I debated writing this review but I just can't understand all the 5 star reviews, so I decided to share our story. This was the strangest most unprofessional experience we have ever had at a vet. We have 4 dogs, we have been to a lot of vets many times and this was just so not right.
We brought our dog here with some severe symptoms: not eating, drinking absolutely a ton of water, and dripping urine continuously (not just while sleeping, but awake too). Our dog has never missed a meal in her life so that was the first indication that something was very wrong. And then the puddles of urine was a big indication too.
1. First weird incident: We walked in and they put us right into a room, I didn't fill out paperwork or anything. They started examining her right away, so the doctor is talking to us and the vet tech is asking me our personal info (name, address, dogs info, etc) while the doctor is also talking. I am trying to listen and trying to give her info at the same time. He said he would recommend a full senior panel since she just turned 6, and is saying he would do it if it were his dog.
2. Second weird thing: They take her temperature (which keeps coming out high), so they keep trying new thermometers saying it must be because its so hot out that it's high. They advise we take her home and try to take her temperature later on our own. Red flag: if we reported our dog wasn't feeling well, why would you second guess your equipment? Why couldn't she have had a high fever? This made no sense to us. Fast forward after we left here we went to ANOTHER vet where they diagnosed her with way too high of a fever and hospitalized her right away with an IV to get her fever down and hydrate her. Not to mention when I looked up online how to take a dogs temperature it said it should be done rectally for accuracy and not to attempt yourself, go to a vet.
3. Third weird thing: They examine her and take some blood and then hand us a pan and tell us to go outside and collect a urine sample. Mind you it is 107 out! I'm not sure if anyones dog will pee for them while you hold a pan but there is no way our shy bladder dog was going to do that. We go outside for a good 10 minutes to humor them and when we absolutely are all sweating to death we come back in and tell them theres no way. So they give us a vile to take home and collect it ourselves later on. Any time we have ever brought her in for bladder/ kidney, etc related issues needing a urine sample they take her in the back and collect a urine sample for us.
4. Fourth weird thing: Any other time we have gone to a vet once they examine your dog they go over treatment or test options with you and show you a break down of pricing. This time however, when we walk back in from attempting a urine sample instead of taking us back in the room they literally said that will be $250. $250 for what? Not once did they go over what they were doing and what it would cost and then when i asked for a break down they said it's just all together for a blood test and urine culture (how were they going to test urine they don't even have yet)?. What?! So we pay the $250 and leave with our very sick dog.
So to recap:
They don't trust their thermoment, so we should check her temperature later.
They don't collect a urine sample but tell us to collect one at home.
They said her increased water consumption was because of the heat (it was not, and she was extremely dehydrated)
They weren't listening to what we were telling them about our dogs abnormal symptoms and were just going to send us home to wait to collect urine and take her temperature ourselves again.
After reassessing what had just happened we called back and requested that they refund us as this was ridiculous and they did nothing. They did refund us for the tests they had yet to do, but still charged us for the office visit. Which we felt horribly ripped off for. We still had to go to another vet to get proper diagnosis and treatment.
On the positive side, both the vet and the tech were very friendly. We just weren't happy with the unprofessionalness of it all, being charged blindly without a proper breakdown and approval, and them sending us home with a potentially fatally sick dog. read more