A disabled Navy veteran was left devastated after her emotional support animals were adopted while she was unconscious in hospital for nearly two weeks.
Mandy Shannon-Vazeery, 38, a former Navy corpsman who is battling a serious neurological condition called hydrocephalus, suffered a traumatic episode linked to her PTSD which left her hospitalized in October.
While she was in the hospital, her beloved corgi Max and Siamese cat Charlie were seized by San Diego Humane Society after a neighbor found them, Shannon-Vazeery told ABC7.
Despite being microchipped, the pets were adopted to different families within days after the shelter failed to make contact with Shannon-Vazeery.
The pets were handed to new owners on October 8 and 12 respectively – and when the shelter approached the new families about returning the animals, they declined.
The heartbroken veteran, who served seven and a half years in the US Navy before medically retiring at 26-years-old, described Max and Charlie as ‘literally my whole world’ and said she now feels ‘awful.’
‘I feel so awful. I can’t even begin to describe the feelings behind this,’ she told ABC7. ‘I’m just begging these people to just take into account that I was in the hospital, I didn’t mean for this to happen.’
‘I really love my boys. They’re really good pets and they are service animals and they do serve a purpose and I just wish I could be reunited with them,’ Shannon-Vazeery added. ‘At least one of them. It just hurts so badly.’
They beloved pets were registered emotional support animals crucial to managing her mental health.
‘I have these — they’re sort of episodes of disassociation and I wouldn’t say loss of consciousness, just loss of awareness and mental acuity and just being present kind of just goes out the door,’ said Shannon-Vazeery.
‘My plan was to join the nurse corps and get my RN and take it as far as I could go. That was my plan, so. I kind of had a role reversal with becoming the patient and not the caretaker,’ Shannon-Vazeery told the outlet. ‘I have a condition called hydrocephalus, which is an accumulation of cerebral spinal fluid on the brain,’ she added.
‘Although it was out of my control and I certainly didn’t intend for any of this to happen, there’s a lot of guilt. I wonder how they’re doing, if they’re okay,’ said Shannon-Vazeery.
The shelter claimed they made multiple attempts to contact Shannon-Vazeery before adopting out the animals, including mailing notices, calling contact numbers, and emailing.
The pets apparently escaped when she left to the hospital and the door was left open.
‘Max was brought in by a community member who found him as a stray and had him for 24 hours. Charlie was brought in by a community member after the door to the former owner’s apartment was left open and several people had to secure the home; it was uninhabitable, and Charlie had been left behind,’ Nina Thompson, the Director of Public Relations with SDHS told the outlet.
‘The property manager attempted to make multiple attempts to contact Charlie’s owner to no avail, so the decision was made to bring Charlie to the shelter.’
The shelter’s policy is to hold the animals for 72 hours before putting them up for adoption.
‘As a courtesy to the previous owner, we reached out to the pets’ new adopters to see if they would be willing to return Max and Charlie. However, the adopters have chosen to keep them as cherished members of their families, which we recognize is their right, as they now have legal ownership of the pets,’ Thompson said.
‘This is why, it is imperative for anyone who has lost their pet to connect with shelters and microchip companies to let them know when they are missing.’
Shannon-Vazeery is now left decastated without her emotional support animals.
‘They’re a huge part of my life. They’re literally my whole world,’ she said.