We have 4 dogs, 2 golden retreivers 12 and 10 yr olds, 1 minature poodle 7 yr old and a tiny toy poodle 1 yr old.
Our boy retreiver 10 yr old has had a hotspot problem for about 4 yrs and we have had him to the vet a half dozen times and tried all the different foods over the years anti biotics and $300 per trip with little help. Because of this he has become an odsesive licker and keeps licking his foot making the problem worst. We tried it all pepper, ointment. bandages etc, all the tricks we could find. But the problem was his compulsive licking making things always worse..
So we decided to use the cone on him to keep him from licking the spot. Purchased one from petland was fit by them, but it was one size too small and he could still get to lick his front foot. So we went back to exchange it for a larger size to keep him from licking the spot. The sales girl there looked at his foot and said we should take him to the vet.. We said we had many times and his problem was agrivated by him with his licking it constantly and not letting it heal.
We also had the toy poodle in with us and mentioned she still did not like her food which we were paying the highest price in the store. She is a picky eater and we had tried every food the store had and still she wanted our people food.
Anyway to make a long story short, we received a knock on our door at home 2 nights later by the ASPCA and the lady said they received a complaint about our dogs and wanted to see our boy with the sore foot and check our other dogs for being under weight. She checked them over and said they all looked fine and said we were doing a great job having them so many years. But she said due to the complaint we had to take the boy in to the vet to have his foot checked again.
We did that and the vet gave us the usual antibiotics, ointment for the spot, and some pills to make him sleep more (anti deppresents we found out later) and of course another bill for $360... And he was at his proper weight for his size and age.
We new it was Petland that reported us and gave our names and address from their files. We called the store and the manager said that the employee did it on their own time so it had nothing to do with the store. We said we would be talking to a lawyer, so then she said she would talk to the head office out east and get back to us. She called back 2 days later said head office said it was not their responsibility as their employee did it on their own, we said then we would go thru a lawyer.
A few days later we received another call from the store manager and she said she felt bad and since we had 4 dogs and not a high income they would help us by giving all our dogs free use of their vet in their store when we needed it.
Well we called back a few days later and then she changed the story to just looking after the one dog. We haven't heard back from them now a few weeks later, and believe since we didn't follow thru with the lawyer threat they are sweeping it under the carpet... And we find out the girl which worked there and called is no longer employed there..
What shoud our next step be, we would appreciate any help in this matter?
And now after stopping the antibiotics 4 days after giving them our boy stopped being sick and throwing up all over. And we used the cone for 2 weeks to keep him from licking and his foot healed completly, and now with the hot spot gone he stopped licking.. So the vet and the hefty bill was a high cost burden to us like all the other vet visits in the past 4 years due to us going in to shop at Petland.
Our email is [email protected]
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