrupulous employees may even receive thousands of dollars a month from research labs or independent animal buyers at up to $75 a head for healthy, tame pets. Labs may pay $200 to $1000 per discarded, tame, docile pet.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: MIAMI HERALD NEWSPAPER 3/23/96 and IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS NEWS FALL 1995