DOGGED DETERMINATION
Woman turned back taking pet to vet
COVID -19 has been man’s nightmare but a dog ’s best friend, leading to walks galore and more company than pooches have enjoyed their whole furry lives.
But what happens when they get seriously sick during a pandemic, with vet clinics in crisis mode and interprovincial barriers in place?
Gloria Baron, 24, lives in Centretown but works as a public servant in Gatineau, normally crossing a central bridge twice a day. She also has a dog named Chloe, a 12-year-old beagle-border collie mix with a heart condition. Chloe is normally cared for at a veterinary clinic on St. Joseph Boulevard in Gatineau.
Baron says Chloe has been in good health since she was adopted at age 10, save for a heart murmur.
Over Easter weekend, Baron said, Chloe collapsed twice, having what appeared to be seizures for 20-30 seconds.
“It was frightening,” she said Thursday.
After taking the dog to an emergency clinic in Ottawa on the long weekend, Baron said the on-duty vet advised her to monitor the dog ’s breathing and make arrangements for an X-ray and blood work.
After a couple of sleepless nights, Baron headed off to take Chloe to see her regular vet on Tuesday morning, only to be met by a checkpoint on the Chaudière Bridge. Baron carried documentation showing Chloe’s regular vet was in Quebec.
When the Gatineau police officer approached, Baron said she responded with details of the emergency vet appointment. The officer, she says, wondered why they couldn’t see a vet in Ottawa. She tried to plead her case.
“Our vet in Gatineau has known our dog for years, and many vets in Ottawa are not accepting new patients,” she wrote in an initial email.
“In addition, tests at the emergency vet clinic in Ontario would be double the price of our normal vet — something we simply cannot afford, especially during this time where members of my household are without income and dependent on (emergency response benefits).”
She said in a followup interview the officer nearly “had his head in my window” and was not wearing a mask. (Postmedia has reported one Gatineau officer has already tested positive for the coronavirus and fully recovered.)
Because there was veterinary care available in Ottawa, the answer was no, they couldn’t cross the bridge. Baron said she was in tears, beginning to panic.
“We were at our wit’s end trying to figure out how we were going to get her over. We didn’t know what we were going to do.”
On the advice of Quebec’s public health authorities, Gatineau police and other forces throughout the Outaouais are putting up moving blockades on the five interprovincial bridges and monitoring movement to and from the rural regions around the city.
Over Easter weekend (Friday to Monday), Gatineau police stopped 24,000 vehicles on four bridges, with a turnaround rate of about eight per cent. On Tuesday, it stopped 8,300 vehicles on those bridges, with a rejection rate of only two per cent.
Baron said the officer didn’t seem to grasp how urgent the appointment was and what the pet meant to the family.
“My whole family had been a wreck. My mother, everyone, was just so upset about things. Being turned away was like the cherry on top. I was very frustrated.”
So they drove away and did what any other desperate person might: they found another bridge, one without a blockade, and Chloe made it to the vet.
She said an X-ray found considerable fluid on the lungs connected to congestive heart failure. Chloe was given an injection and placed on two medications — one to temporarily deal with the fluid buildup, the second a permanent treatment to improve heart function.
Chloe is now doing much better, Baron reports. She needs to return to the vet in about a month, and Baron is already wondering whether the crossing problem will repeat itself.
“I live in Ottawa and work in Gatineau,” said Baron. “The National Capital Region is being split in half, and frankly, it’s unacceptable. It’s one community.”
Gatineau police Const. Andrée East didn’t know the specifics of this case, but said the general rule, even for urgent veterinary care, is to use the emergency service available in your home province.
Cross-border traffic is restricted to “essential” trips, including travel by workers declared essential or health-care appointments. There are exceptions
“for humanitarian reasons,” but this is left to the judgment of the individual officer.
Every dog has her day. This one just wasn’t Chloe’s.