Legally, puppy visits are never routine

In regard to legal troubles, expect it where you least expect it. As a veterinarian, I've had more than my share of employees, associate veterinarians and litigious clients.

One important lesson that I have learned from my experience is that legal trouble in veterinary practice most often arises from the most unlikely situations.

I often write about catastrophic partnerships, allegations of mishandled surgeries, veterinarians who are sanctioned for drug-handling improprieties and other major career-shaking events in this column. While many of the anecdotes I have described have had origins in some major workplace transaction, most practicing veterinarians encounter legal problems that have roots in much more pedestrian situations.

In no instance is this truer than in the case of initial puppy examinations. For example, in the days when I was hiring my first few associate veterinarians, I never gave too much thought to the occasional comment I would receive from breeder and pet store clients that a given new graduate's first examination of a new puppy seemed cursory or incomplete. Later on, when I became more familiar with the economics and legalities of the puppy trade, I realized new puppy visits should never be considered routine.

The primary risk associated with performing an incomplete puppy physical involves the missed chance to give a "heads up" to the puppy seller and/or its purchaser. Over the years, I have come across a number of instances where pet owners were never made aware of genetic or acquired abnormalities that almost certainly existed at the time the patient was first adopted as a youngster.

In one notable instance, one of my own associates identified a significant cardiac abnormality on a puppy that had been shipped to its new owner from the other side of the country. Immediately after spotting the problem, my employed doctor ended up spending more than a little (non-billable) time talking on the phone with the breeder, the veterinarian in Texas who had done the initial puppy exam and the pet store where the animal was purchased. Threats were flying, arguments were heated, and my phone bill (pre-unlimited long distance) was swelling.

The initial puppy (and to some lesser extent, kitten) examination has a tendency to be dismissed by some practitioners as an annoyance. In other instances, discounted, superficial puppy exams might be employed as a public relations gimmick. Some practices offer such office visits as a free or reduced-fee service in order to simultaneously develop a relationship with a new potential client and possibly sell a fecal or some flea preventive.

Legal issues numerous

Beware of the casual first exam! There is nothing wrong with doing these physicals at a discount but don't do them casually. In many ways, it is the initial puppy examination that exposes the practitioner to the greatest legal liability of the pet's life. This is unfortunate considering it is frequently performed at a loss and involves a great time investment. (Pet owners love to ask questions during first exams, especially if they are free.)

The legal issues presented by that first puppy visit are numerous. The first major point involves a matter of state statute. In many jurisdictions, the state legislatures have enacted a sort of statutory warranty often called pet lemon laws. These types of laws permit a new pet owner to return an animal or obtain financial redress from a party who sells a domestic animal afflicted with known or knowable abnormalities or illnesses. Generally, though, such consumer protection is limited in duration.

If a new pet owner consults a veterinarian who casually examines a puppy and the pet is found to be normal and not "a lemon," the new owner may well cruise through the period of statutory protection without bringing any abnormalities to the attention of the puppy's vendor. Once the period expires, the pet owner is on his own in paying for the costs of subsequent care of a condition that the veterinarian should reasonably have identified.

Once the pet's vendor is off the hook, who do you think the new animal's owner will be looking to in order to make him whole financially?

Right - the veterinarian who performed the initial exam finding the dog fit for purchase. Worse still, if the new puppy eventually needs costly care, it is a virtual certainty that the owner will not bring the animal to the veterinarian who missed the problem. Rather, in strict compliance with Murphy's law, the pet owner/plaintiff will choose the most expensive veterinary hospital in town or an out-of-state veterinary teaching hospital.

And there are other issues.

Remember, the amorphous yet obligatory "adequate standard of care" never takes a vacation. Just because the first puppy visit will likely be followed by others, there is no way to know in advance. If you have one chance to see a new pet, you bear the responsibility for alerting owners to apparent zoonotic risks and for proactively recommending an appropriate parasite and infectious disease control program.

These routine steps must be carried out, and they need to be documented. That way, when the new puppy owner's children contract scabies and the dog dies of parvovirus, you will not be in the crosshairs of some plaintiff's lawyer, some aggressive state board investigator or some local health department compliance officer.

Dr. Allen is president of the Associates in Veterinary Law P.C., which provides legal and consulting services exclusively to DVMs. He may be contacted at (607) 754-1510 or info@ veterinarylaw.com.