01/16/2022
Dear Friends and Fellow Pet Parents,
We wanted to reach out to the community and make you aware of a situation that arose yesterday after we accepted an injured animal into our Good Samaritan program.
Yesterday was a typical and extremely busy weekend day at the ER. A caring good samaritan found an injured animal and brought that animal to our ER for medical attention. The animal was in pain with road rash and she had difficulty walking. This good samaritan was not the owner of the animal, the animal was not microchipped and our team was unable to locate any type of identification on the animal so that we could contact her parents.
Nevertheless, our hospital has 24 years of experience with these types of unfortunate situations, and we were glad to help an animal in need. Our team took her in as part of our “Good Samaritan” program and did not hesitate to fit her into our already busy ER schedule. Our Doctor examined her and promptly gave her pain medication and we treated her as if she were one of our own. Our hospital and compassionate staff provided her professional emergency veterinary care and a warm, comfortable and safe place to stay as this imminent winter weather and freezing conditions approached.
These unfortunate situations are frequent occurrences and the Animal Emergency Hospital of the Strand is the only after-hours local animal hospital that will accept injured and orphaned animals found in the community. We readily offer our emergency services and care to injured and orphaned animals when they are found after hours during which time the local animal control, humane societies, rescues and wildlife rehabilitation centers are closed. We donate our staff, our time, our supplies and our resources to assess, treat, and shelter injured animals whether they are orphans, strays, missing or lost. The owner of our hospital started this “program” at his own expense 24 years ago without any funding and it continues on today at his sole expense. We are always extremely grateful when we receive a donation, but donations are not required and they are few and far between.
Animals surrendered to this “Good Samaritan Program” who are without identification or microchip are cared for at our ER until they can be reunited, sometimes within hours, with their family via an animal control officer, humane society representative, or transferred to our local humane society where they can then be reunited with their family. This is not an abnormal practice and this is exactly what would happen if a good samaritan found a stray or injured animal during normal 9-5 business hours.
Our team of professionals (veterinarians, veterinary technicians, veterinary receptionists, and veterinary assistants) are all trained in emergency and life-saving veterinary medicine. Our staff do not have adequate time to devote to properly investigating claims of ownership without definitive evidence or proof of ownership such as an ID matching the identification on an animal’s collar or a microchip registered in the name of the owner. In these cases where animals have no identification, we contact our local animal control officer or humane society to either transfer the animal into their care or if they are available, they will assist us in verifying ownership to ensure that the animal is returned to their rightful owner. We have aided and assisted in hundreds, if not thousands of reunions over the years. It brings us immeasurable joy to be a part of caring for and reuniting a lost animal with their family.
However, yesterday, after we accepted, treated and cared for this lost and wounded animal described above, someone called the ER claiming to be the animal’s owner. We confirmed that we had an animal brought in matching the description of their pet and provided them information that she had been treated and was comfortable and in stable condition. Our team member took down the caller’s information and explained the next steps regarding when the caller could pick her up and from where. The caller understandably wanted to pick her up right away, however, our team member again attempted to explain our hospital policy regarding releasing animals who are in our care, but whom have no identification or microchip. The caller then wished to present photos of the animal as identification, however we informed this person that we could not accept photos as sole proof of ownership and we attempted to explain why and that ultimately it was for their animal’s safety. The caller became irate and arrived at the hospital a short time later. The supervisor again tried to assure this person that we were monitoring the injured animal that they believed was theirs, but that without any definitive proof of ownership, we would not ourselves be able to determine ownership to release the animal. The person mentioned they had friends who were police officers and our supervisor stated that would definitely be beneficial as we would need the assistance of an animal control officer (or police officer) or even a humane society representative who could assist us in verifying ownership. Despite all of our efforts behind the scenes and pleas with off duty animal control, horry county police and even our own personal police contacts within the county, we were unable to obtain immediate assistance.
This person and their friends had already begun posting disparaging comments on social media. Some were incorrectly stating that we were unlawfully holding their animal in order to have it microchipped on Monday, while others were saying that we would not release the animal until they paid us money. These statements are untrue and this person and their friends have clearly and completely misunderstood the situation, our policy and the reason we were not releasing the animal. Our only reason for not releasing the animal was specifically to protect their animal from being released to someone who was not the rightful owner. Furthermore, this person’s friends began tarnishing the name of the Animal Emergency Hospital of the Strand, making threats and calling the ER’s phoneline to scream profanity at our team members and then hang up, calling over and over again. This went on for some time, interfering with the calls coming from our true emergencies while the threatening messages, hateful posts and egregious comments about our hospital and staff continued through the night. These comments continue on Facebook today, as recently as 27 minutes ago.
Once an officer finally arrived at our hospital yesterday, we explained the situation, and he seemed to understand our position and agreed to review their photos and take responsibility to make a determination of ownership. He would also take a statement from the individual attesting ownership of the animal and as an officer of the law, he would be able to verify their identification and document it should there be any question of ownership in the future – these are things we are not able to do as citizens and emergency veterinarians. This person was then immediately contacted and asked to return to the hospital.
Our only aim in this situation was to provide urgent care to an animal in need and ensure that it made it home to its true family. Social media can be an amazing tool to reunite animals with their loved ones, however, there are countless instances on social media where people are moved by the story of an injured animal and want to adopt these injured animals. We know for certain that some people have gone to great lengths, including falsely claiming ownership, to take these animals home. In 2021, we released a “Good Samaritan” dog to an individual claiming to be the owner. This person provided us with photos and a driver’s license, however, the next day the rightful and true owner came to our hospital inquiring about their dog. The critical lesson we learned here was that photos can be easily downloaded and printed off the internet and can even be altered and cropped. The photos of these lost and found animals spread like wildfire across social media. As of last night, the animal in question had their post and photos shared by the finder and on lost and found pages hundreds of times. There were comments about individuals wanting to keep the dog, suggesting others should adopt the dog, etc.
At the Animal Emergency Hospital we are each pet parents ourselves, and we (maybe more than anyone) understand that these type of accidents and emergencies happen, but we would be doing animals and their pet parents a disservice if we didn’t use extreme caution in releasing these lost animals from our care. With a limited staff whose first priority and training is to save the lives of animals, it must remain our policy to only release animals when we can verify ownership using a collar with identification, a name tag with owner information, a rabies tag with hospital information and/or tag number (all of which can be verified) or a microchip containing owner name and/or phone number. These are all irrefutable methods that we can utilize to verify ownership in order to safely release an animal to their true family.
An act of generosity and kindness yesterday from the Animal Emergency Hospital of the Strand and our team of caring and compassionate professionals has led to a series of events which have caused an onslaught of hateful and negative comments on Facebook, harassing phone calls and threats which has left the owner of the hospital, myself and our entire team discouraged and disheartened. Our staff did not act inappropriately, they were not rude, they did not ask for money, they simply followed hospital policy to ensure that an animal was not released to a party other than the rightful owner.
We want you to know that we devote our nights, weekends and holidays to helping animals and everything we do for these animals we do because we care about their welfare, we care about our community and we would hope that our own furry companions would be treated the same if they became injured or lost. Our hospital has created these policies with the sole purpose being to help the animals and out of an abundance of caution due to unbelievable situations which have occurred. We truly wish that people wouldn’t try to claim other people’s animals as their own, but that is the world we live in today.
We ask that whenever possible, please have your pets microchipped in order to facilitate reunion should they become missing or lost 🐾
