Let me begin to explain my bad experience with this practice. We selected this particular vet because of the wonderful reviews on YELP and proximity to our home. From the moment we dropped off our 6 month old puppy at 8:30 am on 6/18/19 for a spay surgery, we had a bad feeling. The technician told us that the doctor would call us at around 12 noon to give me us an update on the surgery. The doctor ended up calling us at around 3pm. In the meantime, we were worried sick that something had happened to our puppy.
We picked up the puppy at around 5pm that day. She had some blood on the incision, and in my opinion, she should have been cleaned up much better. Dr. Wehrli explained the post operative care and was somewhat dismissive and told me that everything I needed to do was written in the paper that he was giving to me. I still had some follow-up questions but he seemed impatient and didn't want to answer any more questions.
Our puppy came home. We knew that the first two days or so would be the hardest. She was in pain, didn't want to eat or drink and was lethargic. By the way, we never received a follow up call after the surgery. On day 3, I decided to call the vet because she was getting worse and we were worried. It was after business hours, 6:05 pm, and I left a lengthy message explaining how concerned we were about our puppy's health. I was expecting a call early the next day but that didn't happen. When I started calling at 9am the next morning, I was getting a busy signal or the beep of a fax machine. I called more than 10 times. I asked a friend who lives very close by to stop and inform the health technicians that I was very worried and wanted to get in touch to tell them about my concerns. When my friend went inside the clinic, one of the technicians told her that she had 11 other people she had to call and that I had to wait. She even showed her the list of the 11 people who were more important than us. My friend called me from there and put me on speaker phone. This technician was very rude and told me that she had not said this. I told her that my puppy had surgery with Dr. Wehrli at that practice and that I couldn't understand how they don't follow-up to calls that should be considered emergencies. This was urgent for us!! At that point, her response was "you can come in but you are going to have to wait a long time."
After hanging up, I said to myself, do I want to have my dog be seen by people who clearly have no interest in the well being of your animal. You are just a number there. So sad! I would never recommend this practice to anyone! There is a lack of professionalism!
We called another vet who told us to immediately bring our dog because the symptoms she had were not normal. The moment we arrived there, the level of care and compassion was admirable. They immediately took our puppy to the back, gave her chicken and made her comfortable before examining her. It turned out the incision was a bit infected and they had to clean the area really well. She was running a low grade fever, the stitches were attached to some of her fur (they had to cut some hair) and this was causing her pain. The fur was pulling on her stitches.
They put a dressing to cover the area. She now doesn't need to wear the cone and is protected. The anti-inflammatory medication that had been prescribed at Family Pet Veterinary Practice was the wrong dosage. They had to adjust it and ended up giving me antibiotics as well. Our Olive left the examining room being a happy, cheerful puppy! We are so lucky that Benson Animal Hospital took excellent care of her. We still need to go back this weekend so that they can change her dressing and monitor the incision since the original sutures performed by Dr. Wehrli might not be binding very well. We will have to keep a close look at this.
I wouldn't recommend bringing your pet to Family Pet Veterinary Practice. These past few days have been so draining to our family. I think that we would have appreciated a call from the doctor to ease our concerns. We never received a follow-up call to see how our puppy was. That was all! Just showing us that you care!
This was missing from our experience with Family Pet Veterinary Practice! read more