Vet Puts Down Wrong Dog

Being a huge dog lover, I can't imagine how horrible it would be to have this happen to my dog. Dogs are part of the family and to lose one this way, or any way, would be heartbreaking.

A family in Utah is mourning the loss of their family dog, Ziggy after a terrible mix up at the animal hospital. Ziggy was having trouble breathing and wasn't keeping food down. The owner, Andrea Martinez rushed Ziggy to the animal hospital.

"It kind of scared us, and so we took him to the vet around nine," she said. Ziggy needed surgery to clear a blockage in his intestines — not an inexpensive proposition, but Ziggy was part of the family. "He was our baby. It was daughter’s best friend, my dog’s best friend, it was ours," she said. "Money wasn’t an issue."

Tuns out, there was another dog at the hospital named Ziggy and was in pretty bad shape and couldn't be saved. The vet accidentally called the wrong owner to tell them their dog would need more extensive surgery. That owner made the tough decision to let the vet put the dog down.

Unfortunately, they put the wrong Ziggy to sleep. When the doctor called the Martinez family around 2:30 AM, he kind of beat around the bush about what had happened, but Ziggy was gone.

"He kept beating around the bush about it, but he was saying it like I should’ve known," Martinez said. "He apologized and said, 'I’m so sorry that this happened, we got confused and ended up calling another dog’s mom".

Although it could never make up for the blunder, the vet cancelled all of Ziggy's bills, cremated Ziggy and supplied a nice urn and plaque.

(KUTV)