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Tilda – The saga of the ovarian remnant

Tilda – The saga of the ovarian remnant

July 26, 2018 by Elizabeth

So, I’d been deciding about writing all of this up, however, after reading reviews and information about New Hope Pet Rescue, the organization we rescued Tilda from, and then being silenced by their page, I decided that I should share all of the facts and evidence so as others look to adopt from this organization they can benefit from my experience. It’s a lot to read and really written for either potential adopters from New Hope Pet Rescue (NHPR) or potential clients of Spay & Neuter Express.

My husband & I adopted Tilda (Matilda Wilma Whiting), on March 29, 2017 from New Hope Pet Rescue.  She was wild when we got her, no manners, no training, no boundaries.  We worked with her on all of these issues, we fell in love with her.  We trained her, took her to dog daycare for exercise every day, had additional dog training for her and then we found a dog sport for her to do to build confidence and give her a job. We started barn hunting in the summer and we were getting better at it over the fall.  Our bond was growing and Tilda’s confidence was growing.  She was blossoming into a great dog. I say all of that to say, that I KNOW that rescue dogs come with some baggage and require extra training, care and love.  We went through a bout of canine influenza in the summer of 2017 and we battled a skin infection that she’d had since she’d been rescued, but had no other major health issues. We have an older basset hound with Cushing’s disease, allergies, and seizure disorder. We see our vet at least once a month. Vet bills for our older dog run over $200 a month every month between medications and other things that come up. We had a cancerous tumor removed from our first dog at a cost of $3000.  We stay on top of all vetting for our dogs.  I say all of that to say that we KNOW that vet bills are a part of owning a dog, but one bill that we did NOT expect was to have to remove an ovary from a dog that we rescued, already spayed by the rescue organization just weeks prior to our adoption.

On April 23, 2018, just as we were ready to start barn hunting season, something unexpected happened.  I got a text from Dog Day Care asking me to call in, that they had something interesting to tell me about Tilda. I had hope that she was barking at rats, but unfortunately that wasn’t the news.  The owner of dog daycare told me that Tilda was in heat. I said, what?  She’s spayed!  The owner there said that she’d seen this happen a couple of times where a dog is spayed but an ovarian remnant is left behind accidentally. They treated her like a bitch in season as we didn’t know what might be going on with her spay. We had to drop out of several barn hunt trials and contacted our vet right away to get in and see what we should do. Our first stop was to our vet’s office. They had some questions about if she was really actually spayed or if she was fully intact.  They said that in many cases where this happens, someone has a dog they think was spayed, but it was not or it is a case of surgical error (ie the vet who spayed her screwed up). My vet said that the way this is typically handled is that the vet who made the error will send you to have a laparascopic spay to ensure that anything left behind is removed and so that you can have someone who didn’t make an error do the correction.  He indicated that I should contact the rescue and that either the rescue or the vet who performed the spay should pay to have the laparascopic spay done to ensure the dog is actually spayed.  Spaying the dog prior to adopting it is the rescue’s responsiblity under their contract.

 

So, on April 23rd, after leaving the vet’s office, I sent this email to the rescue.

me to Denise  Apr 23

Hi Denise,

We adopted our Tilda (you called her Wilma) on 3/29/2017.  She was spayed before we rescued her.  She has come into heat today (confirmed by our vet, Bavarian Veterinary).  
We are wondering the following:
1) Will you cover any of the costs from a 2nd spay surgery?
2) Can you provide us details with the type of spay that was done? (I.e did you remove everything or just the horns)
3) Is there anything else we should be aware of from her original spay to understand what went wrong and what our vet needs to do to correct this? Any surgical notes or anything that the doctor may have that wasn’t given to us?
It’s a real bummer to think you have a spayed dog and then to have to deal with a heat cycle a year later!!
Please let me know your thoughts. 
Best Regards,
Elizabeth Whiting

 

I received a reply back.

 

New Hope Pet Rescue to me  Apr 23

Hello-

Did you get vetting paperwork for her?  Does it show that she was spayed?
This is crazy that she is in heat.  I have sent this email to our vetting coordinator so that she can look into this.
I will be in touch as soon as I do some research.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
I wrote back the following (I’m sharing all of the communication here because NHPR, New Hope Pet Rescue tends to tell anyone that says anything negative about them that they are lying).
me to NHPR   Apr 23

Yes, I have the vetting paperwork and she was definitely spayed.  She has a scar from a spay also.  

My vet says that sometimes some ovarian material is missed and that this can happen, but he was hoping to find out some specifics about what type of spay and we didn’t see that on our paperwork but were thinking that the vet (or you) would have record of it.  The woman who runs the dog daycare that Tilda normally goes to says that she has known 2 dogs over the year that had similar occurrence after a spay. 
If you knew my situation, I’ve had about every weird dog situation that is possible with my hounds.  I am dealing with my older hound who has Cushing’s disease and I went through months of weird testing and stuff to figure out what was wrong with him.  My husband and I get all the weird dogs.  I tell him it’s because you get the dog you need, not the dog you want and apparently we are good with weird.
I received this reply back that same day. Notice how they already start with not believing me that my dog had come into heat.  They already are deciding that I’m lying. Why would I lie about this??!!
New Hope Pet Rescue to me  Apr 23

That is so weird!!!

I have never heard of this.  
I will look into this, and let you know once I know where she was spayed.
I am so sorry for the inconvenience.  
Just because they have never heard of it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. Google Ovarian Remnant Syndrome and you’ll see that it absolutely happens.  It is a surgical error in most cases.
me to New Hope Pet Rescue    Apr 23

Thank you! I want to get it taken care of because a hound in heat is a force to be reckoned with. They will run off, they will act all nutty. My parents raised Treeing Walker Coon Hounds in the 80’s when I was growing up and it was always a challenge to keep a female in heat confined.  For now, we are doing leash walks, not letting her run off leash other than at daycare. Daycare is treating her like they would an intact female in heat and keeping her segregated from all males in separate play yards.  Before we realized that she was in heat, she was playing with an an intact male lab at daycare and he was acting all weird and panting and stuff and they thought he was overheating or having a medical issue. But, no, he was just being driven crazy by my girl I guess.  

Let me know what you find out.  We can’t proceed with the 2nd operation until this cycle has finished but we want to have as much information as possible.
At this point, I waited to hear back from them.  I knew from a conversation with my vet that we had a tight time frame in which to resolve this and I was working a number of angles behind the scenes. My vet told me that we needed to wait until after she wasn’t actively bleeding, but no more than 6 weeks after the first blood was spotted to have the best chance of locating the ovarian material and removing it all or we’d have to go through all of this next year.
I’m going to also pause here and talk about all of the options that my vet presented and that we discussed. My first thought was, maybe I should just do nothing about this.  I hate the idea of putting my girl through a surgery, we had all sorts of dog sporting events already planned.  However, the reality if I did nothing:  1) She would be at increased risk for ovarian cancer and potentially other cancers 2) She is at increased risk of pyometra, an infection of the uterus or uterine stump with a partial spay like she had 3) Possibly dealing with false pregnancy which is really hard on dogs emotionally and draining on owners.  4) At this point, I didn’t even know if she was spayed at all, for all I knew, the vet just cut her and didn’t do anything at all,  so I could potentially have had a fully intact female in heat on my hands that could get pregnant.
Behind the scenes, I was making an appointment with the office that does the laparascopic spay and CT. I made a call to a specialty clinic that does reproductive ultrasounds on dogs. They ended up telling me that ultrasounds are very unlikely to be able to visualize the ovarian remnant that was left behind and that it would likely not be a good use of my money.  The office that has the CT and laparascopic services made an appointment for me, but also wanted to know some details about the original spay and wanted to know if the doctor who spayed was going to be referring me and paying for the costs.
I had still heard nothing back from New Hope at this point.  I believe that they thought I would just go away.
So, on April 27th, I write back again.
me to New Hope Pet Rescue  Apr 27
Wondering if you heard anything back from the vet? We want to get her operation scheduled soon to get this permanently resolved, but my vet would love some info about what type of spay was supposed to have already been performed so that he knows what he is in store for. 
I heard nothing back from them until April 30th when they sent this message and copied me.

From: Conley, Tracy

 to spayneuterexpress@gmail.com, me, Tracy, New, nhprvetting

Apr 30

Spay and Neuter Express:

Goods afternoon.

Last year we had Wilma Spay using your service, as with most of ours at that time.

The policy with the Spay and Neuter express last year was that you would take care of any spay related concerns that come up.  Is this still the case so we can resolve this issue for the adopter?

Please read the below email chain from the adopter- the vet says the dog came into heat even after her spay surgery and is looking for more details regarding her surgery.  Can you supply the information they are looking for?

 

Please let me know what you can find so the adopter can move forward with plans

Thank you

Tracy Conley

New Hope Pet Rescue

Vetting Coordinator

This email also had several documents attached to it. For full transparency, I’m sharing them here as well.

 

17-156 Wilma Rabies Cert

17-156 Wilma Spay cert

17-156 Wilma SNE Report-Shots

 

On the Spay cert here, you can see that Lori Sanderson of Spay & Neuter Express performed the spay. I also have nothing good to recommend about her as you’ll see later in the story.

Note that from this email, no one ever wrote me back or called me. IF they wrote back to Tracy Conley or called her, she never called me or forwarded their email.

At this point though, I have all of the information that I need to go crazy dog momma.  The Spay Cert has the phone number for Lori Sanderson and the Spay & Neuter Express.

On May 3rd, I had a consultation with my vet to discuss options and to set up a referral to Animal Surgical Specialties (who does the laparascopy).

Here’s my receipt from that day as NHPR disputes most of my story.

 

After discussing with my vet how the original vet should cover the costs of the laparascopic spay, I call several times on May 3rd to the phone number listed on the paperwork that was sent by New Hope. I’m attaching a screen capture of my call log because NHPR disputes that I spoke with anyone there.

 

I spoke with a gentleman named Paul on May 3rd. He was aware of the situation, so I assume that he had seen the email.  He told me that this happens all the time and was no big deal. I asked a lot of questions about that because at this point, my vet had told me that it was kind of a big deal. I’d since learned that a dog’s ovaries (particularly the right one) is far up in their body and with a body style like Tilda’s that access to that area and finding the ovary remnant was not going to be easy or pleasant for her or for my vet. My vet was pushing hard for the laparascopic spay as the difference in recovery time was going to be significant in her opinion and also because it was the best way of ensuring that we found 100% of the material left behind.

So, in a nutshell, Paul told me that it wasn’t a big deal, that his only responsiblity was to re-do it at their facility and that they do that all the time.  He told me that they go down to Mexico and in Mexico only the uterus is removed and they have to go in and remove the ovaries and it is no problem. He said that they know exactly where to go looking. All of this made me question about why they have so many of these happening all the time and also made me feel not good about putting my girl on the spay bus to have the doctor who made a surgical error the first time try to correct their error.

I had a consultation with Animal Surgical Specialties on May 4th. This is the clinic that performed the lifesaving operation to remove cancer from my older (now deceased) dog Quincy a few years ago. I have a lot of confidence in them. I’m attaching my receipt from my consultation there showing that I paid $50.

They usually charge $100 for a consultation but the doctor felt that it was too high for this scenario because typically a vet is paying for this laparascopic spay.  He told me that either operation should be successful, either having a traditional surgery in my vet office or having the laparascopic spay. The laparascopic spay with CT would definitely find all remnants and would have a minimal recovery time of 2 weeks or so but would cost $1800-$2000.  He also asked me if the rescue or the original vet her going to offset any costs. I told him that I hadn’t been led to believe that. He said that often the rescues will cover the expenses there. I thanked him for his information and told him that I’d think about my choices and call to schedule the laparascopy if we decided to go that route.

I was weighing options at this point and also working on a consult with a veterinarian in Minnesota that a friend told me to call for a 3rd opinion.

I did consult with Dr. Winsor in MN after I spoke with Paul at Spay & Neuter Express.   I explained the situation and that my vet felt that the laparascopy would lead to the best recovery time and outcome.  He wrote me back the following on May 5th. Note that when he says spay clinic here he is referencing my local vet office, not Spay & Neuter Express.

James Winsor  to me

May 5

Sorry for late response. Just getting to emails today. We have performed several exploratory surgeries to find ovarian remnants. (Happy that none have been from our DVMs, but it can happen to the best of surgeons) This surgery while it does require traditional surgery, it has been 100% successful in finding the tissue which is then easily removed and all patients have recovered quite rapidly. Nothing wrong with CT and laparoscopic surgery either. If the doctor associated with the spay clinic is comfortable with the procedure, I would anticipate a good outcome. While all surgeries including laparoscopic have risk, I feel that both surgeries are very low risk with very high likelihood of removing the remnant. 
Good luck with your girl and decision.
Happy to help your decision process.
Jim Winsor

 

To their credit, New Hope Pet Rescue proactively reached back out to Spay & Neuter Express on May 9th and copied me sending this email.

 

From Conley, Tracy

 to spayneuterexpress@gmail.com, me, Tracy, New, nhprvetting

May 9

Good Morning:

I am looking to follow up to see if you were able to collect any information for this adopter.  Would like to get this issue resolved.

Please let me know as soon as possible

Thank you  

Tracy Conley

 

I wrote back the following.

me to Tracy, Denise
May 9

I called Spay & Neuter express last week because I had a scheduled consultation with a surgeon and I wanted to know what their story was.  I spoke with a man named Paul who said that I could sign her up for the mobile clinic again and he would fix at no charge.  He said it’s “no big deal” and he does them all the time.  I question why it is necessary all the time and that makes me question having him do it.  I’ve spoken now to Dr. Doyle (who does them laparascopically) and did a consultation with a Dr. Winsor.  Both of those vets say that they think that “No Big Deal” is a bit of an overestimation, that it is still surgery with all of the possible risks and complications.   I have decided to have my local vet repair it with a traditional operation. My local vet (Bavarian Vet in Frankenmuth) had wanted me to go for the CT and laparascopic spay to ensure with 100% confidence that we got everything and to make sure that she didn’t have an extended healing & recovery time.  However, it is $1800 for the CT and laparascopic spay and with no help from you or Spay & Neuter Express, I would be bearing that whole expense. Both Dr. Doyle and Dr. Winsor said that the risks and benefits of the laparascopic spay versus the traditional operation were comparable if done by a confident, qualified veterinarian.  

So, my girl is schedule for an operation on 5/24 at Bavarian Vet.  I didn’t gather from Paul that they were obligated or willing to offset any of the costs.  Dr. Doyle told me that in 99.99% of the cases that there is an ovarian remnant, it is due to surgical error. I just can’t see taking my girl back to a vet who made the surgical error for him to try to correct it, particularly when he tells me this happens “all the time” and at least 4 other vets are telling me that this is relatively rare, that most vets wouldn’t even have one of these in their career.  
I’m worried for my girl and super bummed that this is preventing us from participating in Barn Hunt this month and next month. We started training last summer, went to 4 trials last fall, trained all winter and we were really ready to get out there and find some rats!  My greatest worry right now is that they are going to open her up and not be able to get it all and I’m going to go through all of this next year again.  However, I need to give this a try because it’s a difference between $500 (traditional operation without ultrasound or CT) and $2000 (laparascopic spay with CT).  I am going to be so bummed if this all happened and we go through this again next year. I’m sad for my girl that this vet clinic just carelessly operated on her and didn’t do a thorough job. It just to me shows a lack of care and concern for the animal.
I have huge ongoing medical expenses for my other dog, Mr. Chip, an 8.5 year old basset hound.  He has Cushing’s disease and seizure disorder and terrible allergies and requires about $150 of medication per month for his entire life.  I want to make good decisions for my dogs, but I have several vets telling me that the traditional operation should be successful and have a good outcome and carry the same recovery time as the laparascopic spay. I’m hoping that I’m making the right decision.  
…
At this point, New Hope Pet Rescue never responded. They did not offer to try to contact Spay & Neuter Express and pressure them to cover any costs.  They were after all the client, not me.  They send a lot of dogs there presumably and are most likely an important account.  They would certainly have had more leverage than me, someone who had never sent a dog there and never will.  They did not offer to refund my original adoption fee or offer to assist with any of the fees for the laparascopic spay.  They did not write back to say that they were sorry that my baby was going through this ordeal. In short, they showed no care or concern whatsoever.  They simply never wrote back.
 At that point, we went ahead and had surgery on May 24th. It was every bit as terrible as I had imagined. The surgery was long. She had a very large remnant on the right side (the one that is very high up in the body). That remnant was difficult to access and remove without coming into contact with the pancreas, increasing worry for infection or pancreatitis.  On the left side, she had a large number of cysts that were potentially also involving an ovarian remnant, those were all removed as well, though I opted against spending extra money on testing to see if there was an ovary in there anywhere, we just will assume the vet got everything.  2 vets at my office were involved in her operation and she was under anesthesia for an extended period of time while they worked to remove everything and patch her up.
New Hope Pet Rescue has called into question most everything about my story (saying that I allege my dog had an ovarian remnant), so I’m going to share a few pieces of paperwork in addition to the evidence above.
Here’s the receipt from her operation as well as the surgical intructions given to me showing that this surgery was an ovariohysterectomy.

 

 

After the surgery, I stayed home with her for the next day and then we had a 3 day weekend for Memorial Day.  When we initially brought her home the day of the surgery, we had to carry her crate in like a gurney. She would not get up.  For several days, she did not want to eat anything, but all of her antibiotics and pain pills needed to be taken with food.  I sat by her side, pushing wet food down her throat to get enough food into her to get her to then safely take her medication. I kept her alive by sheer force of will for 3 days or more.  It was the worst surgical experience that I’ve ever had to go through with a dog. She was absolutely miserable for almost a week.  For the first few days, I honestly worried that she wasn’t going to make it and that I’d made the worst mistake ever not having the surgery laparascopically.  She most likely had pancreatitis from everything I’ve read and learned and between the antibiotics and love, we powered through it.

A dog post deserves at least one dog picture.  Here’s Tilda hours after coming home from surgery. We carried the whole crate in like a gurney because she absolutely would not get out of it and out of the car and it was too hot outside to leave her waiting long.

I do love this dog and I’m so happy that she’s in my life. I wish that New Hope had handled the situation differently. I wish that they had advocated for me and the dog more with Spay & Neuter Express. I wish that they had taken some action to help ensure that this dog was properly spayed. They should not have just stopped communicating with me right there.  They should have written back and at least expressed a bit of care and concern for the dog and offered to try to reach out to Spay & Neuter Express to try and get them to offset some costs.

In the end, as evidenced by the receipts above, you can see that I spent $763.20 on this issue + lost wages at work due to time missed for appointments.  The rescue spayed the dog and should be responsible. If they want to take it up with the vet, they are welcome to, but my relationship is with them, not with the vet they chose for the spay.  However, they did not hold up their end of the bargain.  This dog was not properly spayed.  She had most of her right ovary left behind and likely had part of her left ovary, too.  That is incredibly shoddy technique on the surgery and tells me that they shuffle in a bunch of dogs at one time and just cut them quick.  It does not show love, care or concern for a beloved family pet.  Knowing that a surgeon made a surgical error, who would go back to that same surgeon to have it repaired?  Would you do that to your child? Your spouse?  For Yourself?  I wouldn’t and I wouldn’t do that to my dog either.  The rescue had a responsiblity in this situation to advocate for my dog and they abandoned that responsibility.

 

However, after Tilda’s surgery, while she was still recovering, my gall bladder died. Then, the 2 of us were holed up together for about a month. I had decided to let go of being upset with the rescue organization and be happy that my dog and I were alive.

Then, after my gall bladder operation, I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw this little nugget on their facebook page and the way that they attacked adopters after how they treated me just really sat wrong with me.  They always go on attack with anyone that dares to question what they do and how they do it. If you complain about lack of communication they always talk about how they are 100% volunteer and things fall through the cracks. If you complain about the vetting of dogs they talk about how they are 100% donation and foster based and they are taking dogs out of high kill shelters that are lucky to be alive.  It’s always an excuse and never taking an ounce of responsibility for things they say and do that harm dogs and harm people.  Their choice of vet harmed my dog.  They chose the lowest cost quickie spay surgery so that they could quickly put my Tilda into their “saved from terrible shelter” column.  But, was she saved? Would a life of heat cycles, possible premature death from pyometra or ovarian cancer and the pain and grief of false pregnancy have been my girl’s best life?  I don’t think so.    So, I took to this comment thread to share the story of my experience with New Hope.  They deleted my comment.

 

So, I tried again, this time I posted my comment separately not in this thread.  Here’s what I posted (it did get deleted, but this time I saved it knowing that they were seeking to silence me).

Y’know, I’ve held in my feelings about this situation for almost 2 months but then you posted this self-righteous post about all of the good you do for dogs and how much YOU care and how little your adopters care and that really irked me. Then, I typed out my story about my dog and then you deleted my comment and that REALLY irks me. I hope you’ll let this one stand or I suppose now I’ll have to find other ways/places to say this. I am an adopter. I care deeply about my dog. I’ve had her for a little over a year. According to several of your comments here you talk about your responsibility being the health of the dog. Well, let’s talk about how you handled the health of my dog BEFORE I ever knew her. You took her to a discount spay bus for a quicky spay at the lowest possible cost. That vet committed a surgical error and he didn’t remove either of my dogs ovaries. Fast forward a year, my spayed female comes into heat. I learn that this is a thing that happens when the vet errors during surgery (usually because of trying to pull the ovaries up by the horns fast). He left not one, but 2 ovaries behind. My vet felt that the rescue or the original vet should pay for a laparascopic spay because the incisions would be smaller, the recovery time less and the impact on the dog reduced. You told me that you had no responsibility that it was up the vet. The vet you used told me just to bring her back into the bus and he’d take care of it. Ummm. . . no thanks. Who goes back to the offending surgeon to have a surgical error corrected? Is that how YOU would treat YOUR family member? I consulted with that vet and the vet who does laparascopic spays (who said that people who come in ALWAYS are getting it paid for by the vet who made the surgical error). I also consulted with an independent 3rd party vet. The laparascopic vet and the 3rd party vet both felt that it would be safe enough and lower cost for me to have the traditional surgery and would just be some additional recovery time. I decided to do that because it was half the cost of the laparascopy and my vet agreed to try to correct your vet’s error. My girl was under anesthesia for over 2 hours. Had both ovaries, one right on her pancreas. The other was surrounded by cysts. She was at risk for pyometra as well because of the hormones and lack of uterus (your vet did actually get the uterus out). So, I spent $1000 on the surgery and spent a weekend with my dog in my arms thinking she was going to die because of the pancreatitis. I kept her alive by sheer will & love that weekend. She had a full 3 weeks of recovery. Why was all of this necessary? Because you chose the cheapest vet you could find to perform her surgery and he did it without a single ounce of care for her or her outcomes. That’s the only reason. When I asked you and I asked your vet, you were unwilling to help at all in this situation other than just to go have the guy who screwed up try to fix his own error. People should know that you are using discounted, error prone vets to do surgeries on these animals before they are adopted out. You should give adopters the option of having their own trusted vets perform the spay. I’ll never rescue from your organization again because I had to see my dog go through pure hell because of that surgical error. So, your self righteousness here is odious to me. Your responsibility as the rescue organization is to the health of the dog and that entails their veterinary care when they are in your care. You can’t just cheapskate out on the veterinary care and then talk about how great you are at helping these animals My dog went through more trials than were necessary because of the veterinary care you selected. You might delete this comment, too. That will say more about you and your lack of ability to hear or accept any criticism than it does about me.

 

At this point, they did in face decide to delete my comment.  So, I wrote them an email. Now, I hit reply all to that thread that had concluded and so ALL of that information was contained below my message.  The WHOLE thread detailing what I’d done, the consultation, the call with Spay & Neuter Express. All of that.

me to Tracy, Denise

Jun 28

You know, you really shouldn’t have kept deleting my comments on Facebook. It has only made me more irate than anything.  Your completely self-righteous post beating up on adopters while patting yourselves on the back was just over the top to me given the situation that I know I’m in because the vet you selected to spay my dog didn’t really care at all.  I was likely to let this thing go before I saw your post.  I already paid the money, I already saved my dog‘s life.  Now, after you having deleted all of my comments, I will be trying to spread my story as far and wide as possible to warn other possibly adopters from your rescue since Paul at the spay bus said this happens all the time. People need to know.  I cannot believe that you deleted all of my comments on your post. That is really poor social media management that has a tendency to blow up on you.  

 

So, they responded:

New Hope Pet Rescue to me, Tracy
Jun 28
Hello-
Please free to call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx if you want to talk like adults about this.  
And, I responded.
me  to New, Tracy

Jun 28

I did talk like an adult, but you sought to silence my voice on a post that you KNEW was going to stir things up. 
And, here’s their reply to me.
New Hope Pet Rescue to me, Tracy

Jun 28

First of all you are blaming us for something that WE didn’t do.  Yes, we used a vet that does spays/neuters at a discounted rate.  However we are not the ones that did the surgery.  We gave you the info of this vet so that you could work this out with them, and you chose not to contact them.  That is not on us!!
While I understand that you are upset and feel the need to blame someone, I am not sure why you feel we are the ones to blame.  We were not in the operating room with them and had not had anything like what you are claiming happen before or since, and we have had thousands of dogs vetted.  
We do our best to insure every dog in the rescue gets the best vet care, and to make things right when they do not.  I am sorry if you feel that we didn’t do so with your dog.  
Currently we do not use the Spay and Neuter Express, we use other vets in our area.
Your comments were deleted not because we were trying to “silence” you.  If you choose to slam us that is your choice.  
I would hope you would go after the vet that did the surgery, not us.  We are as much of a victim in this as you as we paid for this service as well.  
Denise.
Above I’ve highlighted the lie in red.  I did not choose not to contact them. I definitely contacted them.  I definitely told New Hope that I’d contacted them and what the conversation looked like.  She also claims that they make things right when dogs do not get the best vet care. What does that look like for me?  You, dear reader, have seen everything that I’ve said and done. Where did they do their best to make things right for me?
I wrote them back. Because I have to have the last word.  That’s my personality.  It seems to be hers, too.
me to New, Tracy
Jun 28

I DID contact them!  See email in this thread where I told you about the conversation that I had with Paul at Spay & Neuter Express.  It was HARD to get a hold of them at all and their answers were not ideal.  They told me that “this happens all the time” they wouldn’t pay for the laparascopic spay and that their only obligation was to fix it themselves and that it was “No Big Deal” to fix it that they do it all the time in Mexico!!!  I’m serious about that. There was no way I was putting my girl back on the spay bus to have the guy who screwed up do the surgical repair.   I have no recourse to “go after” them because I WASN’T their client.  YOU are/were.    You, in comments on that post, said that YOU are responsible for their health when they are in your care.  THAT was why, along with your really poor attitude towards adopters, was what got me riled up.  You posted that post to “stir things up”, well, consider them stirred.  I had let this go before seeing your post.  I just think that is a REALLY bad attitude towards adopters who make rescue possible when you didn’t take any responsibility or even offer me any help reaching the Spay bus people (I ended up calling them repeatedly one night before finally Paul answered, they NEVER called me themselvs) or offer a single iota of assistance in paying for the laparascopic spay. 

I’m glad you don’t use them anymore, because that was a terrible experience for me, my vet and mostly my dog.  I’d like to see you have a little bit more respect for adopters and some of the stuff we go through because of choices that you make.  You made a choice to use Paul on the spay bus who says that these ovarian remnants happen “all the time”.  I had no choice in that.  Maybe give adopters an opportunity to get their animal spayed by their own trusted vet.  Maybe just show an ounce of respect towards adopters. 

They then replied (as I said, I think that getting the last word is her thing, too).

 

New Hope Pet Rescue to me, Tracy
Jun 28
I am not sure who Paul is as he is not who we dealt with and I have never heard this name.  
Him saying it happens all the time is not true (at least for us).  As this is the first time of me ever hearing of this ever happening.
The post that your talking about was regarding people that had dogs for 2-3 years and returned them because they wanted to move forward or the dog was no longer convenient.  This is frustrating as a rescue as it isn’t fair to the dog or the rescue.  It was not meant to “slam” adopters, as most are amazing and we have amazing relationships with them.
We have hundreds of happy adopters!!!!
Again, I am sorry about your experience and understand your frustration. We never want one of our babies to have to go through surgeries unnecessarily.  We do love the dogs and want what is best for them (and the adopter).
I appreciate you reaching out and bringing this to light (even if it was a rant) so that we could get your side and a reminder of how things we post might come across.  It was not my intention to make adopters feel put  down.  It was a frustration as dogs were dying because we didn’t have room for them.  
I hope that your baby is doing better!
Again, I’ve highlighted the lie with red text.  She says she’s never heard the name Paul before. Perhaps when I emailed them to tell them about my conversation with the man who answers the phone at Spay & Neuter Express using the phone number on the paperwork that they emailed me that they should have said, we’ve never talked to Paul before, perhaps we should call our contact at Spay & Neuter Express and see what resolution we can help you achieve.
I wrote back because I’m absolutely tenacious about getting the last word.
me to New, Tracy
Jun 28
You gave a rant and so you got a rant. 
When I emailed you in May about what Paul said and what  the 3 other vets I consulted  with said, you didn’t even bother to reply with a best of luck, we’ll stop using Spay & Neuter Express over this, or let us as the ones who paid the bill see what I can do.  I was under a tight deadline to get the surgery done within 30 days of her heat cycle for the best chance of a positive outcome. I could not stop to worry about who was paying for what. I had to take care of my girl. 
 Then, 2 weeks into her very hard recovery, my gall bladder up & died and I had to have my own surgery. So, just getting back to real life after all that I see your post about how YOU care and you have all these questions you ask to make sure people are the real deal and then I see your replies to the other guy about your responsibilities and that ALL hit me wrong. The whole thing sucked for her (and me) and I did seriously keep her alive by sheer force of will over Memorial Day Weekend. I really have no recourse with Spay & Neuter Express. I didn’t hire them or choose them or pay them. The way they handled it was awful He laughed at the idea of a laparascopic spay. I don’t know any of the people there you talked to. Your email never generated any reply from them to me. I called the number on the receipt you gave me repeatedly until I reached someone.  My hope is that you are thoroughly vetting your veterinarians as much or more as your adopters. Also, I do hopeyou think about how your posts and comments sound to adopters. Because that really struck a nerve with me. I’m YOUR customer and your relationship to manage. I didn’t choose Spay & Neuter Express or have any relationship with them that would give me any recourse with them. My sole relationship is with you in this situation. I know your contract absolves you of any liability but it didn’t mean that you couldn’t have offered to try to reach an agreement with Spay & Neuter Express on my behalf. That would have been helpful at the time as they would likely have given you, as a big client, better consideration. 
I appreciate you reaching out & at least starting to think about the perception of what you are posting online.
After their last reply, they had hidden the post on their Facebook page. They also banned me from commenting or liking their posts or leaving or editing a review.  I can no longer leave any comments on their page. I can still see their page and share their posts, but I won’t.  After about a week, they figured that I wasn’t going to do or say anything more and so they put the post back up on their page. I took the screen grabs of it today, if you scroll back on their feed to June 26th, you’ll be able to see it.
And so, that is where things were left.  If you go and read their reviews and their replies to any negative reviews you will see that they are full of nothing but excuses, never any responsibility for any situation that turns out poorly.
Now, I’ve shared my story in my own forum. If Denise or any of her people show up to comment, I’m going to allow them to be shown here even though they’ve banned me from commenting on their platform. I can be the bigger person sometime and I’ll let them have their say in the interest of fairness.  I do not think that I’ve done anything wrong at all in this situation. I maintain that they should have been more helpful. They assumed responsibility for that spay operation when they chose the service provider and then they signed a contract with me stating that she was spayed.  They want to assume zero responsibility and liability. I already know that they will say that if they diverted resources to help with this operation that was going to take away from being able to rescue another dog who was going to die.  I call bullshit on that and say that if they cannot stand behind the vetting of the dogs that they are rescuing then they ought not be rescuing any more.  I understand they are volunteers. I understand that they allege they aren’t profiting. From my experience, they charged me $250 to adopt Tilda and that was supposed to include spay and all shots and vetting.  It should not then fall on the adopter to spend another $700 spaying her again.  Nobody expects or anticipates that and some help from the rescue should have been in order.  They should have wanted her to have the safest and most efficient surgery possible and worked to cover the laparascopic spay.  They had a number of avenues they could have taken to try to make this right at any point in time and chose to do none of them instead leaving Tilda & I to fend for ourselves.
Anyways, I write this for potential adopters from New Hope Pet Rescue.   You can make your own judgement.   Will your dog have an ovarian remnant left behind? I hope not, I hope they aren’t using Spay & Neuter Express anymore.  Will your dog have some other issue arise from their vetting that they aren’t going to assist with? I can’t tell you that for sure.  I will tell you that you have a lot of choices of where to adopt a pet.  You can go directly to the Humane Society where they are surrendered or picked up and taken by Animal Control. I know that that is what I’m going to do next time.  These organizations wouldn’t be necessary if shelters weren’t full.
And to cap this whole thing off, here’s Tilda sticking her tongue out getting the last word in this whole saga.

Dogs Tagged: Denise Rose, Laingsburg, New Hope Pet Rescue, Spay and Neuter Express

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