VCA Animal Hospitals

I am singing your petition. My dog is dead because they would not listen to me and check him for lung worm. I told them he had coughed up a slug and was eating snails all of the symptoms he had been developing made me think he had a parasite. They wanted to do an MRI after they had 100's of pictures, studies, CT scans, multiple blood panels. I continually asked them to consider lung worm and they just kept saying he has blood clots, and basically made fun of me while my dog was overdosed on heart medicine that he did not even need. They wanted me to do an MRI, because they said he had nerve damage and the reason he was getting sick is because his esophagus was being affected by the long nerve. I asked every tech and Dr. that I spoke with if they can consider lung worm based on his symptoms. Everyone just ignored me and said that the symptoms do not match, or I don't think so, and no your dog is old and does not have lung worm. When he was getting sicker and sicker, I kept asking them please treat him for lung worm. Then they started blaming me for trying to get the help he needed; Saying that I was making him suffer when it was them that made him suffer and then my dog was overdosed on heart medicine by an assistant that did not even know what she was injecting in him. I asked her what she was giving him because his breathing pattern was suddenly changing, and she, while not knowing what she was injecting said that oh he has been doing that. She told me they had to do rounds and pushed me out from my long awaited five minutes with my dog. Less than two minutes later he died in a coma. I had just spoke with the Dr. about getting him out of there. Then when we were viewing my dog in the viewing room not more than three minutes passed, and they came in asking for $166.00. Then when my dog was dead, they questioned what I was going to do with his body and insinuated that I did not know how to properly handle my dead dog. He was buried June 4th, 2019 at a pet memorial. I know that lung worm is not common in California, but this cannot be ignored. This is not only about the wrongdoing and the money and the unnecessary pain they caused; it is also a health threat that cannot be ignored. I believe if they thought they could make more money off him doing more testing they would have paid more attention to what they were doing.