I would highly recommend steering clear of this animal "hospital". There is only one doctor, Dr…read more Nickel, and not one single person that I know who has brought a pet here has had a good experience. I cannot speak for them, but my personal experience with my puppy showed malpractice and the way that he handled my concerns was unacceptable.
My puppy's knee had a widened growth plate and needed immobilization. He kept her for over 5 hours, and I had assumed that he was sedating her in order to put a splint on her, and she needed the time to "sober up". However, when I went to pick her up, I was informed that she had not been sedated. In fact, she had sat there in a cage the entire time with no one to comfort her until he could get around to slapping a 15-minute splint on her.
Here is where I have an issue with the splint. My puppy's issue was in her knee, and Dr. Nickel claimed that the splint was designed to immobilize that joint and she should still be able to walk on it while keeping pressure off of the injury. However, the splint that he put on did not fit. At all. He put a splint on her leg that was almost as big as she was. My puppy is 10 pounds, and he put a splint that clearly reads "large". After it was removed, my room mate (who has training in veterinary care, and who helped point out to me all of the flaws in her treatment) put the splint up to her 50-pound adult dog to show me how it was supposed to fit. The rounded top of the splint came up above my puppy's hip at least three inches, and the splint extended past the end of her foot at least another three inches, keeping her from walking on it at all without twisting at the hip very unnaturally. The extra plastic at the top also kept her from being able to sit comfortably- in fact, if she tried to sit in more than one position, her leg would twist under her and the plastic would dig into her ribs.
There were also several issues with how the splint was wrapped. My puppy's leg had no wrap or gauze to protect it from the plastic, which would have caused sores by the end of the week if I had allowed her to stay that way. Additionally, because the splint was too large, there was at least a thumb's breadth of space on either side of her leg that allowed for movement within the splint itself. The only wrap that was on this splint was just around the outside of the plastic and around her leg, and it was so tight in a couple places that it was hitting several pressure points and causing a lot of discomfort. Finally, and most importantly, the splint did not immobilize the joint that it was supposed to. The splint came well up above her hip, but the wrap actually stopped at her knee, and her knee was the pivot point of the entire apparatus.
My room mate is an RN for animals and my mother is an RN for people, and when they saw the splint that was put on my puppy, they both wanted it off of her straight away. They didn't want her to spend the night with it like that. Not only was it twisting her leg at the hip at very unnatural angles, but it was also bending at the knee when I was under the impression that it was the knee that was the problem, and it was causing the puppy a lot of distress. I wanted to get a second opinion, however, and took her to Atlantic Animal Hospital the next day.
I saw two different doctors there, and they said that the splint was at least three sizes too large for my puppy. They said that it should have been re-sized- those splints are designed to be easily adjustable if needed, and Dr. Nickel just didn't take the time to do it. He had said that he usually specializes in larger dogs, but I didn't take that to mean that he wouldn't be equipped to treat my puppy. They also confirmed that the splint that was put on her was definitely NOT immobilizing the knee, and they removed it immediately and put a soft splint on her, which is exactly what she needed. We had to take whole new x-rays as well, because the x-ray that Nickel took was almost completely burned out, and no one could see anything on it. This shows that he couldn't really see what was going on himself, and he also exposed my female dog, who I want to breed, to an unnecessary amount of x-ray radiation. When I confronted Dr. Nickel about the sizing of the splint, he obstinately claimed that the splint must have slipped and maintained that he had wrapped it properly, and refused the refund for service that I requested, saying very rudely "I'm not giving you anything."
That splint should never have been put on my puppy. This is one of the most simple treatments a vet can perform for an animal, and he just slapped on whatever he had lying around without putting any care into it or making sure that it did what it was supposed to do to heal my dog. If I hadn't brought her to Atlantic for a second opinion, she would have lost her leg. Let me save everyone a trip- Atlantic is loving and thorough, and 7 miles away. Go there first.
