Culture at the vet

I took our cat, Sunny, to out Turkish vet last week. As i was waiting in the sitting room, i became a part of a conversation between the vet and a lady whose rabbit had just died.
"But i can't bear to tell her that it died, so i lied to her and said that we had to take it to the hospital."
The vet replied,"of course, we will keep to that story when she comes in."
"Should i tell her that the rabbit died? She cries every day now about it."
"The best thing to do is to tell her the truth, she needs to deal with the realities of life at a young age. If you don't tell her now, then when a relative dies and you lie to her, she will not be ready to deal with reality of death then either."
"Ok, i will tell her then."
(she turns to me at this point to ask my opinion on the subject matter)
The vet continued, "but we will tell her that the rabbit died in the hospital so as to not make you out to be liar!"
This discussion was a good window into the Turkish culture of lying to protect our loved ones from pain. Often they don't not tell a loved one that their relative has died and so hide it from them as much as they can. My biblical response: speak the truth in love. often times as Westerners we speak the truth too abruptly without thought of the affect it might have on the hearer. But living in turkey has often made me question my cultural values: are they biblical ones as well or just cultural? Yes, lying is wrong and one of the sins that God hates. (proverbs 6:16-17) But how and when we go about telling the truth might be a cultural value. So God give me the grace to tell the truth and the wisdom to know when and how to do it!