Dr Pol is an old-school American vet who not only believes declawing cats is fine but also believes he can do the operation in a careless and unsanitary way. It is compounding cruelty in carrying out an unnecessary operation with carelessness. We know he is careless with respect to following standard veterinary procedures because a second complaint has been filed against him by a fellow veterinarian, Eden Myers DVM.
The second complaint to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs has occurred while Dr Pol is serving probation for the first complaint (as I understand it). He was fined and ordered to complete further education the first time around.
What is incredible is that Eden Myer’s complaint concerns Dr Pol’s performance on his National Geographic television show called “The Incredible Dr Pol”. He is incredibly bad by the sound of it.
Dr Eden says:
“I checked the Michigan Veterinary Medical Association (MVMA) standards and saw that the practices I watched in the show were not acceptable. Our clients and potential clients can watch this and it’s representing substandard care. It does the public a disservice,”
On that reality television show he is seen to be performing surgery on a dog hit by a car. The intention, I presume, in televising this is partly to promote the veterinary profession but he achieved the exact opposite. He brought the profession into disrepute with numerous errors according to Dr Eden. The list is too long to go over on this page but he does have a cavalier approach to hygiene and on all accounts lacks sensitivity and awareness of the welfare of his patients.
For instance, the second complaint states he failed to wear sterile surgical attire and failed to use sterile draping in the operating room. Under guidelines, Dr Pol should have worn a gown, cap and mask and he should have used sterile instruments in a sterile field.
These are basic requirements surely? Under the complaint, Dr Pol’s work fell short in many other areas too.
In the earlier complaint numerous breaches of procedure were cited including a failure to read an ultrasound correctly and failures to manage his practice adequately, for example: a failure to ensure that his staff kept adequate documentation of telephone calls, treatment records etc..
I don’t want to go over all the complaints here. You can read about the second compliant on this website.
Marcia a visitor who has watched the television show and has knowledge says:
“He rarely uses a drape around a surgical site, for example (and I’m not talking about field work, just the in-hospital stuff). I’ve only occasionally noticed him pulling on a pair of gloves, either sterile surgical or exam gloves, which means he can easily pass a disease from one animal to another. His answer to antiseptic technique is very old school barnyard — stitch it up and flood it with antibiotic powder or spray. In a recent episode, I watched him take a culture from a cow eye and transfer it to a sterile plate of what looked like blood agar. All well and good, except the plate was exposed to the air for quite a long time and probably contaminated. The list of poor techniques just grows and grows. He keeps his show because he’s an egotist and buffoon and that makes good television. But he’s not a particularly good vet.”
Dr Pol is being investigated and there is a Facebook petition to drop him from the National Geographic show or drop the show entirely.
My interest in Dr Pol is his declawing of cats. He is said to be an old-school vet. Declawing should be a thing of the past. It is a cruel operation carried out cruelly by this vet. Declawing belongs to the history books. It should be stopped as soon as possible.
The attitude of all veterinarians who do it is old-fashioned. It is an attitude which says that cats are “only cats”, barely one up from the toaster in the kitchen.
The behaviour of Dr Pol supports this insensitive approach to animals. He is not fit to be vet because vets must at least have an empathy towards animal welfare. That must underpin all they do but it doesn’t, does it?
Declawing itself when done at the behest of the cat owner for her convenience is automatically in breach of the standards and guidelines of veterinary work in the USA. This appears to be overlooked in the complaint because declawing is mainstream legalised cat cruelty on a grand scale.
Dr Pol’s public humiliation is actually a failure in itself because all vets who declaw – and nearly all of them do – should be humiliated in exactly the same way.
I also wish to thankyou for publishing this information. I have only seen him mention DeClawing once on his show, and that’s when I stopped watching. I have also been advising my friends & family that he participated in this abhorrent practice.
The other thing I have been doing is posting the message about Dr Pol on pages like Jackson Galaxy’s page.
The sooner we can have this abolished as cruel, the better.
I hope that a continuous flood of negative feedback will eventually result in action.
We have to keep in mind that he has been a vet for a very long time, and that if we had not seen him book that poor cat in for DeClawing in the first season, none of us would know he does it.
It’s not just blood money for Dr Pol, but it shows Nat Geo using mutilation as a way to gain more viewers. It’s a bit of a shame because Nat Geo has been a respected provider of information throughout the world. I say it’s tragic.
Keep spreading the word people, and don’t give up.
Any cat saved from this cruelty is a win IMHO
Cheers,
Kitty
Australia
Thanks for visiting and commenting Kitty. We like to do our bit to expose cat abuses and callousness towards the cat. We want to improve cat welfare even in a small way.
I agree that Dr Pol’s problem is partly due to the fact he is old-school and that he has not upgraded his attitude towards his work.
I agree with Kitty, keep on spreading the word. PoC is a wonderful web site brave enough to expose the truth about declawing and the vets who still do it.
Dr Pol may be old school but he has no right to deny the evidence that declawing ruins cats lives!
PoC saves thousands of claws.
This picture is doing the rounds on facebook
We’ll have to start a caption contest! Pol is certainly Midden Man of the Month 😉
This man needs his license REVOKED! And his digits removed!
Yes, the axe he is using should be grabbed and used for the purpose you describe 😉
As opposed to just having the whole practice stopped all together with all vets, that is just silly that your slamming one vet for something many vets do. If you have such an issue with it you should actually do something to change the way all vets do it instead of focusing on one, such as having the law changed. Lobby to have declawing added to animal cruelty if you feel so strongly.
I like to focus on individual vets and the whole problem simultaneously. We need to name and shame. That is what I believe.
Well I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. I just think that owners need to be held more accountable and a practice that is as deforming as declawing should be stopped altogether. I am really not aware of what purpose it serves other than to cater to the owner at expense of the cat. Ironically all the cat owners I have known who kept their cat till the cats final days never declawed their cat.
You should be fired from your profession and have your tongue and your fingers removed.
I love to see the comments coming in thick and fast on articles like this! Lots of anti declaw group members coming along to good old PoC 😉
Me too! He has all these bloody disciples all Kow Towing to him ‘Oh the Incredible Dr Pol he’s amazing!’ Yuk! Makes me want to throw up!
Your group is growing as well Ruth love to see the new people flowing in every day and those people are catching onto PoC as well which is awesome!
Yes 444 members now of the ‘International Coalition Against Declawing’ and 375 in Tina’s ‘Ending Declawing’ one I help admin. I always post links to PoC declaw articles on those groups and very pleased when they come and comment.
You do very well Ruth. We chip away at the monster that is declawing.
Yes for around 6 years now we have been united in the cause and although it sometimes seems hopeless declawing will ever end we truly have made progress and brought many more people into the battle.
Persistence is a powerful quality.
I discovered this Monster through you Ruth and although its been hard at times and I’ve had a bumpy ride I wouldn’t change any of it. I’m glad I know about it because although I’m only one small pebble on the beach I can still do something albeit it only a bit I know that its better than nothing.
Leah you are one of the stalwart ‘UK troops’ You haven’t fallen by the wayside like quite a few have and the Paw Project do appreciate all of us who are actively helping them x
If I could declaw my dogs, I would. Nothing wrong with declawing. It’s more wrong if one was to declaw and then allows animal outside. Now that is cruelty and inhumane.
I am afraid that you are forgetting one or two important things. Firstly, declawing is not what it purports to be. It is the removal of the end of the toe including a significant amount of bone. In addition, the operation is often done badly leaving shards of bone in the toe which cause lots of pain. There are other serious complications which not uncommonly occur.
https://pictures-of-cats.org/complications-of-declawing.html
Then there is the moral dimension. Do we, humans, have the right to mutilate our companion animals for our convenience? Have you asked yourself that question? Do we have the right to cause so much pain and distress in our companion animals just because it suits us? Any decent person, anywhere, would state confidently that it is not right to do this. It is immoral to do it. That must be clear but it is something you have omitted.
All decent people hate to see this kind legalised cat abuse.
Thank you so much for helping to expose this monstrous QUACK.
Quack is the right description. There are others like though. Thanks Susan.
Awful man, he’s a disgrace to his profession, he can’t even be bothered to do his disgusting work under decent conditions. I would like to shove his axe where the sun doesn’t shine and let him sit on the handle. If this is what’s on TV I’m glad I prefer to read a book.
My God I have so much to say about this piece of shit Dinosaur thinking he’s God when he’s nothing but an animal abuser! Nat Geo wild are partially to blame for upping his status, they ought to stop immediately!
Suggestion. Why don’t we all post the link to this and everything else we have onto their page?
If we inundate them surely they will have to take action? Mind you 2 fines and extra training didn’t do it….. Michael what do you think?
If you look at that picture above you can see everything as clear as day repeating itself from that complaint! A normal (probably germ ridden) tea shirt, no gloves, just a rag covering the cat, no intubation by the looks of things and what next? he is so much of a bloody Dinosaur and been hyped up so much by Nat Geo Wild that his clients will believe anything even if he told then no pain relief was required!
Why are people so like sheep at times!! My vets are great but they are human at the end of the day and I’ve questioned them quite often in the past!
What gets me about this man more than anything is that he declaws and because of his bumped up image he will get away with it every time because he thinks he’s God and his followers have worsened the situation because they feel he can do no wrong!
For me the whole thing is dangerous especially for animals in is care but more so for cats because they are easy blood money.
Michael please give us permission to share this article on Nat Geo Wild. I wouldn’t do anything without your permission as I know nothing about the legalities but this ass hole has got right under my skin, the smug self serving Moron!
Leah, I am with you. Do as you suggest. Spread the word. We won’t him removed from his TV show and suspended as a vet.
He should be stopped and humiliated every day in perpetuity. Totally the wrong sort of person to be a vet.
Thank you Michael however someone has beat me too it I think and made a bloody good job of it too! See here;
https://www.facebook.com/groups/endingdeclawing/1539995049564287/?comment_id=1540640262833099¬if_t=group_comment_reply
See link above and check out Donna Drurys comment under Janice Jacobinas post.
Excellent idea!!