Dear Friends,
Yesterday was a sad day for all of us. As announced on yesterday’s post our little baby Kara couldn’t make it. We did all that was humanly possible to rescue her, including sending a team to Erzurum to get her out of there and drive her back to a Hospital in Ankara but we got there too late.
Today I want to show you the other side of the same coin.
About 10 days ago we received another plea for help. When we opened the pictures we saw a little black stray puppy lying on the fields with what vaguely looked like two casts around her back legs. The image was grotesque. The two makeshift casts were completely amateurishly applied, the pup was suffering from massive sores. That cast was so wrong, so damaging, that we immediately coordinated to have the puppy brought to Istanbul and taken to our vet. As far as we could see it was a matter of days before the situation became irreversible and the puppy ended crippled for life.
Both legs were broken. The veterinarian that first saw our little friend (we called her Gunes, Sun in Turkish) had done a butchers job.
Little Gunes had to be urgently operated, both her legs had to be fixed with metal plates, quickly spreading infection was contained.
Gunes was saved. Over the coming weeks we will be informing you about her progress.
Last Saturday we received a call from one of our members. Her pup was clearly very sick. She immediately took the dog to her vet in Cihangir, who, after looking at him for a few seconds decided that the pup could be sick with Distemper. Maybe is distemper.. Maybe…. The Vet didn’t use any distemper test, he said he didn’t believe in tests.
Then, to treat distemper, a killing disease the vet demanded that the dog was changed from a diet of raw meaty bones to kibble, Hills.
We couldn’t believe it. We rushed to get the pup and took him to our vet. The puppy, buy cialis non prescription Captain, died two weeks later, the cause of death, distemper.
All of this and what we have been experiencing over the last two years has made us reflect. There is a tremendous lack of accountability amongst the Veterinary profession. Whilst there are massive liability issues surrounding the medical profession the Veterinarians are, literally, getting away with murder. A big number of vets (not all, of course) are abusing their positions of authority coming from supposed knowlege and expertise. The reality is very different. Most vets have absolutely no clue of what they are doing. There is widespread ignorance about disease and its treatment, some graduates seem to be more inclined to sit in a municipal desk drinking tea all day, others
envisage themselves as future sellers of toys and commercial food (crap-in-a-bag). Very few of them aim to truly excel in their profession.
Lets Adopt wants to reward those who do, and to those vets there can be no better reward that recognition and acknowledgment of their level of commitment and excellence.
This is why today we are announcing the Lets Adopt Award for Veterinary Excellence.
Over the coming months Lets Adopt volunteers will be evaluating veterinary clinics all across Turkey.
Let’s Adopt asks you to write your testimonials, your experiences with your vets or others you have been in contact with, good or bad and send them to the following email address: award.letsadopt@gmail.com
Lets Adopt will then produce a shortlist of vets that will be evaluated by our volunteers.
The Award of Veterinary Excellence is, in itself, valuable enough. Those vets who excel in their profession will be recommended to all our members and their names will be released to the Press. Every clinic approved by our team will be sent the Lets Adopt badge of approval in the hope that it will help them better their practices even further.
It is not how good you are, it is how good you want to be….
Viktor Larkhill
Let’s Adopt
Gunes: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29270&id=1314867706&l=9b3d506aa5
Was she just dumped in a field after they realised they couldn’t do anything ? :((((
An excellent report with a truly excellent award idea.
Das ist eine gute Idee !
Dann trennt sich die Spreu vom Weizen !
(ich schreibe in meiner Landessprache weil mein Englisch nicht sehr gut ist )
This a great idea Viktor! Another thing to point out would be where the ‘bad’ vets received their education from, that might be a good pointer too.
Too many people are frankly too lazy to do their own proper investigation BEFORE choosing a vet for their companion animals, and only find out about their choice’s shortcomings when emergency strikes!
Grill each potential vet before you decide to entrust her/him with your beloved companion animals!
Where did you get your education, could I see proof(s) of your qualifications (should be on wall already), are you open to using other approaches a la the great vet Dr. Allen Schoen (“Kindred Spirits” book) & my own vet Dr. Muller, are you open to joint consultation – if needed – with other more specialist vets (coz we don’t want vets with gigantic egos!) & another great sign is if their practice does volunteer work with a local zoo and/or contributes to saving local wildlife.
Awesome job Viktor! Looking forward to seeing the list, should be handy should I ever move to Istanbul. 🙂