Fetch Specialty and Cancer Veterinary Centers review: Murdered my dog

I am filing this complaint because I am just disgusted at how our beloved Sophie was treated at Fetch Specialty and Cancer Veterinary Centers in Brandon, FL. At the onset of our puppy girl starting to have issues with labored breathing overnight and had her seen at a different facility that diagnosed her with Bronchitis and was given medication. When the medication wasn’t working very well, we were referred to Fetch Specialty and Cancer Veterinary Centers in Brandon because it was New Year’s weekend and they were open. Fetch admitted Sophie to their hospital on December 30th and had to put a deposit down of $5156.32 at the time of admission. On December 31, Vet Hogan recommended they do an aspiration test in order to try and diagnose her with the possibility of pneumonia. The aspiration results came back on January 2nd with “mixed inflammation” that Vet Hogan described as a diagnosis she had never seen before. We went up to the hospital to visit Sophie and reassured her she was going to be fine since at this point, we thought we were dealing with an infection causing the inflammation. That evening we received a call from Vet Hogan and said Sophie was doing great, she had eaten and was going potty and thought she would be a perfect candidate to have a CT Scan which required anesthesia in the morning because Vet Hogan said Sophie tolerated the anesthesia for the aspiration procedure just fine so we authorized this. We were then told we would have to put down additional money for this test and told them to use the same debit card they had on file. The next morning Vet Hogan called to say they were getting ready to perform the CT scan on Sophie and they would call us when they were finished. Approximately an hour later, Vet Hogan called and said “So, Sophie’s heart stopped when they were administering anesthesia” and we were in complete shock with this news and Vet Hogan said they were trying to revive her. My daughter and I drove as fast as we could to get to Fetch which took approximately 45 minutes and they asked if we wanted them to continue trying to revive her which we absolutely said yes. My daughter and I were taken to the area where Sophie would have been given the CT scan and there was an extremely young man who was pretending to give Sophie very light chest compressions with his 2 fingers while several other young people stood around her all looking at us. The tube they had down Sophie’s throat seemed extremely large for such a small dog. We were then told my credit card would not be run since they didn’t get to do the CT scan which was the least of my concerns. I felt like they had no concern over what just happened to our little puppy girl! Vet Hogan told us she would send additional lab tests out to try and diagnose what Sophie had since we couldn’t get a clear answer before all of this. Fetch did more than take blood work from Sophie, when the report was sent to us, it was crystal clear they took it upon themselves to autopsy our puppy girl WITHOUT permission.

I sent three emails to the facility requesting information about their policies and procedures regarding the qualifications of administering anesthesia to animals because I had no doubt in my mind that Sophie was over anesthetized especially after receiving the great news about Sophie’s behavior the day before. The owner, Vet Ratterree finally called and left a message saying he would be willing to answer our questions. It was approximately 2 weeks later when I was finally ready to speak directly with the owner. When I asked him about protocols, check and balances and credentials for staff who administers anesthesia, he told us Florida was one of the few states that had very loose regulations and there were no specific credentials needed to administer anesthesia and there were no credentials or special training for a “nurse” position in veterinary medicine. When I expressed my concern about Sophie being over anesthetized, Ratterree got very defensive and said I must not be too concerned because it took me 2 weeks to return his call. I was absolutely flabbergasted at this comment because my daughter and I were grieving Sophie’s untimely death and couldn’t even speak about it during this time. This facility is clearly all about the money and all about taking advantage of distraught families when it comes to their pets who are family members like our children. Our Sophie was at Fetch from December 30th and died on January 2nd and we were forced to pay $5156.32 for a cage with oxygen. I demand my money back!

I already know what the owner’s reaction is going to be because he was extremely defensive when I told him there were a bunch of kids in the room where Sophie was over anesthetized and reviving her looked completely staged. He insisted his staff were not kids so I clarified my comment to mean extremely young people that didn’t look like they knew what they were doing and now that the owner told us Florida does very little regulating of veterinary medicine, we have no doubt that this was the case.

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