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A Mesa veterinarian is being investigated by the state for alleged incidents of animal abuse, including the mysterious death of a chow puppy.
The vet, William T. Gray of Sysel Animal Hospital in Mesa, denies he’s an animal abuser and blames a former employee’s spite.
Late last month, the former employee, Betsy Strausser, filed a complaint with the Arizona Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners claiming that Gray kicked, hit, unnecessarily tranquilized and otherwise abused animals. Strausser also accused the vet of being too quick to use animal-restraint devices, zapping one dog with a cattle prod and purposely spraying a barking dog with kennel disinfectant.
Gray denies using a cattle prod on animals except to try to resuscitate them, denies overly using animal-restraint devices and says spraying the disinfectant on the dog was simply a mistake he made when he was cleaning the dog’s cage. He also says he uses tranquilizers sparingly with animals.
“I’ve been at this for eleven years and I have never had a complaint of this nature,” Gray tells New Times, adding that some of Strausser’s allegations are “flat-out lies and some are a matter of judgment and others I haven’t a clue.”
However, this isn’t the first time Gray has been in hot water with the state board. In 1989, when Gray was working at Veterinary Plus Vet Center in Chandler, the board put him on probation for four years after the veterinarian admitted he was hooked on synthetic codeine pills intended for animals.
Complaints lodged against Gray at the time said the vet also gave drugs intended for animals to staffers, and once laced a co-worker’s soda pop with a diuretic as a joke. The earlier complaints also accused Gray of animal abuse.
In a document he signed in 1989, Gray admitted to the veterinary board that he practiced medicine for a few months in an unlicensed hospital, failed to examine each animal before administering vaccinations, didn’t use sterile instruments during each surgery, and allowed his technicians to forge vaccination certificates, induce anesthesia, castrate animals and pull teeth.
In the current case, Strausser claims in her complaint that she “on several occasions witnessed Dr. Gray hit animals with excessive force and without provocation.” Strausser also wrote, “He has also been observed kicking animals and has gotten into long drawn-out fights using a rabies pole [a choking device used to restrain animals] on dogs.”
Judy Zingg, executive director of the veterinary board, says she’s unsure of when the investigation will be completed.
In addition to checking on Strausser’s complaints, the veterinary board is investigating another person’s allegation revolving around the death of a chow puppy shortly after it was treated by Gray.
Gray, a college football star and a 1981 graduate of the prestigious Colorado State University veterinary school in Fort Collins, denies he’s ever abused animals he treats. Gray’s file at the veterinary board includes glowing praise from colleagues in Colorado and Nevada, where he practiced before moving to Arizona.
In an interview the vet admits he got hooked on codeine because he was a weight lifter and it eased his muscular pain. But he says he’s been drug free for two years and submits to random urine testing. He says since he’s stopped taking drugs, he’s a changed man and a changed vet.
He pegs Strausser as an “overly sensitive” animal lover who launched a vendetta against him after he fired a co-worker who was one of Strausser’s best friends. Gray says Strausser has harassed him, his supervisor and his family with phone calls and appeared at one time to have been infatuated with him. Gray’s wife, Charlotte, says Strausser is an “absolute whacko” who is taking “pot shots” at her husband.
“I really feel she has a totally empathetic love for animals that kind of clouds her judgment,” the vet says of Strausser.
Strausser is unruffled by the Grays’ response and scoffs at the notion of having a crush on a man whom she considers an animal abuser.
“I agree that I am sensitive, but not overly so,” says Strausser, who says she’s not even a member of any animal-rights group. She began as a kennel worker at Sysel Animal Hospital in 1990, after a stint in a dry cleaning store. She says she didn’t mind the low pay–about $720 a month–because she was working with animals.
Strausser says she quit last month because she couldn’t take Gray’s “abuse” of animals anymore. She acknowledges making one phone call to Gray’s office and one to his supervisor demanding his resignation, but she denies harassing Gray and his family with phone calls.
Strausser isn’t the only person who is upset with the way Gray treats animals.
Julie Peters, who lives in the East Valley, says she recently brought her three-month-old chow puppy, Bruiser, to Gray to be treated for a skin condition that she believed to be an infected bite wound.
When the puppy nipped at Gray, Peters says, the vet asked her and a worker who was holding the dog to leave the room. Peters says she heard a lot of “commotion,” and a few minutes later Gray returned and said the puppy was in trouble. “I went into the room and he was basically dead,” says Peters of her dog. “His eyes were rolling at the back of his head and his tongue was hanging out. Blood was coming out of his nose and mouth. I was shocked. I took him in for a skin condition and thirty minutes later he was dead.”
Peters says Gray was sympathetic and offered to buy her a new puppy. She says he also suggested performing an autopsy.
Gray says he felt “terrible” about Bruiser’s death. He explains that the puppy fell off the examining table when he gave it a tranquilizing shot. “When it hit the ground, there was a thud you could hear,” he says, adding that the dog hit the floor “head-on.”
Gray says it was Peters who requested the autopsy. “So I did the autopsy and it looked like the dog had a couple of congenital problems. With all the excitement, a defect in the diaphragm popped,” he says.
“I love animals as much as the next guy,” he says. And he adds, “I feel deep down in my own heart and my own mind and my own soul that I have done nothing wrong.”
“I went into the room and he was basically dead,” Julie Peters says of her dog.
