For Theodora

Several weeks back in this Community Column, a fellow coast resident wrote about her experience in trying to secure life-saving veterinary care for her severely injured dog. None was available to her and her dog succumbed to its injuries.

Since that time, it’s been really hard for me to put that situation out of my mind, as it came to me that the veterinary care offered to our community, here on the coast, is lacking at best. Yes, the pandemic has stifled many of the services offered by all types of businesses and that is understandable and as a community, we are all doing our best to work through these limitations, community members and businesses, alike. However, there is one limitation that is not pandemic-related that residents on the coast are forced to endure and is not understandable, reasonable, and now, no longer acceptable. There are no reasonable and viable after-hours emergency veterinary care services available to pet owners on the coast, which had been available to use decades before pandemic times. Veterinarians on the coast are now referring after-hours emergencies to Santa Rosa, Petaluma, and Rohnert Park veterinary clinics which for 99% of us on the coast are more than two hours away.

So what does that leave us with? A growing number of us on the coast are left having to endure the pain of seeing our pets—our companions, that we have grown to love, who have shown us no less than their unconditional love—suffer and/ or die needlessly. How many of you have endured that heartache? How many of you live with the psychological and emotional pain of feeling that you should have done more?

And so, to this end, I would like to make a small, first step to begin the process of righting the terrible wrong that has been thrust upon all of us here on the coast. Within the coming weeks, I will initiate and pursue a petition that, when completed, will be presented to the Fort Bragg City Council, demanding that they require any veterinary business seeking new or renewed veterinary licensing within the City of Fort Bragg to provide, as a condition of that licensing, the offer of reasonable and viable emergency veterinary afterhours, evenings, weekends and holidays care for the pets in this community. This is not an unreasonable request, as it had always been offered in the past, at least since I moved here in 1986.

I ask that you take just one short minute, think about your community—the elderly, low income, residents with transportation challenges, that have no option, no choice, but to watch as their pets suffer and/ or die. They are powerless. We are powerless, to save our pets when their injuries/illness present themselves after the various veterinary staff in the community have gone home. I would note that the various veterinary websites certainly do not represent their services to be what, in reality, exists today. In fact, they’ve represented themselves quite the opposite when they sought to establish their practices here.

So, I ask interested community members on the coast, from Westport through Albion, for feedback. Provide me with your thoughts on the importance you place on securing services of this kind. You can send your comments through this forum or via email at ForTheodora@yahoo.com.

I just can’t understand how this type of veterinary standard (substandard) is acceptable to the City of Fort Bragg who in the past has always held as paramount, the interest and needs of its community.

Rosemary Mangino, Fort Bragg.