Woman upset with local vets after near death of beloved dog

By Steven Warburton Wednesday August 18, 2010

When her seven-year-old chocolate lab, Roxie, became violently ill in the evening hours of July 28, Lucille Ladouceur-Quesnel's first instinct was to call her local veterinarian. "Roxie had nine pups on July 16 and she got sick," explains the 45-year-old Alexandria resident. "Her milk got infected and she caught a fever. Her temperature started going down and it was like she was paralyzed."

The first thing she did was call her local vet, Glen Robertson based Janet Lalonde, to see if she could do anything. After learning that Dr. Lalonde was away on holiday, Mrs. Ladouceur-Quesnel called veterinary clinics and animal hospitals in and around Glengarry, asking if she could bring Roxie in to get her checked.

Since it was after hours, the clinics referred her to an emergency 1-800 number. She called it, but she didn't get very good news. "They refused me because I wasn't a patient of theirs," she says. "I'm very upset that the other vets wouldn't take my dog." Later that evening, she got a phone call from Dr. Lalonde, who advised her to rush her dog up to the Alta Vista Animal Hospital on Bank Street in Ottawa.

She did, and managed to save her dog's life. "They took her on a stretcher," she says. "She needed an operation and all kinds of medication and it cost me $4,600." But although Roxie is back and recovering at home, Mrs. Ladouceur-Quesnel is still very angry at the local veterinarians who she claims turned her away.

"I told them it was cruelty to animals," she says.

When asked why she didn't bring Roxie to Ottawa immediately, she replied that she didn't know the hospital existed.

"I didn't know there was a hospital there until Janet told me," she says.

Her husband, Pat, agrees.

"When you have a dog that falls sick, you're in a state of panic," he says. "My dog means a lot to me."

Both Mr. Quesnel and his wife wish the people at the 1-800 number had told them about the Alta Vista Animal Hospital immediately. That hospital is open 24 hours a day and employs eight full-time emergency veterinarians and a support staff of other veterinary workers.

"My response was "how hard was it to tell us to go to Ottawa?'," he says. "It would have calmed us way down."

In any case, representatives of local veterinary clinics say that it's part of their protocol to recommend the 24-hour emergency clinics in Ottawa and Montreal if their clinics cannot accommodate the callers.

"If someone is stuck and they don't have a vet, we'll usually tell them they have to go to their own vet, who usually tells them to go to Ottawa or Montreal," says Dr. Darryl Smith of the Hawkesbury Animal Hospital.

"If they're a regular client, we'll see them, but we can only provide emergency services to our own clients."

For many rural veterinary clinics, that's partly out of necessity. They simply don't have the staffing levels that big city clinics like Ottawa and Montreal can afford. In fact, many clinics are already dealing with backlogs.

A receptionist at the Martintown Animal Clinic, who refused to divulge her name, says that the clinic there is already dealing with a four-week backlog for vaccines and that it hasn't been taking new clients in years.

Martin Fischer, an investigator and Practice Resource Officer with the College of Veterinarians of Ontario, says that clinics are required to notify their clients of the availability of after hours emergency service, but they don't have to do anything for nonclients. Still, it's evident that many veterinarians will, as a courtesy, recommend the Montreal and Ottawa clinics.

For their part, Mr. Quesnel and Mrs. Ladouceur-Quesnel just want the public to know about the Alta Vista Animal Hospital in Ottawa, located at 2616 Bank Street.