Josh Gomez says his dog, Pilot, is being held "hostage" by a vet who may send the animal to his death if Gomez doesn't pay up.
Josh Gomez/Handout |
Pilot, the dog.
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The vet, Garry Innocent, says Gomez needs to pay $974 —or else he'll
send the black border collie puppy to the pound, where the dog could be
put to sleep.
If that happens, the vet says, it would be Gomez's fault.
"He's being such a twit," Innocent said Friday. "He just needs to pay his bill."
Gomez has gone to court to try to save his dog.
He filed a lawsuit in Gwinnett Superior Court this week to block
Innocent and PetFIRST Animal Hospital in Duluth from handing Pilot over
to animal-control authorities. In the suit, Gomez says he paid the
clinic an agreed-upon $1,125 fee to treat Pilot in August for a virus.
Then the clinic tacked on additional charges that Gomez can't afford to pay, Gomez says.
According to the lawsuit, Innocent and PetFIRST said "they intended
to dispose of his pet up to and including euthanization," which the
lawsuit calls "a fancy word for killing plaintiff's pet dog." Innocent
disputes Gomez's claims. He said he never explicitly told Gomez that
his dog might be euthanized Innocent also said that when Gomez brought
Pilot to the clinic on Aug. 26, he told the dog's owner that it would
cost at least $1,400 to treat the pet. But when Gomez returned several
days later, the cost for boarding and treating Pilot had climbed to
$1,640. The unpaid portion of the bill has since doubled because of the
$27-a-day boarding cost, Innocent said.
Pilot remains at the animal hospital Friday and is scheduled to go to an animal shelter on Tuesday, Innocent says.
Under Georgia law, veterinarians can hold pets when owners don't pay
their bills. If an owner doesn't settle up within 10 days of receiving
a demand for payment, the animal is declared "abandoned." It can be
sold, given away or sent to a shelter and euthanized.
Innocent said thousands of Georgia pets abandoned at animal hospitals "get put to sleep because of owners like this jerk.
"It is a carnage. While the law cracks down on Michael Vick for dog
abuse, nothing gets done about Joe Schmo for this kind of abuse,"
Innocent said. "We don't want to put this dog to sleep."
Gomez's lawyer, Ed McCrimmon, says the Georgia law is
unconstitutional because it enables pet clinics to take people's
property without due process.
Scott Piper, a spokesman for the Georgia Veteriniary Medical
Association, said having to dispose of abandoned animals causes great
conflict for veterinarians.
"There's an ethical issue. There's a moral issue," Piper said. "I
can tell you most veterinarians are torn between having to run a
practice and do what's right by the animal.
"It's kind of something that human doctors don't have to deal with
because everybody has insurance, and if they don't, the state takes
care of them," said Piper. "That's not the case for animals."
Gomez insists he loves his pet and would be devastated if Pilot was killed.
"I just don't even want to think about that," he said. As an in-home
music teacher, the 22-year-old says he doesn't make much money. Gomez
said he's already run up a $400 charge on his girlfriend's credit card
and used a $750 loan from his boss to pay the clinic.
He says he won't give up on bringing Pilot home.
"Some of my friends tell me it's just a dog," Gomez says, "and I say 'I love this puppy.'"