Cape Town - Unscrupulous fake vets operating in Cape Town have been offering cheap services and making house calls.
Animal rights organisations believe they use stolen drugs and dodgy vaccines and maltreat animals.
They allegedly administer incorrect drugs which have caused illness and death in at least three puppies. The Animal Welfare Society of South Africa believe this is just the tip of the iceberg.
It will be laying charges against two alleged fake vets who recently caused severe sickness in two pit bull puppies and one German shepherd cross puppy, resulting in the pets dying. Spokesman Allan Perrins said they were formulating a charge sheet under the Animals Protection Act.
“We firmly believe that both respondents contributed to the untimely, cruel demise of these dogs in that they allegedly caused the animals to suffer and deteriorate to the point where their prognosis went from potentially hopeful to positively hopeless,” he said. “There simply has to be a consequence for this.”
Chief executive of the Animal Welfare Society Dr John McMullen said these were not isolated incidents.
“There is a wider problem and it’s been going on for years,” he said.
“There are people, particularly in the Cape Flats, going round and doing house visits with drugs that are stolen from somewhere, vaccinating and maltreating animals.”
McMullen said he saw the effects of these scammers in his animal welfare work and at his private practice in Pinelands, as people brought in animals that had been incorrectly treated or given potentially dodgy vaccines.
“We’ve seen lots of people with certificates of vaccinations that are not veterinary certificates at all,” he said. “It is widespread and ongoing and we are trying to catch people at it.”
McMullen said despite strict controls over medications, he had caught a past employee stealing drugs from the practice.
“He was using it to run his own private practice in Delft,” he said. “I had to send a private detective to his home, undercover with a dog, to catch him handing over the drugs on video.”
McMullen said the cases were very difficult to prosecute. They have been reported to the South African Veterinary Council (SAVC), but SAVC has no jurisdiction outside of the veterinary professionals who are registered with the Council.
SAVC registrar Lynette Havinga was out of the country and unable to comment.
Late last year, Sharmel Cleinwerck had to euthanise both of her dogs in the same week, thanks to medication given by a man posing as a vet.
A relative recommended the services of this man, and they trusted him because he worked for the Grassy Park SPCA.
“When he came to our house, he approached us as being a vet, because he worked at the SPCA,” Cleinwerck said.
The man administered what he said were vaccines to Sandy, a 10-month-old pitbull puppy belonging to Cleinwerck’s mother, who passed away in September last year.
“A week after my mom’s funeral, Sandy started seizing, and bleeding from the mouth. It was completely devastating for me to see her in that condition, I panicked,” Cleinwerck said.
She tried taking the dog to a veterinary hospital, but it was closed over the weekend. By the time she saw a real vet on Monday morning, the dog had to be euthanised immediately.
According to Perrins, the dog had contracted the deadly Parvo virus - which is easily preventable if the dog had been given the correct vaccine.
The traumatic experience was not over yet: Cleinwerck’s other dog, a 1-year-old pitbull called Sky, had been given medication by the fake vet because he said the dog was sick with a cold. One day later, she had to say goodbye to that dog too.
“Both of my dogs I had to put down in the same week,” she said. “There’s nothing that can bring them back.”
Grassy Park SPCA spokeswoman Belinda Abraham confirmed that the man posing as a vet had been employed there, as a ward orderly. Abraham said the organisation investigated, and the man was subject to an internal disciplinary process. According to the law, the outcome of this process has to remain confidential.
Abrahams urged pet owners to be suspicious of cheap rates and house calls.
“The SPCA Animal Hospital exists to assist pet owners with preventative primary veterinary services and there is no reason for pet owners to seek or accept help from unqualified persons,” she said. “It is the responsibility of every pet owner to ensure the health and wellbeing of their pet.”
She also asked members of the public to come forward with information about imposters.
“The problem is widespread within the entire animal welfare sector, with ex-staff members or shrewd employees operating opportunistically. We can only investigate matters that are brought to our attention by members of the public and we therefore request that the public reject and report offers of house calls by laypersons.”
Delft man Mervyn Onrust also fell victim to the scam of a fake vet. His puppy Max was a five-month-old German Shepherd and husky cross, who needed some vaccinations.
A friend recommended the services of a man operating from a wendy house.
“My friend said he was qualified and used to work for a vet, and treats animals in the Delft area,” Onrust said. “He said he’d come to my place and vaccinate the dog at home.”
Onrust was instructed to leave R150 cash for the services.
“A week after that, I noticed that the puppy was not the same anymore,” Onrust said. “He was not playful, his food was standing too long, he wouldn’t drink water.”
When he called the man back to report the illness, he was told to feed the dog glucose water with a syringe. Instead, Onrust rushed his puppy to the Animal Welfare Society in Philippi.
“He came to us with sick and dying German Shepherd puppy which had been mis-diagnosed,” Perrins said. “I don’t know what course of treatment was prescribed, but if they’d done a blood smear they would’ve seen the white blood cell count was hopelessly low.”
Max had Ehrlichia, which is a strain of tick bite fever.
“Max was completely jaundiced by the time we saw him,” Perrins said. “Unfortunately, it was too far to be saved.”
Onrust was extremely upset, and confronted the fake vet about it.
“He didn’t even show sympathy,” Onrust said. “He said he can get me a replacement dog. He said he could get me a pitbull within a couple of hours, or two to three weeks to get me a husky puppy.”
If you suspect a fake vet is operating in your area, please report it to the Animal Welfare Society on (021) 692 2626.