The allegations against Fort Worth veterinarian Lou Tierce are horrible: According to court documents, a family who took their dog, Sid, to Tierce’s clinic to treat a minor anal gland issue were told that, after the dog had difficulty walking upon receiving treatment, it had a chronic spine issue and should be put to sleep. Six months later, a vet tech who worked in Tierce’s office reached out to the family and informed them that their dog was still alive—and that Tierce had kept it in a kennel, surrounded by its own feces and urine, for blood transfusions. As NBC DFW reports:

“I told her, ‘He’s still here,’ and she’s like, ‘Can he walk?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, he’s here waiting on you. If you came today, he’d walk out and jump in your car,'” said Brewer.

“It was like getting punched in the stomach and then some,” said Marian Harris. “This has rocked our world. My kids are like, ‘How does somebody do this?’ How does this happen?”

The couple said they went to the clinic, found Sid and freed him.

 […]

Sid is home with the Harris family and being treated by other veterinarians. According to the Harrises’ lawyer, doctors have determined he has mange, shows definite signs of being used for blood transfusions and shows evidence of being “abusively kenneled.”

For his part, Dr. Tierce told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the charges are “all a bunch of hooey,” and that’s always a possibility when dealing with a case involving potentially disgruntled former employees. But it’s indisputible that Tierce kept an animal who was brought to him for euthanization alive, after leading the family to believe that their dog was dead. 

Tierce claims that the family had asked him to euthanize the dog, and told reporters that he “just couldn’t bring [him]self to do it.” Nonetheless, Tierce was arrested this week on charges of animal cruelty, and released on $10,000 bond. The state’s veterinary board has temporarily suspended his license, and a full hearing will ensue in the summer. 

Tierce will get his day in court, but reports from the Texas State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners don’t look good. As News 8 DFW reports, by Tierce’s own admission, this isn’t the first time he’s kept alive animals that he’d claimed to have euthanized: 

Documents from the Texas State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners  obtained by News 8 Thursday say Tierce admitted to keeping keeping five animals alive at his clinic that were supposed to be euthanized.

The report says conditions inside the clinic were “unsanitary,” that animal organs were kept in jars all over the clinic, bugs were visible in the exam room, and at least one animal was kept in a cage for two-to-three years after it was supposed to have been euthanized.

 Let’s hope that the story isn’t as awful as the allegations make it sound. 

(imaga via NBC DFW)