“She was actually doing pretty well that morning,” he said. “She’d eaten. She’d gone to the bathroom. She was drinking out of the washbasin. I thought that was cute. She did have trouble moving, but she was able to walk.”
When he went out 15 minutes later to see how she was doing, she was gone. It was baffling, because at her age, Basie was not a fast mover. In fact, the Holmeses didn’t think she could or would leave the yard on her own.
The couple scoured the area for her, plastering signs everywhere, and talking with neighbors. But by about 3 p.m., unknown to them, it was too late. Their dog had already been euthanized by a nearby veterinarian.
At a local animal shelter the next morning, they found what was left of their beloved old dog: just her cremated remains. They are devastated.
The last photo of Basie, taken in her backyard within three hours of her euthanasia (Photo: Allen Holmes, via The Patch)
“The shift supervisors gave us the exam record and they said that she arrived at 12:20 p.m. The picture that I took was at 12:06 p.m. It’s about a 10-minute drive to the shelter,” Allen Holmes told the Patch.
“We had no chance of finding her in that time,” said Alison Holmes. “When we did find her, it was only because of our tireless searching. No one called us.”
“To give us no opportunity to be there is horrifyingly wrong,” Alison said in an interview with WUSA-9.
The story they’ve been told is that the dog was found in the woods (actually some rows of trees, the couple says) near their house by a woman who brought the dog to her own veterinarian, Crosspointe Animal Hospital, in Fairfax Station. The Holmeses think the woman was probably concerned about Basie because the dog was very thin, despite the high-quality diet they fed her.
The veterinarian checked out the dog, found no collar but plenty of ailments of old age, and euthanized her. According to Virginia Code 3.2-6507, it’s legal for a veterinarian to euthanize a sick or injured dog without the owner’s permission if the owner can’t immediately be located.
The Holmeses say her neck was irritated by the collar (old dogs can have sensitive skin) so she wasn’t wearing hers.
The couple said Basie was not ready to die and that they were not ready to part with her. They are haunted by the idea that she was alone, without them, when she was killed. “We wanted to be there if she was euthanized. We didn’t feel like it was quite the time, but somebody else did,” Allen said. They have not decided if they will take legal action.
Animal hospital management claims staff immediately tried to contact the Prince William County Animal Shelter (the shelter for the county where the dog had been found), but the shelter refused to pick up Basie. But the next day her ashes were at the Fairfax County Animal Shelter. It seems somehow someone had transported her — or at least her body — from Point A to Point B.
Basie (Photo: Allen and Alison Holmes, via The Patch)
The vet may have seen a decrepit old dog and figured she had no decent home, but if s/he had looked at her well-trimmed nails, or inside her mouth, where the Holmeses say Basie recently had a tooth extracted, there were pretty good hints that the dog had a home.
“We really took care of her,” Allen Holmes said.
So did the veterinarian …
A veterinarian should value every animal's life. Give it every chance to live. Not decide it's fate within ten minutes of seeing it. I've had old animals and I've known how badly they looked but I also knew that their spirit was still there and not going anywhere anytime soon. I can only imagine how horrifying and traumatic this experience would be.
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