A woman is suing a veterinarian for allegedly leaving a surgical instrument inside a puppy before the dog died

A Rhode Island woman is reportedly suing her veterinarian after her dog allegedly died after a surgical instrument was left in its abdomen.

Kristen Breton of Lincoln, Georgia, reported that she brought her Saint Bernard puppy, Princess Freckles, to Dr. Deborah Hirschmann at Rhode Island Animal Medical Center for sterilization and a routine stomach procedure in August 2022, according to a local news outlet. WPRI 12.

Breton told the facility that the medical center was not her usual veterinary office, but her preferred veterinary office was under construction at the time.

She added that Princess Freckles appeared to be recovering from surgery. However, she recalled noticing that her dog was developing minor stomach problems, which she initially attributed to a possible food allergy.

“It started to occur to me that maybe she was eating too much grass,” Breton recalled. “Because that’s what they do. You start to logically rule out: is it food hypersensitivity? Or is there something else going on?”

The St. Bernard’s symptoms began to worsen within two years – so much so that Breton said the dog was vomiting regularly. Breton remembered rushing her pet to another veterinary practice, where she underwent an X-ray. X-rays attached to the complaint appear to reveal a metal object in the dog’s abdomen.

According to the autopsy report attached to the lawsuit, the veterinarian reportedly told Breton that Princess Freckles would need to undergo invasive emergency surgery and that she might not survive due to her already severely weakened condition. It was at this point that Brenton made the difficult decision to put her 3-year-old dog to sleep.

“I didn’t expect to put her to sleep,” Breton told the website. “I never thought, not even in my wildest dreams, that I would come home without a dog.”

The autopsy also revealed that the object in Princess Freckles’ stomach was a surgical instrument called a hemostat and surgical gauze.

“It was the domino that put the whole story together,” Breton said. “I was furious that this could have been prevented and she was in pain the entire time.”

Breton and her family filed a lawsuit against Dr. Hirschmann, who has since been placed on probation, according to an order made public by Rhode Island Department of Health.

“This case is very much about giving a voice to the voiceless, because there is no one who has less of a voice than a non-verbal patient like a dog who cannot tell whether the pain he is feeling is more severe than a mere disease,” Marshall M. Raucci, a lawyer representing the Breton family, told PEOPLE in a telephone interview.

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“The law is really not on our side because it hasn’t gotten to where we are as a society,” he continued, noting that while claims for damages for destruction of livestock can be filed, Rhode Islanders cannot file wrongful death lawsuits in on behalf of their animals.

“So I went into this case knowing that the law definitely doesn’t apply here,” he said, adding that he hopes the case will “draw attention to the fact that we don’t have any of these laws” and encourages lawmakers to pass bills and legislation aimed at better protection of pets and their owners.

In a statement to WPRI, Dr. Hirchmann’s attorney, Lauri Christensen, said her client has been a veterinarian since 2011 and has “never experienced this type of surgical error.”

“Hirschmann was unaware that she had inadvertently left a piece of gauze and a pair of hemostatic agents in Princess Freckles’ abdomen,” she continued. “Hirschmann has a practice of checking the abdominal cavity after surgery, before closing the incision.”

On Sunday, January 12, PEOPLE reached out to Christensen and the Rhode Island Animal Medical Center, where Dr. Hirschmann worked at the time of the incident, for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.

I’m talking to a news outlet WDBJ 7Breton said she and her two children will never forget the freckles. “She just had a great personality. Everyone loved her.”