Accidental Poisoning (Scenario One)
Dog Daycare Insurance (Scenario One)
A regular female client brings their dog into your facility on Monday morning for daycare as usual. She tells you that his stomach was upset and he was acting under the weather on Saturday but seemed better on Sunday and figures that the exercise would do him good and help pass whatever he ate that upset his tummy. You check the dog in and put it in the play area. He’s a little sluggish and more lethargic than usual, but hey he’s been sick, and getting out of the house will probably do him some good.
Around lunch time after playing with all the dogs in the area you look over and the dog is panting rapidly and begins to have a seizure. You try to call the owner to no avail so you rush the animal to the vet where tragically it dies.
At this time you have any number of thoughts racing through your head: how to tell the owner what happened, what did I do wrong, am I going to get sued etc…
The answer is that you did nothing wrong.
You simply checked a dog into the facility after the owner stated that it was healthy enough to participate. The bad part is that you are responsible unless you can prove otherwise. You see there was something you didn’t and couldn't have known about.
That was that while this now deceased dogs owner went to the store her son-in-law, who despises the dog, put it in the garage because it wouldn’t stop barking at him. While it was in the garage the dog came across this tasty sweet lime green liquid and took a few sips, this just happened to be antifreeze. Now the son-in-law, not wanting to upset the woman was shrewd enough to let the dog back into the house when he heard her car pull up.
Now what’s interesting about antifreeze consumption is that a dog may initially vomit due to the irritating effects of ethylene glycol on the stomach. They will drink and urinate excessively and may appear to be depressed. Dogs may seem well on the road to recovery as short as twelve hours later as the ethylene glycol is metabolized by the liver and kidneys. Then two days later the dog suddenly becomes much worse as the metabolites have reached such a level the dog’s kidneys stop functioning. The animal becomes weak and dehydrated and starts presenting with diarrhea, rapid breathing, and seizures, eventually slipping into a coma, and more than likely by this stage death.
Unfortunately your Daycare is going to get blamed as the culprit for death, and in our society of guilty until proven innocent, you will probably try and settle instead of paying an attorney to defend you. If you were uninsured this is going to cost you. At the very least you are going to have to pay for a necropsy (animal autopsy) and for the vet’s time determining the cause of death. Even if it’s determined that the cause of death was from antifreeze you still have to prove it did not come from your facility. Even if you prove that your facility was antifreeze free, good luck getting reimbursement from grieving owners over any expenses you may incurred trying to clear your name.
This may be an exaggerated scenario but it proves a point.. and the point is that being uninsured leaves you vulnerable.
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