Till I get a manager for Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre (Please God, send me someone!), I have to go there everyday to manage it. This is the largest shelter in India with 4,000 animals ranging from white rats to buffaloes and our 24 hours services are free.  Everything that can go wrong does go wrong every day, roofs leak, doctors disappear, the food is stale, the cleaners arrive late or not at all, the windows break, the air-conditioners give out, the donor giving the hay for the cows does not arrive, the bathrooms of the vets are dirty, it is raining and the storerooms get wet. But of all the problems that I face everyday the worst are the clients.

There are two types of services: one is the free service for rescued animals. The other is the OPD for the pets of paying clients.

This OPD is what brings us the money to run the free services. But it is a nightmare to deal with people who bring in sick animals. While trawling the Net I saw sites by veterinarians who have the same complaints as I do. If you are an animal owner let me tell you how to behave at a veterinary hospital.

1.  Bring/carry your dog or cat properly. Most bring them in like babies, carrying them upside down and cuddling them for hours. The dog or cat will die. Either the dog is muzzled too tightly and cannot breathe or has an elevated temperature or it is running wild and attacking every other animal.

2.  Treat the vet as you would a human doctor. Do not speak on the cell phone while the dog is being examined and the vet is talking to you, or bring crowds of people with you and insist that they all enter the examination room and argue, or insist on getting prompt service when you can see other animals being treated.    

3.   Do not bring children to the hospital. They are a nuisance and dangerous to animals.

4.   Do not send your animals with servants to be treated. They have no idea of the symptoms, the animal will not get proper attention and will probably come back worse.

5.   Do not bring the dog without a leash or allow the dog to run around. This is not a dog park. Do not sit down next to a large dog so that your dog will not stop barking out of fright.

6.   Bring your cat in a basket. If the cat is attacked by a dog or runs, it causes panic.

7.   Give a proper fact sheet of the dog to the vet. Do not tell lies: he is not here to judge you or send you to jail. He is here to treat the animal. So don’t say: ‘yes, he got his vaccinations’ when it is a clear case of distemper; ‘he’s just got ill last night’ when the animal has his bones sticking out and his gums are white from anaemia. Don’t tell lies about the food you give or where he is kept. Do not go into denial about how many times he is fed or whether you tie him to the gate at night or whether he got heat stroke because you left him on the roof in summer. Most animals that are obese have bad teeth, matted hair; have been neglected by their owners. Vets want the best for your pets but they can only be effective if you are honest.

8.   Be an informed owner. Know what medications or chronic medical condition your pet has. Telling us that he's on "a white pill for his heart" is not going to help the vet at all. Write your pet's important medical history including medications down and bring them.

9.   Do not try to save money by not having a blood test or a stool examination. It will cost you the life of the dog and the vet will be doing hit and miss without the tests.

10.   Do not bring the animal after he has gone into a total collapse and then expect miracles. Bring the animal when the first symptom of ill health is seen: going off food, discharge from the eyes, listlessness, and diarrhoea.

11.   Do not argue with the vet to get procedures other than surgery when the animal clearly needs surgery. Do not argue when he says that the animal needs a bath or de-ticking or nails cut. Do not argue when he says that your St Bernard needs an air-conditioned room.

12.   Do not abandon the dog/cat at our clinic as soon as you see the bill. (This happens even when the bill is Rs. 400/- ) We had one man who brought his Id Goat (the goat whom he was going to kill at Id) which was pregnant and needed a caesarean. He dumped the animal rather than pay for the surgery and came back a week later – after we had done it ourselves- to reclaim the mother and child. Needless to say, he did not get either.

13.   Do not bring the animal, get it treated, get the prescription of what you are supposed to give it at home – and then don’t give it and return after a week when the animal is clearly much worse. If you cannot give the medicine at home, bring the animal every day so that we can give it.

14.   Start a small savings fund for your pets. Putting a few rupees a week aside can help you prepare for the eventuality that your pet develops a life-threatening illness or injury. Telling vets that you have "no money whatsoever" for your pet's treatment when you have brought them in a car is not going to endear you.      15.   Do not refuse to pay after you have had all the work done. Your dog has had the surgery, the IV transfusion, the dental procedure, the X Ray and then you refuse to pay. This way the hospital will collapse. Do not ask for a discount after the procedures are done.

16.   Being rude is not going to win you any brownie points with the vet. It is as important to have a good relationship with the vet as it is for you to have one with your doctor.

17.   You may have to wait. Pacing back and forth across the waiting room floor may be irritating in itself, but constantly complaining to the receptionists or becoming aggressive in attitude is completely unnecessary and can lead to both you and your pet being evicted from the building.

18.   Do not turn up late and expect service whenever you want. We have people turning up at 2 at night and expecting the same quality of service they would get during the day. They bring in animals that have been sick the whole day – but the owners did not have any time till now?

19.   Do not book surgeries and then not turn up. Surgeons can only do a limited number of operations and they make special time for the ones that need it first.      20.   Follow through on treatments. If you are ordered to change the diet, do so. If you have to exercise the dog, do so. If you have to give supplements do so.  Do not pick and choose what you want to do. The vet is not recommending this course of action to hear himself talk. Take their recommendations seriously.      21.   Vaccinate your animals. Vets do not recommend vaccines to line their pockets. They didn't make up distemper, parvovirus, or rabies, which can all kill your pet. Vaccinations prevent these deadly infections in the vast majority of cases.

22.   Do not bring a vicious dog and then stand by while he disembowels the doctor and staff.

23.   Do not let your pet urinate or defecate in the waiting area while you stand like an amused passerby. If this happens have the sense to clean it up yourself. Hospitals have limited staff.

24.   Spay and neuter your pets. There are thousands of animals dying for want of homes. Adding dogs and cats to this mix is irresponsible. If you are going to breed them, make sure to have money saved up for the possible c-section or other life-threatening complications that can come with breeding..

While I understand that many animal owners have doubts about veterinarians but when you behave like this, you make the vet’s job even tougher and the only being that suffers is your animal.

Maneka Gandhi

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