not even 15 minutes?

You know, when it comes to owners some dogs unfortunately pick the short straw. This was the case with the sweet 9 year old Sheltie that I saw tonight. She's unfortunately developed a rather large mass on her chest that supposedly wasn't present a week ago (according to the owner). On first glance, the tumor felt like a lipoma (a mass composed of adipose tissue that happens to be one of the more benign of all tumors that dogs can develop), but cytology proved otherwise. Many ugly bad-ass looking cells, the kind of cells that you try your hardest to avoid when they've had a few drinks at the bar. Oh, and definitely avoid the "Your mamma...." jokes.

After recommending surgery, the owner succinctly gave me two reason why he couldn't have it done. One was money, he told me that his boss cut his salary so he didn't have any. Understandable, the economy isn't great, people are sometimes lucky to have a job. Sucks, but sometimes a pay cut it better than the alternative. I was about to give him some suggestions, such as getting an estimate from a couple of potentially cheaper clinics, but he immediately threw out the second reason Lucky wasn't having surgery. "I don't have the time, doc."

Say again?

Over the next 12 months you have absolutely no time to bring your dog in for surgery?? I'm sorry, did I not make myself clear when I said that I think your dog has cancer and if it gets much larger it may not be surgically resectable? I'm not asking you to take a day off, you can drop her off the night before at no charge, heck we even have late hours.

Nope.

Disgusting. I immediately walked away shaking my head.

Funny thing though. I overheard him at the front desk asking about boarding his dog while he's on vacation in New York. "Oh, and Saturday is my 'Day of Rest', so can I drop her off on Sunday instead?"

Punching a client like him should really be legally justifiable.