SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane woman is demanding that veterinary clinic staff be fired after they took selfies on her phone while she was saying goodbye to her dying dog last week.
Ashtyn Lawson brought her 6-year-old dog, Mooki, to the Pet Emergency Clinic of Spokane expecting treatment, but learned he had cancer that had spread. She made the difficult decision to euthanize her beloved pet.
“What I thought was going to be the facility that helped finish the situation with a positive ending in saving him, ended up being one of the most emotionally distressing situations I had ever been in in my 28 years of living,” Lawson said.
She left her phone in the lobby as she went to be with Mooki during his final moments.
Afterwards, as she left the clinic in grief, a staff member returned her phone with an unexpected confession.
“She goes, ‘you’re going to find some silly selfies of us on there that we took,'” Lawson said.
The discovery of the unauthorized photos during one of the most difficult moments of her life left the 28-year-old pet owner devastated and angry.
“The second photo that was snapped [on my phone] was taken at 4:25, and then [my mom took] the last photo of me saying goodbye to my Mooki at 4:28,” she said.
She shared her story on social media, where it quickly went viral.
“I think that one little silly thing to someone else can be very, life-changing to someone else,” Lawson said.
The Pet Emergency Clinic of Spokane declined an on-camera interview but provided a statement addressing the incident. The clinic said, “an employee mistakenly believed the phone belonged to a co-worker and, in a moment of poor judgment, took lighthearted photos.” You can read the full statement here.
Lawson rejected the clinic’s explanation as inadequate.
“So the mishandling of my belongings while I was euthanizing my pet was justified because it was a silly, goofy mistake that was a common thing in this facility,” she said.
She described the decision to euthanize as an act of protection for her pet.
“I think that it was just my time to just be the one to protect him,” Lawson said.
Lawson is calling for the staff members who took the photos to be fired from the clinic. Her TikTok post about the incident has generated significant attention online, but the clinic says the viral nature of the story has resulted in death threats and extreme hate directed at the facility.
The clinic has not indicated whether any disciplinary action will be taken against the employees involved in the incident. Lawson expressed concern about how such an experience might affect other pet owners in vulnerable situations.
“What if someone wasn’t emotionally strong enough and couldn’t handle this?” she said.
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