Where's Your Line?

A debate is making its way through the profession about a subject long ignored. Essentially, is there a universally accepted standard of animal care and use that fits companion animal practice and agricultural animal practice? What about wildlife veterinary medicine and lab animal medicine, too? Is the human-animal bond universal or does it only apply to animals we anoint as companions as well as those we will slaughter and consume?

For dairy practitioners, they typically fish in a small pond. And while they can and do recommend, remind, reinforce, and finally resign themselves to the fact an occasional owner will not change their animal welfare practices, I’d argue most are unwilling to walk from a producer who might end up on the next undercover video. After every such video surfaces, this leaves us to ask, “Where was the veterinarian when this was going on?”

Small animal practitioners, do you live in a state like Washington that has a strict no-improperly-tethered or unsecured-animals-in-the-back-of-pickups law? How many times have you treated the dog that fell out of the construction contractor’s truck? Now how many times have you reported the incident to law enforcement?

I saw a veterinary surgeon I respect highly draw the line twice. He received both praise and pillory when he did so, too. The surgeon is Jewish. One day, a prominent, now deceased, neo-Nazi leader brought his dog “Schätze,” in for care. The surgeon chose not to initiate care with this new client and was professional enough to ask another veterinarian to do so and that person agreed. By the way, the leader was flanked by two gentlemen referring to themselves as only “Skinhead Left” and “Skinhead Right.”

The second time occurred with a sporting dog. In some states, hunting bears and cougars with hounds is still legal. An owner appeared who had a badly mauled dog and the good doctor dutifully repaired the wounds. About a month later, same owner, same dog, same service from the surgeon. A couple of weeks after that, same owner, same dog, and this time the surgeon refused and passed the case on to another surgeon. Despite his best efforts at advising the client about protecting his “slow” dog, the client’s attitude was, “If he [the dog] can’t learn, then the bears can just have him next time.” The surgeon went on to write a remarkable editorial on the matter that has since long been forgotten.

Now this post mixes lots of apples with oranges, plums, and kumquats but the question remains; where’s your line?