We had such a terrible experience here....Alright let me begin with this, I am a Medical student and work at a Pediatric hospital, so I am far from a beginner when it comes to medicine and dealing with the public! Once my Residency begins I will be specializing in Neonatal ICU medicine and then will be a Neonatologist. So I have nothing to gain by posting this review and wish things had been more professional at this Veterinary Hospital, to call this dump a hospital makes my stomach cringe, this is "FAR" from a hospital. Its as bad as humanly imaginable!
What happened was, our hotel who told us verbally that they allow a dog, well once we arrived they said No dogs? The manager said our only options were to drive over to the local Vet for boarding or to drive the dog all the way 6 hours back home? Obviously we went to the vet to see about boarding. My dog is like a member of the family and has a better life than most people have, he is spoiled to death and pampered beyond belief. We were immediately greeted by a tech. who was a blonde around 40, she came over to pet the dog and got down on the ground with him, he recently went blind so we are very cautious with him, so first impression of the employee was very good! Right away they wanted the dogs shot records, obviously we did not have them, it was 6pm at this point and our vet in St Petersburg was closed, my dog is 12 lbs. and up to date on his shots. The vet tech. all of a sudden gets super nasty for no reason at all and says if you cant produce paperwork and have the vet fax them to us NOW, then you must pay us $220 so we can give him shots, and he needs a bath she said? The dog had a bath less than 24 hours before entering into this facility and he had beautiful white shiny coat of hair, he even smelled like coconut. Then the tech. says now that does not even include boarding costs, or other tests they may perform, I asked the cost of boarding and she did not even answer me? So here we are on vacation 375 miles from home and a dog the vet clinic would not except because our vet was closed and we had no way to prove he had his shots up to date, obviously we left and were not going to pay $220 for a booster shot LMAO, our local vet does that same shot for $28, their prices at this place were ridiculous, literally highway robbery times ten! This place should be closed down or condemned for what they do to people! They have NO knowledge of medications or that there is such thing as over medicating an animal, I even wrote to the Florida Governor about this clinic over the price gouging and corrupt practices! Its cheaper to take a baby to the doctor than it is to board a puppy at this facility. We ended up sleeping in the car with the dog that night and did not even go into our hotel room, the next day we found a motel that excepted the dog, but it was a very long night in the car and very, very hot. The best possible advice I can give to each and every person thinking about this Marathon Veterinary Hospital is, you would have to be filthy rich and a crazy to even consider this dump, its all about $$$$ to these folks and they could care less about the animals, they loved my dog until they found out we would not pay their prices, the minute we said no they turned into witches and even followed us out to the car, one tech. said you can afford a new top of the line Mercedes but cant pay for a yearly booster shot? I could have said plenty back but instead I just smiled and was the bigger person, she was so far beneath me that a response was not even needed. These people would not last one day in a real hospital, I don't know where they find tech's at, or how they even passed exams, the unprofessionalism is almost beyond words, if they tried one day where I work they would be fired in mere minutes, "literally". I would love to see each employees credentials because the thought of any of them assisting in surgeries gives me chills, I am trying not to think of that and hope it has gotten better since I was last there, which was October 2016. Locals in the Keys later told me this is a teaching Veterinary Hospital and well known for corrupt practices. That is even scarier to think about, what are they teaching by price gouging and charging outrageous bills to people who are experiencing difficulty with their animal, if anything they should try harder to accommodate everyone and not turn their backs on any animal, there is more to this world than money, but its obvious the doctor who runs this clinic does not know that, if he or she did they would not have such a corrupt staff, I have been in more than one teaching hospital and have many hours of clinical observations/shadowing, so believe me this is NOT how you run a practice! I know a few pet owners in the Key's and have warned them all about this place, some already heard from word of mouth, but others were glad to have a heads up. read more