Big, Bad Leroy Brown Dutra...

Fifteen years ago this summer, my husband, our son and I adopted a beautiful ginger colored kitten, a male, whom I named, “Big, Bad Leroy Brown Dutra”. I gave the little guy that name because he was anything but big or bad. In truth Leroy was a ‘pussycat’ in the full sense of what that word implies. He was gentle, and grew to be a medium sized, kind, ‘knowing’ cat. The years passed in peace with Leroy , and all was well in our little kingdom. We moved in 2004 to Paradise, here just outside of Hollister, California.

We were happy until late June 2009 when my husband and I discovered that something was wrong with Leroy Brown’s mouth. Leroy was drooling excessively. We tried to get an appointment with his vet, Dr. Mel White, the same Dr. White who travels around Hollister and Salinas in his big, white custom mobile animal clinic, that has all the beautiful cat and dog paintings on the exterior..

Dr. White was ill the summer of 2009, and could not attend to Leroy so my husband and I chose another vet to take our ‘cat son’, Leroy Brown Dutra to see, and have an evaluation of what was causing his excessive drooling.

We took Leroy to the Hollister Animal Clinic, and under the care of Dr. Jerry Leroux, Leroy ended up having two (2) surgeries to remove a salivary gland cancer that was growing under his tongue. In between the two (2) cancer removal surgeries Leroy underwent a cryosurgery procedure to remove cancerous tissue that was trying to regrow under his tongue where the first cancer was removed. Dr. Leroux was confident that Leroy had a chance to live a longer life because Dr. Leroux had been successful with this type of cancer surgery in the past; mainly on dogs with salivary gland cancer.

After Leroy’s second cancer surgery, while he was still in the care of Dr. Leroux at the Hollister Veterinary Clinic, the door to Leroy’s recovery cage was opened, and he was allowed to jump from the cage. The woman caring for Leroy chased him around the tiny clinic. When she caught Leroy his heart was beating wildly because he was only two (2) hours away from the surgery he had undergone that morning. Leroy Brown Dutra was fourteen (14) years old when he passed away that day, September 18, 2009 in the Hollister Veterinary Clinic.

When my husband and I traveled to the clinic we were greeted with seeing our Leroy, our ‘cat son’, lying dead on a white shroud in the doctor’s shabby, back room where he operates on animals. We were NOT told first that our dear Leroy Brown was dead before we saw him lying there. You can read our story in our 'Inquiry Blog' at, http://leroybrowninquiry.blogspot.com/.
After you finish reading this Blog entry you can click on the title; you will be taken to Leroy Brown's 'Inquiry' Blog.

As a result of what was done to our Leroy, and what was done to my husband and I we are committed to undertake a task to make it mandatory in the State of California that all persons who attend animals in a clinical setting MUST be certified by the State of California.

If you had a child in the hospital wouldn’t you want all of the nurses caring for that child to be 'registered nurses' meaning that each nurse had passed his or her state certification test BEFORE each nurse was working in the hospital caring for your child?
Well, many of us feel that our companion animals are much like our 'adopted' children, and these companion animals we share our lives with, deserve the same consideration in an animal hospital setting as our human children deserve in a human hospital. Both deserve to be cared for by people who are state certified to do this care, and these people should know what they are doing!

The women who worked for Dr. Leroux at the time our Leroy was killed in the Hollister Animal Clinic was NOT state certified. None of the women we saw that morning when we brought Leroy into the clinic, were state certified to care for companion animals. The woman who caused Leroy's death didn’t know that she had done something wrong when she chased him around the clinic two (2) hours after his surgery.
This happened to our cat, he was terrorized in that clinic and killed that day, because the woman taking care of him was NOT certified by the State of California.

We have been in touch with San Benito County's State Senator Jeff Denham’s office. One of the senator's aids has been in touch with us, and he told us that it is too late in the senator's term to do anything about mandating state certification for animal clinic workers. Senator Denham has ‘termed’ out because he has served eight years in the senate.
My husband and I will be working on this issue in the coming year with the incoming senator for San Benito County. I will post our progress on this issue, as it happens.

Thanks for reading,

Carol Garnier Dutra
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra

P.S. Please go to...
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/increase-californias-animal-cruelty-laws

PLEASE sign the petition to Increase California Animal Cruelty Laws to protect all dogs and cats wither they be in a private home or in an animal clinic...they need to be protected with stronger laws in the State of California.



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