Jac Wilder VerSteeg: Woman's crime? Waiting too long to kill beloved pet

In one of the more bizarre cases I’ve seen, a Palm Beach County woman has just agreed to a plea bargain that requires her to perform 20 hours of community service. Her crime: Waiting too long to kill her dog.

Debbie Mays, who lives in Wellington in Palm Beach County, was charged with animal cruelty for failing to follow a veterinarian’s advice to either treat or euthanize the family’s pet dachshund, Princess.

Princess suffered from ailments that, according to stories in The Palm Beach Post, included gall stones and a mouth infection. The vet, who saw the dog on Dec. 26 of last year, estimated that treatment would cost $3,000. If Mays couldn’t afford that tab, the vet also offered the option of euthanizing the pet.

Instead of acting on either option – which she couldn’t afford, Mays waited until Feb. 26, when she brought Princess to the county shelter to be euthanized. The county animal cops decided she had dawdled too long and filed criminal charges.

I am sensitive to this after going through something similar. We noticed our 14-year-old corgi, Lily, was losing weight and drooling. Suspecting tooth trouble, we took her in for a cleaning. The vet discovered a more grim cause – cancer.

Of course that didn’t stop the vet from completing the tooth cleaning and charging us hundreds of dollars for the service. Then the vet failed to prescribe an antibiotic to fight the secondary – and probably painful – infection. And when the initial small allotment of pain medication ran out, the vet’s office failed to follow through with a promise to approve more medication while the dog was being boarded at another facility.

We eventually took her to another vet, who prescribed plentiful antibiotics and pain meds, told us the dog probably would not live another month but that my wife and I, as owners, would be best qualified to make the call when to put her down.

Six weeks later, we decided it was time and had Lily put to sleep.

Did we wait too long? Did we act too soon? All I know is that we did our best. I don’t know Debbie Mays, but I’ll bet she did her best, too.

My Context Florida colleague Sally Swartz just wrote about the high cost of caring for pets. She is spending thousands and thousands to treat her beloved dog Maggy. That is a strain for her and an impossibility for many others.

Some veterinarians – I will not say all – are too happy to play the guilt card and steer people into buying services that actually do the pets little good. I know pets need protection from fleas, ticks and heartworm – which is expensive enough. But how many pets really need their teeth cleaned? How many really need blood panels? How many really need arthritis medicine?

The vets who push people to spend more than they can afford are not guilty of a crime, but they are predators nevertheless.

Dogs can’t talk, and even the best veterinarians cannot say with certainty how much pain a pet is enduring. It is certain that most people who reach the decision to put their animal to sleep are in emotional pain. Charging a pet owner who hesitates with a crime is a special kind of cruelty. Not animal cruelty, but people cruelty.

Jac Wilder VerSteeg is editor of Context Florida. Column courtesy of Context Florida.