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Publicly and privately I have been receiving a lot of negative responses by two of Animal Services off site veterinarian contractors, Porter Pet Hospital and Dr. Marco at Noreda. I have published some of these comments in previous posts.
Those who have had either positive or negative experiences with either, please leave a comment and state whether you want it posted or not.
I'd like to add another vet to your list:
ReplyDeleteDr. Fahmy at Devonshire Animal Hospital, Chatsworth Ca.
Dr. Fahmy sliced my cat open unnecessarily and took LA CITY money for a spay he never performed.
My cat was spayed in '03 when I found her pregnant and ready to pop, and she not only had ear clips that identified her as a spayed cat, but she had a visible spay scar to show it.
Fahmy opened her up anyway, claiming that the person who trapped her insisted that the cat be opened up "just to make sure."
Fahmy and her assistant never checked for a microchip before opening the cat up. My cat was tame and she had both a microchip and a collar. She was chipped at LAAS three to four years ago.
When the woman who trapped the cat called me and asked me if I could foster a cat she found---she had been searching around and could not find anyone with any room because everyone was full--she decided to ask me as a last resort.
I do not take cats from individuals. I am not a rescue organization. I do not rescue cats.
The woman told me the cat seemed tame. She took the cat to Devonshire Animal Hospital and dropped her off in the morning.
The woman called me from work and asked me to help her pick up the cat because she was at work, and "couldn't [I] just foster the cat while she showed her on the weekends at the Petco....Cat's Inc. had Okey'd the cat to be shown on the weekends, but there was no one available to foster her..."
I told the woman to check for a microchip before she had the cat opened up because if she was chipped, the cat is likely to be spayed---especially if she was an adoption from LAAS.
I told her she should take the cat to LAAS so that the cat could be checked for a chip and so that her owner could find her.
I had been looking for my cat for 5 months and was going out of my mind trying to locate her at the shelter, praying I would get a call from the shelter telling me they had my cat; that her picture would show up on the LAAS website all of a sudden, or that someone would respond to the posts I had put up on Craigslist and on the telephone poles regarding my missing cat.
The woman responded that she would not get the cat back from the vet and that she refused to take her to the shelter.
I told the lady to call the vet's office back and ask them to check for a spay scar first before they do anything to the cat.
I felt the vet would check anyway and thought that the vet wouldn't proceed with the obvious, but I asked that the cat be checked, anyway.
The woman said that the vet tech said that the cat had a spay scar. At this point, I asked the woman what the cat looked like and she couldn't exactly describe the cat.
The woman said she had asked the vet to open her up anyway.
She asked me to call the vet to ask them to check for a microchip for her because she couldn't explain it and didn't have time because she was at work.
I called the vet and asked them to check for a microchip before they open up the cat.
Crystal, the veterinary tech said that the cat had already been opened up. It was about three-thirty p.m.
I asked Crystal to check for a chip. Sure enough, over the phone, I heard the beep-beep-...
I told Crystal to please call the owner. She said the woman who dropped off the cat was going to come back for the cat.
I insisted they call the owner immediately. The cat was in a trap and the cat had been opened up.
I asked if the cat had been spayed. Crystal said no, she had already been spayed.
I asked her what the cat looked like. She said she was a gray tabby.
My Litto Girl was a gray tabby and she had a collar and clipped ears (two of them, for some odd reason...the vet probably originally cropped the left and then said, "oops," and then did the right..).
I told Crystal to call the owner of the cat immediately and tell him to go and pick up his/her cat.
The cat had been trapped and opened up.
Crystal said that they couldn't release the cat to the owner. They would only give the cat back to the person who dropped her off.
I asked Crystal for the owner's contact information. She asked me if I wanted the microchip number.
I was breathing rapidly and my heart was racing. My temples were thumping from the blood rushing to my head.
Crystal gave me AVID's number and the mircrochip number on the cat.
I called AVID and reported that the cat was found on "X" street, as the woman told me.
She lived on my street, only across the boulevard, and across the street from the university campus.
I told AVID to tell the owner that that the cat was at the Devonshire Animal Hospital and that the cat was opened up.
I also told AVID to tell the owner that he needs to pick up his cat right away because the cat was not going to be released to the owner, but to the person who had trapped the cat and that the cat was in a trap.
The owner needed to be located ASAP and I was beside myself.
The owner needed to be at the vet's office before the woman who trapped the cat could get the cat back.
If the cat was lost and the owner was searching for the cat, the cat was going to end up with this woman who was not in her right mind....
Even though she only had three cats in her apartment, her she couldn't handle a fourth cat and she was very well aware of that.
Her place smelled badly and I had to clean her two litter boxes when she was in the hospital.
The poo was stuck to the bottom and couldn't be scrubbed out, and I had to get her new ones.
While all this was going through my head, as well as the fact that the cat was going to be handed down from person to person, from this woman, to a friend of her's who is "a rescuer" and has 18 cats in her back room, to a cage at Cat's Inc on the weekends, and a cage at the woman's house while she held onto the cat for fostering, I hoped the owner could be reached.
I thanked AVID for taking the information and I asked for the receptionist's name. It was Elizabeth.
I hung up the phone and the breath just stuck within me.
Before I could take a second breath, the phone rang. It as Elizabeth.
Elizabeth said, "It's your cat?..."
I said, "no, no, the lady found the cat on "X" street, so I suspect the owner of the cat lives in the same building where the cat was found. It probably got out and couldn't find her way back
and the woman trapped it."
She said, "Yeah, but...It's your cat?"
I said, wait a minute...What is the address on the chip, is it 'X'?"
She said, yes.
I said, the woman lives on that street.
I said, what is the address of the cat?
She asked, "what is your address?"
I said, "X".
Elizabeth said, "yeah."
I said, "wait a minute...What is the name of the cat?
The shivers went up my spine and I had goose bumps all over my legs.
"Litto Girl," she said.
I said, Thank you. I wanted to reach over the phone and kiss her.
I called the woman who trapped my cat. I said, "X" we have something serious to talk about, and I am going with you to pick up the cat.
"The cat has an owner, and the vet's office refuses to release the cat to the owner. They will only release her to you. I'm picking you up after work."
I was shaking so baddly, I needed a drink.
I couldn't drive, so my husband drove.
We picked up the woman at home, and I told her that I was so upset, that I had to have a beer.
The woman was in her 70's, and I dind't want to upset her too much. I was furious with her. She had been feeding cats all these years and NOT ONE had she altered.
I had crawled underneath the voids under the buildings at CSUN trying to get the kittens out of horribly flea infested buildings where she was feeding before they were fumigated and one of them had died in my hands when we got there too late.
I ended up with two of them and a $900 bill at McClave's emergency when she refused to take them to the animal shelter. Then she couldn't care for them and tame them down. I took the kittens...
When she finally decided to trap a cat, it was tame and it was mine.
I walked into Dr. Fahmy's office asking for my cat. I said that I was the owner on the microchip.
They wouldn't give me my cat. I asked them if they had a large gray tabby. They said no. I asked if they had a tabby in a trap. They said yes, but that I wasn't the owner, that the woman next to me was the owner of the cat.
I plopped my Driver's License down with my address. I screamed that I was the owner of the cat and that I wanted my cat back.
They looked at "X" next to me who had trapped the cat. She had her head down and looked as if she had her tail between her legs.
She nodded for the receptionist to give me the cat.
Litto Girl was in a tiny trap all night and all day, uncovered. She was shivering, whimpering, and shaking.
She was in tremendous pain. She had just been cut up.
I screamed at the receptionist with the thick accent, "didn't you check for a spay scar before you opnened her up?"
They didn't answer. They brought out the doctor.
He said, "Lady can you please calm down?"
I screamed at him again, "YOU OPENED UP MY CAT and SHE HAD A SPAY SCAR! WHY DID YOU OPEN HER UP?"
He said that the woman insisted on it, and that the woman insisted on it, and I wasn't the owner of the cat.
I said, "I am the owner, this is my cat, and my name is on the microchip!" "The address on my Driver's license is the exact same address on the mircochip, and so is the name!"
The doctor said, lady, if you keep screaming, I am going to call the police.
There was a woman holding a cat in her arms in the waiting room. She and her poor cat had a look of fear and apprehension on their face.
I began to cry. My cat was shaking incessantly and she was shivering so badly.
I requested pain medication for my cat. They refused.
They said the owner was the only one who could request pain meds and the owner had to pay for them.
I screamed again, "my cat is in pain and she needs pain medication! Didn't you even give her any pain medication after you opened her?"
They said, no. The owner had to request it.
The woman who trapped the cat purchased pain meds for my cat. They cut the pills into tiny pieces so that they nearly dissolved your finger so that they stuck on your skin and could not get them down her throat.
Litto Girl was already in tremendous distress by the unnecessary butchering she had been through.
I rushed her to two other vets as an emergency visit.
Chatoak wanted to give her a full medical exam before they could administer the meds and they didn't have liquid suspensions.
I wanted a liquid suspension. It was less stressful and Dr. Pierson, (who's website on feline nutrition you like so much) advises we give our cats liquid compounds instead of the pills that are not only stressful on the cat, but work their way into the lungs and also destroy the esophagus on the way down.
I finally ended up at Noreda for a liquid suspension.
When Dr. Marco cut open my kittens, I requested pain meds, and I got liquid compounds already mesured in a suspension.
I gave them to the kittens once a day, for three days, in order to ease their pain after the spay.
Dr. Marco also required a complete physical exam before he could give the Litto Girl any pain meds. Poor thing lay whimpering on the table, her tummy in the air when Dr. Marco turned her over--- two visible spay scars back-to-back, one with a fresh, new incision.
Dr. Marco cut open my twelve-week-old fosters and wouldn't follow up by performing corrective measures on the spays when one ended up with a hernia and both kittens ended up with fluid-filled tummies, but he did have pain meds in suspension form ready at a price.
It was $12 for the useless pain pills at Devonshire Animal Hospital, and $80 at Noreda.
Fahmy and his assistant (not Crystal) couldn't understand why I was so upset:
"Why are you so angry, lady? You got your cat back."
My sister found 3 unweaned babies soaking in the sprinklers in the bushes along the parking lot where she lives.
ReplyDeleteThe babies were newborns.
After nearly a week, one began to refuse the bottle.
It was the middle of the night and the baby needed his midnight feeding.
The kittens were being fed every two hours, round the clock.
When one of the babies stopped eating, we rushed the baby to Chatoak Hospital (Chatsworth, Ca.).
It was the middle of the night, so we had to take the kitten in during emergency hours.
We had no idea of the torture that was about to happen at the hands of the vet on staff that night.
The emergency vet stuck a feeding tube down the baby's throat to try to get the baby to eat.
He then discharged my sister and the kitten and charged her $500.
That night the kitten began to ooze thick brown liquid from both ends of his body.
The kitten died.
Both my sister and I were in shock and in deep despair.
I was at work on Saturday morning when my sister called me to tell me what had happened.
My sister and I didn't know any better, so we did not think to take the dead kitten back to the vet to show them what had happened.
We were both ignorant.
Instead of going back to Chatoak to complain, my sister went to Tags and talked to the veterinarian on staff.
The vet was disturbed by the incident, so he offered to investigate.
The vet performed an autopsy with my sister's permission.
He diagnosed the kitten with a torn esophagus and severely puntured lungs.
The vet at Tags said the feeding tube that was stuck down the baby's throat at Chatoak was too thick for the baby so it ripped through his esophagus and his lungs.
Funny thing....the emergency vet at Chatoak sent my sister home with feeding tubes when he discharged her that night so that she could also perform the same torture that he had performed on the tiny little baby.
Chatoak took $500 from my sister for the torture and didn't bat an eyelash.
It has been very difficult to forgive that level of incompetence.
My sister has not rescued or fostered unweaned babies since, and she has not returned to Chatoak Hospital.
They tortured and killed a poor innocent little baby who did not deserve to die such a horrific and painful death.
Thank you for letting us get this information out there, Mr. Muzika.
My sister and I have harbored this unbelievably painful experience for several years now and it is very therapeutic to know that we can get this information out there.
Some of these vets have made themselves rich by their gross incompetence.
Chatoak Hospital is in Granada Hills, on the corner of White Oak and Chatsworth Blvd...not the city of Chatsworth, as I had mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThanks again, and Sorry about the typo...