"Owner in stand-off at DSPCA site over return of dog ashes"

Why is this even news?

Happening every day in vet clinics across the country.

Its quite a complicated issue, could it have been handled better? Hard to say with the way this has been reported. When was the right to bring up the outstanding bill? When she's standing in the waiting room with her dog in her arms? She could afford to pay for individual cremation, how galling then, for them to be left with an unsettled bill.

Quite frankly, considering she rang her insurance company prior to trying to collect the ashes, she presumably was aware, or had been told that there was money owed. She probably agreed to the cremation at the time, confident that she could get it sorted out when she went home, and when she contacted the insurance company, she discovered that she couldn't.

Its absolutely standard policy across the board to have accounts settled before ashes are released. There are plenty of unclaimed ashes sitting around in vet clinics, and plenty of unsettled bills. People voluntarily sign up to pay in excess of €300 to have their pets cremated, but they'll quibble about €50 owed in services to the vets.

Its disheartening to think the DSPCA will get negative press for this.

They are the one hospital that are in a position to do what's best for the animal in most incidences as they will take animals signed over to them where the owner cannot pay / is in debt to other clinics.

The hospital is a private clinic, they need to ensure its profitable. They are a lot more stringent then some other clinics but no more so then any of the hospitals offering similar services (UCD/Emergency care)