i may never go back to the animal hospital where we had sasha put to sleep. we usually like the vets there, and it has a very good reputation, but the vet we had friday pushed me over the edge.

joe had made an appointment to talk to the vet about our options. who *doesn’t* do that? it’s not like we’re going to make a decision to kill our cat without making sure there is absolutely *no* way we can keep her.

apparantly, we’re the only ones who think that way. the vet came in and greeted us with a gruff, “why are you here?”

joe explained that we needed to decide what to do with sasha.

“you’ve had all day to decide, so what’s it going to be?” the vet asked rudely. (i just can’t get his rude tone across through here unfortunately.)

we told him that one vet at the clinic told us he would never put a cat down with leukemia and had actually kept one even though he had other cats. this other vet was very much for putting sasha down. we told him we were confused with the conflicting opinons. he told us there was no conflict. whatever.

after being rushed into it, we decided to put her down. we asked when it would be and said we wanted to be there because, really, who wants their pets to die alone? sasha was a member of our family, and she was not going to be alone for this. he looked at his watch, and he huffed and he puffed and was like, “fine, but we’ll have to do it right now.”

we asked if we could see her for a few minutes first. that got us more huffing and puffing because apparantly it is an incredible burden to say goodbye to your pet. he didn’t even care that i was crying. joe dared to ask if they had any treats we could give her, and i thought he was going to bite joe’s head off!

once he came in to put her to sleep, he seemed a *little* nicer, but not much. i thought vets were nice and compassionate when having to do this kind of thing. when my family’s cat, colby, died, joe and i went by the vet’s office to see him because i had actually found him at my college and brought him home. the techs and the vet there were super nice and let us spend as much time with him as we wanted. that’s how vets should be.

when my dad had to put down elvis, whom he tamed from a wild cat, the vet was compassionate and said kind, reassuring things to my dad and brothers.

joe said our vet probably had a bad day and was just really busy. i don’t care. there is no excuse for being rude, *especially* when you are about to kill someone’s pet. he crossed the line with me.

now i’m looking for a new animal hospital, one where i will feel welcomed by nice employees at the front desk and one with a vet who actually cares about his patients.