When a Good Samaritan Saves the Day: What Happens Next at the Vet

You spot a dog on the roadside or a cat limping through a parking lot and your instincts kick in fast. But once you decide to help, a new set of questions hits just as quickly: Where do you take them, what happens next, and could you be on the hook for anything? We walk you through the real-world, behind-the-scenes process at an emergency vet hospital when a Good Samaritan brings in a stray, lost, or injured pet.

We share how we identify pets through microchip scanning and tags, how social media and local lost and found pet pages can reunite families within hours, and why unclaimed animals typically transition to animal services in the morning. We also explain the harder side of emergency veterinary medicine: triage, pain control, X-rays for hit-by-car injuries, prognosis conversations when an owner is found, and the humane decisions that sometimes have to be made when injuries are catastrophic and no identification exists. 

Spring brings another wave of well-meaning rescues, so we talk about baby bunnies, kittens, and birds, when leaving them with mom is the safest choice, and when an injured animal truly needs care. We also cover safety for people and pets, including bite risk with scared animals and how separating strays helps with infection control in a busy ER. Finally, we dig into microchip basics for lost pet recovery, including the common failure point most owners miss: registration and updated contact information. If you find this helpful, subscribe, share it with a fellow pet lover, and leave a review so more people know what to do when every second counts.

To learn more about Frisco Emergency Pet Care visit:
https://www.FriscoEmergencyPetCare.com
Frisco Emergency Pet Care 
11201 Preston Road 
Frisco, Texas 75033 
469-287-6767 

Transcript

Welcome And Clinic Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast, your trusted source for expert insight into emergency veterinary medicine. Hosted by Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care, this podcast brings you essential information to help protect the health and safety of your dogs and cats. Serving North Dallas with 24-7 emergency and critical care, the team at Frisco Emergency Pet Care is here when every second counts. Now, let's begin.

What Happens When You Find A Pet

SPEAKER_00 0:40

When a stranger steps in to help an animal in crisis, there's a whole process behind the scenes to protect both the pet and the person who found them. Welcome everyone. I'm Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer with Dr. Mike Lasasso, the Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care. Dr. Lasasso, it's always a pleasure to be with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Good morning. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Julie.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, thank you. So if you could help us like go through the steps, what happens when a good Samaritan brings an injured or sick or stray or lost animal to the vet? And are they possibly responsible in any way for that animal?

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Sure. I mean, that's a that's a great question. And I'm sure it goes through the minds of anybody that finds a stray. We are in kind of a, we've put ourselves in a unique situation in our hospital because we have always accepted strays at night. A lot of emergency hospitals don't actually do that. They'll take in something that's injured, but if it's healthy, they don't really want anything to do with it because they've got limited space and and really honestly just limited inclination. The corporate hospitals really are not that inclined to be real big community partners, you know. Um so when we built this facility, we actually added a specific ward on four strays specifically so that we could have the room to take them in and try to treat them. Because if, well, if it's in the case of uh, as as per your question,

Injured Strays And Tough Decisions

SPEAKER_02 2:12

if it's a case of a good Samaritan bringing in a pet, well, if it's otherwise healthy and looks pretty normal, then we will scan it for a microchip. If it's got a a number on it on a tag, then we certainly will call the owners, assuming that the people bringing it in haven't already done so. Uh and we also, shockingly to me, because I don't use Facebook, I'm amazed that we can actually put their pictures on our Facebook page and on the Lost and Found page of our local area. I think there's a a page for the Lost and Found pets of Frisco, Allen, and McKinney, which are our local cities. Um, and I'm surprised at how many we can actually reunite that night through through Facebook of all things. Um and then in the morning, typically, if they have not been claimed, then they end up being picked up by Frisco Animal Services because we'd rather they didn't go to the shelter from a disease standpoint and just exposure, and the shelters are already overworked. I mean, we we're trying to do our part, um, but at the same time, a shelter is the best way. You know, it's it's where people are gonna look for for their lost pets. They're not gonna come looking, you know, it in my hospital. So it is the best thing. Now, if they bring in something that's injured, um that kind of depends on what the injury is. I had somebody bring in a cat just a couple of weeks ago that had actually suffered a traumatic brain injury from being hit by a car. Um that cat was was really sick, and strangely, most people will microchip dogs, but they don't microchip their cats. This cat had a microchip, and I was actually able to contact the owner and talk about what was involved with cost and and and and prognosis, which was a little grim, um, and let the owner actually make a decision as to where we go with that. When people bring in other strays, if they've been uh hit by a car, then it it kind of depends on the nature of the injury. If it's pretty mild and we can get by with with pain meds, because ultimately they're gonna go to the shelter the next day, and we have to make decisions on what makes sense for that particular animal. Um, when they are catastrophically injured and don't have any identification on them, then typically, unfortunately, euthanasia makes the most sense for their pets, and a lot of times it would have made sense even if they had an owner. So that's um that's what happens in in those

Police Drop Off Pets After Arrests

SPEAKER_02 4:56

cases. Uh, when the Frisco Police Department brings us pets, and they do that more often than you would think, because they've made a traffic stop or made an arrest for outstanding warrants, and there's a dog in the car. Well, then they could either, you know, two o'clock in the morning, they can either call an animal control officer out of bed and wait for them to come to the scene, take the animal, and then take it to the Collin County shelter for processing, even though we know exactly who it belongs to, and then go back to bed, you know, get get an ACO out of out of bed for about three hours. It also makes the cop police person um you know wait on scene for an hour. A long time ago, I told the city, I was like, just bring them to me. It's fine. So we have the put the police, we're open. So the cops will bring us um pets of detainees, and we just make sure we have a next akin phone number, and that way they don't ever have to go to the shelter. Um, they don't have to be exposed to the kennel coughs and everything else, and it it takes more burden off of the shelter. Again, we know who those owners are.

Baby Wildlife Should Often Stay Put

SPEAKER_02 6:08

The big thing that I think people really need to understand, given that right now it's it's April, um, so it's springtime, which means we have lots of baby bunnies, we have kittens, and if they are injured, actually show signs of injury, then bringing them to us is is completely appropriate. If you find a litter of kittens underneath a bush, for goodness sakes, please please leave them there. Uh please leave the bunnies right where they are. Mom is almost certainly coming back. Now, there are instances where something's happened to mom, and I get it. Check on them a day later. Um, but their best chance for survival is is staying with the dam. So yeah, just try to leave the wildlife right where it is. Baby birds that fall out of the nest, leave it. Let mom deal with that. Um it's it's very rare that we're going to be able to help a fledgling. Um so yeah, every people have the best intentions, but it doesn't always work out that well.

Bite Risk And Disease Control Steps

SPEAKER_02 7:23

So if you're gonna bring in a uh, especially an injured dog or cat, um you've got to be so very careful not to be bitten. They are in pain, they're scared, they don't know you. That you just have to really, really be so careful not to be bitten.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

And then when you're assessing the health of the animal that came in and you don't know, let's say it's very unfamiliar, it could be a stray, you don't know if it ever received a vaccination, things like that. How do you keep everyone safe? You just separate the animals.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Yeah, it's part of why we have the stray ward. Um, so so if it's a healthy animal, then the then they we've got a place for them that is separate from our hospitalized patients, maybe immunocompromised. It also protects those strays from whatever nasty bug our hospitalized patients have. So it does go both ways, actually. If they're injured, then you know the the hospital will absorb the cost. We give payments, uh, we want to make sure that they are adequately cared for while they're with us. So they get they get at least minor treatment. Sometimes I'll take x-rays. Um, I want to see what that chest looks like in the case of a hit-by-car, make sure there aren't any fractures. So we do that just as part of our involvement in the community.

Lost Pet Searches And Microchip Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 8:47

And another big question, too, is what happens, like you mentioned wildlife, but what if it's an adult and it's like a deer that got hit, or um I imagine car, you know, car injuries are a big one.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Uh well injury animals. I have never had anybody bring me a deer. Uh, we do have there are a few whitetails left in this part of Texas. Um typically when they get hit, they are deceased, they're on the side of the road, and and nobody brings those to me. So that's honestly never presented. Um, but that would be quite the challenge. I don't I don't have a place for that. I did have somebody, now that I think about it, I did have someone bring in a stray goat about five years ago. And I was shocked when I walked in in the morning. I was like, why is there a goat in one of our runs? That's um, yeah, and unfortunately, I mean we don't have anything to feed a goat, so it does take a little bit on the on the staff, but they can generally go for 12 hours without food. Of course they get water, but um yeah, animal control can assume that responsibility in the morning. And they pick up from us every single day, except for a couple of holidays.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, around here, definitely there there have been goats and chickens on the run in Ohio. Um, and then I I did have another question. I was curious, do you you know, does it go the other way around when pets are lost? Um, you know, do owners ever contact like the clinic, not just post it on social media, but it's a pretty rare owner.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

It's not a bad idea at all to email us a photo of your of your pet and say, hey, this is lost. And and every now and then, probably once a quarter, I'll get uh that I'm aware of. No, I don't run the front desk, and we may get it more frequently than that. But it doesn't very often happen that people say, Look, I'm I'm checking all the hospitals, like you would if your kid was missing, right? You you call the emergency rooms, you call the police department, where's my son or daughter? Um, the same thing could certainly apply. I personally would do that. I would, if my if my dog was missing, I would call the area ERs just to make sure that they aren't have been uh you know brought in as a stray. I think that's super smart. It's also super smart to microchip your pets. And on top of microchipping, I mean the the national stats for microchips and microchip failure is huge. Only about 30% of microchipped animals that are returned to a shelter are ever reunited with their owners because microchipping isn't enough. You have to tell the microchip company who you are and what your phone number is. So many microchips don't get registered with the company they belong to, they just get implanted and we scan it and say it's got a microchip, and you know, we look up that microchip number and says it belongs to the microchip company. Nobody's ever updated the information, so it's not really all that useful, you know, which is which is super unfortunate. Somebody went to the effort and the expense. The confusing pets, too, are the ones that have two microchips, some have three, um, because the original owner microchipped them and then they went into a shelter or they got found, and somebody re-microchiped them without checking for the first one. I mean, that that happens, whether it's at a veteran office, it really shouldn't, but it it does, or at Operation Kindness or the shelters, some of these places will also chip them and may not have scanning them for a chip in their protocol before they chip them again. Um, or they may not be able to contact the original chip company, especially if it's gone out of business. Yep. Um, so yeah, sometimes we see one, so but I've got two.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Okay, well, Dr. Lesasso, thank you so much for walking us through the process and helping all these animals and good Samaritans, too. Yes, ma'am. We always appreciate your insight.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

All right, thank you.

Closing And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Thank you for listening to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast. To learn more, visit FriscoPetER.com. Call 469-287-6767. Or stop by 11201 Preston Road, Frisco, Texas, 75033. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Frisco Emergency Pet Care is always here when your pet needs us most. Until next time, take care of your pets, and they'll take care of you.