Boscoe

As a general rule, I’m no blogger. The types of blog entries I typically post are versions of my writing, usually a piece of a novel or short story. Today I’m writing to tell a different story. I must warn anyone who continues to read this sad entry that the following will be rather graphic and is unfortunately a true tale.

At nine this morning I sat behind my desk waiting for my first patient to arrive. It had been a typical Monday up to this point. All the slightly off owners of our clinics patients had run rampant calling about worries over various things. In the midst of which I received a call from an owner we’ll call Sally. Sally wanted to bring her dog in today because she was worried about his leg. Understandable enough because Sally’s pet could no longer walk on the limb. A thousand possibilities ran through my head when she told me this. Had Boscoe been hit by a car, stepped on, in a fight? If he had little to no use of the limb that meant we would most likely need an X-Ray. I asked Sally to bring Boscoe into the clinic immediately. She informed me that she couldn’t bring Boscoe in until later that afternoon around three. The appointment was set.

At two forty five this afternoon Boscoe made his appearance in our clinic for the first and last time. Sally would not bring him into the clinic until every other dog in the clinic had been cleared out. Finally at three fifteen Sally relented and brought Boscoe in. Peeking over the counter I could see this mass of fur bobbing until the front half of the poor dog finally made it around a corner. I bit my lip instinctively as I looked over this dog.

Boscoe was covered from the neck down in dried black blood. Bile rose in my throat as my brain reacted to the scene before me. Hobbling down the hallway this dog was not only unable to walk, he was missing his front right leg from the shoulder down. I moved to Boscoe immediately picking the dog up nearly cradling him to my chest as we moved into the front exam room. Boscoe was laid onto the scale, a weight and temperature reading were taken, and then I promptly stepped from the room to fetch my Veterinarian. As I was doing this my co-worker was speaking to Sally.

Upon inspection and a history taken from Sally, we pieced together the last two and a half weeks of Boscoe’s life. Sometime around three weeks ago, Boscoe wandered away from Sally’s farm, not a completely unusual thing for him to do. Sally believed that at sometime in the four days Boscoe was gone his paw was injured possibly in a trap. She bathed the paw in cool water to remove the blood, and then bandaged the paw. Three days went by and Sally removed Boscoe’s bandage finding that the paw had swelled even more, the tissue having died off. Sally awoke the next morning and Boscoe had gnawed the paw nearly completely off. Sally removed the paw. She rebandaged Boscoe’s stump for another three days cleaning and rebandaging. At the end of that day Sally left the bandage off. She did not see Boscoe again for several days. By the time this course of events had played out, Boscoe had self mutilated himself to the point that he only had three inches of his radius and ulna left intact and most of that had no flesh covering them. The tissue around what was left of his arm was completely dead and dying moving progressively up into his shoulder. To even be able to handle poor Boscoe Sally had given him an over dose of anxiety and motion sickness medication, he was basically stoned out of his mind.

I have been a technician at my Veterinary clinic for nearly five years. In that time I have never seen a more glaring, hideous, sickening case of animal cruelty, and neglect. Sally decided to mercifully euthanize Boscoe. I held his head as he took his last breath slipping into a deep sleep.

I decided to blog about this because I needed to vent my frustration at an owner who could so carelessly endanger her pet. Someone who had the nerve to ask my co-worker before he dog even took his last breath, if we knew of anyone who had a dog that might need a good home. Too often I see home “quack” jobs where people have googled Veterinary advice off the internet. This went far beyond owner neglect, this woman didn’t even do that much for her dog. She never sought advice, she never treated the dog, she simply bathed him with water.

I’ve been witness to some sad events in my time at the clinic, but nothing to date has ever touched, angered, or bothered me to the degree that this event did. Thank you for reading…


- Corbyn