Jesse Conlon took his mother’s cat, Lady, to a Massachusetts veterinarian for what he thought was a routine flea bath. When he went to get the pet and drop off a second cat, named Little Bit, he was asked by the vet if he wanted the body.
Instead of the flea treatment, Lady had been euthanized.
According to Telegram.com, a mix-up occurred when Conlon was handed the wrong form to fill out when he checked Lady in.
“They had him fill out some paperwork; he said they were like index cards which had basic pet information,” Conlon’s mother, Colleen, told Telegram.com. “He filled it out and signed it and he left to go get Little Bit.”
To compound the tragedy, Lady was a gift to Colleen from her daughter, who died in a car accident in 2010.
Conlon doesn’t believe her cat’s death was malicious, but negligent. She plans to speak with the Massachusetts Board of Registration, and filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office.
She also cautions other pet owners to carefully double-check their paperwork to avoid what happened to her Lady.
According to the Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, the veterinarian, Dr. Muhammad Malik, was placed on one-year in probation in 2005, after he treated a dog’s sore paw in 2002, and “did not comply with the Board’s accepted standards of practice.”
As terms of re-instatement, Malik had to “successfully complete twenty-five hours of continuing education in radiology and orthopedics.”
Malik’s license was issued in 1987; it expires in 2013.
Sources: Telegram.com, Mass.gov
