Cold, heartless negligent Vet

We had a beautiful little Jack Russell / terrier mix named ''Halo'' who was 9 years old. She was the light of our lives and she was like our child. We loved her dearly.

On Sunday the 10th of February 2019, it was like a normal day for us, except at around 10 am our dog started vomiting. She vomited about 7 times and was very weak. My husband and I decided to rush her to the vet. We took her to Jukskei Vet because she had been there before and we thought it would be good for them to have her history. When we got there at 11:25 am -- just 5 minutes before they were going to close. The Vet examined her and told us he could see she was in a lot of abdominal pain. She was doing this “prayer” pose with the back half of her body up in the air. This apparently indicates severe abdominal pain. The vet said she’s not in a good way and that he needed to put her on a drip, give her antibiotics in case of infection and give her pain****ers and take an X-ray. My husband asked him if she needed a scan, to which he replied an X-ray would pick anything up. And so he said we can go and he would call us back in half an hour. We never should have left her there - but we had no idea she was going to die.

When he called us back he said that she had a very high blood glucose level of 20 (the glucose level should be 6) and that her liver was palpable (inflamed). But he said he couldn’t see a blockage or twisted gut. And he couldn’t really see anything else significant on the X-ray. He said that Halo would need to stay the night and that he would run further tests in the morning if she hadn’t improved. This was at 12:30. By 4 pm that afternoon we got another call. It was the vet to tell us Halo had passed away. Our entire world came crumbling down. We were in complete shock. How did she go from being fine to DEAD in less than 6 hours. We couldn’t believe it. We were and still are devastated.

When we said we were on our way, he simply said "sorry, we're closed, you can come in tomorrow morning." How can any vet be so cold and heartless? Our baby had just died and he wouldn't even take 15 minutes to let us come and see her! I feel like he robbed us of the chance to say our gooodbyes to her.

We needed answers as to how and why she died. So we decided to send her body to a lab to have a post mortem done. The lab results came back a week and a half later. The post mortem revealed that our poor little dog had an adrenal tumour on her right adrenal gland. It was a functioning tumour that released hormones / adrenalin. Which damaged her heart. She ultimately died of a heart attack. It has been the most difficult thing to come come to terms with this, because we did not notice any signs or symptoms. The only symptom we recall was that she panted a lot. But we just thought she was hot. These adrenal gland tumours are apparently very rare, and the symptoms come and go and are difficult to pick up. Apart from that she had a bout of "gastro" in December. Which we now think may not have been gastro after all. We had taken her to Jukskei Vet for this in December and they had diagnosed her with "gastro". But she recovered from that and was fine the whole month of January.

Halo was a happy dog, full of energy. She loved her walks and we had even taken her for a walk the day before she died. She ran, barked and seemed her normal self. She even ate her breakfast the morning she died. She was never lethargic and she never lost her appetite. We never got to say goodbye to Halo. It was all so sudden and so quick.

I feel that the vet at Jukskei Vet should have given us an emergency number to contact - they do not have an emergency number listed at all and only an office number. So when the vet went home that Sunday ( leaving our baby alone ) there was no way of us contacting them to follow up on her condition! When he called us to tell us she has passed away, he should have let us come and see her - it was absolutely SHOCKING and DISGUSTING that he would not allow us to come and see her. He should have advised us to take her to a 24-hour Vet rather if he knew that he was leaving the veterinary practice that day. Our dog was extremely ill and needed 24 hour attention and monitoring!

I am left with so many regrets and wish we had never taken our dog there. I would advise anyone who loves their dog to never take their dog to that vet.

I took long to post this as I did not want my emotions to cloud my judgment. But it has been 9 months now and I can say with cer*****y that what that Vet did was WRONG and he should truly be ashamed. Our dog may still have died at another Vet, but I feel we would all have been treated with care, compassion and empathy.