Texas Vet Secretly Kept 5 Dogs in "Decrepit Shape" Alive
The Ft. Worth veterinarian arrested on animal cruelty charges earlier this week admitted to secretly keeping five dogs alive after their owners had dropped them off to be euthanized. Some of the dogs were kept in cages for years, according to a police report.
Millard Lucien "Lou" Tierce was arrested on Wednesday, one day after news broke that he allegedly kept one family's dog alive in a cage for secret blood transfusions. When authorities raided his clinic on Wednesday, they found several animals living in horrid conditions.
Animal organs stored in jars throughout the clinic. Open and unsecured medications. Exam rooms littered with stacks of drugs, trash, laundry and paperwork. And bugs.
Three dogs at the clinic were in "such decrepit shape" that they had to be euthanized. Two of those, Tierce admitted to investigators, had been left at his clinic to be euthanized.
The third, a black-and-white border collie that Tierce identified as his own, was found twitching in pain in a box on an exam room floor with one missing leg, one dislocated leg and two dislocated shoulders, according to court documents
The border collie was taken to another vet, who found that it also suffered severe mouth disease, cataracts, and a degenerative and untreatable neurological disease. It was later euthanized.
Another dog had been lying in a cage in the exact same spot for more than 10 months, according to one of the clinic's employees.
Tierce initially called the accusations "a bunch of hooey," but later confessed to police after turning himself. "He said he had not euthanized the dog even though in his professional opinion he knew it needed to be," the police report states.
He was released Wednesday night after posting $10,000 bail. On Thursday, Tierce's license was suspended by the Texas State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, which will hold a hearing for his case later this month in Austin.
[Image via AP]