Hi Readers.
Doggie Mamma here . . . Jordan Kelly, the human behind doggiemamma.com . . . also Harry's mamma.
Or I was, until a veterinary teaching facility - albeit of which Harry was a full fee-paying private patient (and who had entered for a simple rehydration procedure) - decided Harry was more important as a live student experimentation opportunity and filming project for the day (which he wasn't intended to emerge from alive, and they made sure of it), than he was to his deeply loving owner.
I've gone forward to found the International Institute for Improvement in Veterinary Ethics (IIIVE.org) and will from hereon create a close link between Doggiemamma.com and IIIVE.org so that I can bring you, my DoggieMamma.com audience, the best of both worlds . . . the heartfelt and the head-driven.
Thus, the following IIIVE development, which I feel sure will be of interest to you, is the subject of the below announcement, as published on
IIIVE.org.
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When the International Institute for Improvement in Veterinary Ethics (IIIVE) was founded in the aftermath of the cruelties suffered by treasured pet, little Harry Kelly, at the hands of Massey University's "Companion Animal Hospital" staff and the
unnecessary and senseless death they premeditated for him, its purpose was clear: to document, expose, and drive improvement in veterinary ethics internationally.
Aside from the obvious need for an overhaul in the way
veterinary teaching facilities apparently view private clients' pets as teaching resources to do with as they please, the need for improvement becomes more and more evident every day . . . in multiple ways across the veterinary landscape:
Large purely profit-driven commercial groups, for example, are buying up small, independent, vets all over the Western world, resulting in significantly increased prices and, at the same time, lower and genericised standards of "care". Vets working for the big chains are being asked to be salespeople first, vets second, recommending high-end and often unnecessary, or unnecessarily frequent, procedures.
Pets Before (Obscene) Profits . . . NOT (Obscene) Profits Before Pets
Vet bills are rising out of all proportion to the commitment to genuine "care" . . . which is one of (although far from the only) key drivers of animals being surrendered to pounds and rehoming centres all over the world.
At the same time as new generations of veterinarians are being
trained in profit maximisation, including
outright fraudulent billing practices, IIIVE is committed to tackling the problem from both ends: campaigning for vastly improved ethics in veterinary practices (used here both as a noun and a verb, by the way) to greatly reduce the number of pets surrendered regretfully by their owners simply because they can no longer afford the often quite unjustifiable fees across the sector at large . . . and then at the other end, where the problem has already manifested by way of new homes needed. And usually, urgently.
No Hypocrisy Here
Every pet IIIVE's founder and Executive Director, Jordan Kelly, has owned in her adult life has been been a "re-home" . . . a better term for which is probably, an "adoptee".
Harry was, arguably, the exception . . . in that he did come from a breeder, but was that breeder's "own dog", and had never been bred from. One day Harry (then called Harris) needed a new home. And he found his new home waiting eagerly for him at the Kelly household, where he joined his big brother, Vette, an earlier adoptee - a cheeky papillon / border collie cross who lived to be 19.5 years old.
Massey's Companion Animal "Hospital" and
its staff had plans to ensure Harry, however, didn't have the opportunity to experience similar longevity.
' . . . Out of Great Evil, Great Good Must Be Made to Come . . . '
Harry's legacy has to be more than just a
case study. His death was senseless, cruel and without justification or excuse.
It was
without truth and it was
without compassion . . . not withstanding the very institution that "trains" each new generation of veterinarians it dispatches into veterinary clinics around the world should, conversely, be a bastion of high ethical standards -
not the reverse.
It is out of the spirit of genuine compassion that the
Harry Homing Mission is born, to bring light into the darkness that prevailed when New Zealand's Massey University veterinary teaching hospital (aka "Companion Animal Hospital") decided to
teach their students in the lowest level of "ethics" imaginable.
The Harry Homing Mission will start small - it's a big pet rescue world out there - but IIIVE aims to gradually build up a substantial international directory of rescue and re-homing organisations across the globe.
Because every pet deserves the love and care of their own pet parent.
Someone who will love them as Harry was (and still is) loved and cared for.
This is to be Harry's legacy . . . for all the good things that can be given out of what was taken.
If you know of an organisation that should be listed, you can suggest it directly through the directory page. If you are a rescue organisation that would like to be included,
we welcome your submission.
You'll find a dedicated form at the bottom of the Directory section.
