Bad Vets?

My (now deceased) Mother owned a cat that was just over a year old and seemed healthy. My Mother lived in a Senior Housing apartment. The "mobile vet" came around and my Mother handed over her cat for a simple exam, nail trim, shots etc. while she waited in her apt. The cat was returned within the hour but most of the teeth had been pulled because they were "bad". Needless to say they expected their pay and threatened her with legal action when she showed signs of anger and refusal to pay. As a daughter living out of state I learned all this after the fact. Not only was the cats quality of life altered for life my Mother had been taken advantage of due to her trusting nature and lived with the guilt of this mistake for the remainder of her life. I feel the behavior called for criminal prosecution. But cats often times adapt and this one adapted pretty well to his tooth loss....

On Thursday, March 11th, I took my seriously ill cat to my vet. I had called ahead and was told by the staff to bring her in and the she would be evaluated and when the doctor came in at 3pm she would be seen by him. I dropped Grace off at noon, assuming that since this was a serious respiratory infection and she was 17 years old, all care would be given to see her treated immediately. I was tragically wrong. When I called my vet, who runs the clinic with her husband is on maternity leave, to tell her that Grace was there, she told me her husband was off that day and the fill in vet would be seeing Grace. She also said she would call the office and check on Grace. My vet never checked. When I called the clinic at 4 pm to check the progress, I was told Grace still had not been seen. I immediately went to the clinic to collect my pet and found that they had left Grace in her carrier, struggling for breath for over 4 hours. The office manager who has no veternarian credentials was left in charge that day and instead of evaluating Grace as promised, had left her locked away in a room, in her carrier, because Grace was "too difficult to handle." I rushed my now failing cat to the emergency clinic 10 miles away. These wonderful people immediately took Grace in and got her into an oxygen chamber to calm the now stressed and dying animal and to give me a chance to discuss options with the vet on service. Because of Grace's deteriorated condition and her age, we felt it best to humanely end her suffering.
I wish I could publically name the idiots who caused such suffering to my elderly kitty, unfortunately that is not yet an option. I say yet, because I intend to file a complaint with the state licensing board for allowing this kind of practice to continue.
I am very grateful to the emergency vet who was there for my Grace and can only wish I had the good sense to take her to them in the first place.

My former vet also cared for my brother's Alsatian, Grizzly Bear. Brother and SIL wanted to go camping and boarded Griz at the vet's facility. The vet said Griz had to take meds for a time prior to boarding to immunize against kennel cough and they followed the instructions religiously.

Whilst on vacation, they decided to visit Griz since they missed him. Since Griz was of champion bloodlines on both sides, they left explicit instructions at the facility along with special food and exercise instructions.

When they got there,unannounced, the vet tech gave them grief for not making an "appointment" before arriving even though it was during normal business hours. Griz had only been there for a week at that point. The alarms went off and bro/SIL demanded to see Griz. They were horrified at what they found!

There was Griz in a cage, very depressed, lying in his own feces, his fur filthy, no food or water in his dishes and the place stunk to high heaven! Not only that, he had a severe cough and was segregated from the other animals. When my brother demanded answers, they accused them of bringing the dog in too soon and that he developed kennel cough and had to be quarantined.

Needless to say, my brother went beserk and very loudly demanded to see the head person, who then said bro would have to pay costly fees to cure the kennel cough and would have to be paid up front prior to treatment! I will not repeat the expletives that spewed very loudly from bro's mouth; however, bro made one point exceptionally clear, which was...

The dog was removed that very moment from the facility, AT NO CHARGE or they would be sued, complaints would be filed with the various authorities, they will return Griz's food (which the vet didn't feed him during that time - he used it for another animal...oh yes, brother demanded the money for that too and got it) and lastly, ALL MEDICATIONS AND FOLLOWUP VISITS FOR KENNEL COUGH WOULD BE NO CHARGE!!! My brother also made a point of saying that, god forbid, if Griz died, the vet clinic, their staff and corporate offices would be on the front page of all media scrutiny and he would make it his mission to contact EVERY customer they had to tell them what happened and convince them to find another vet!

Needless to say, his point was received, accepted and they coalesced. After all that, they changed vets pronto as did I with Sadie. The best news, though, is that Grizzly Bear made a full recovery.

Money is at the heart of any bad vet behaviour in my view or at least it has a major influence. And I mean chasing money...! Prioritising money over welfare and this is a modern phenomenon.

I do have a sort of bad vet story. But I'm not about to type the whole thing up, you can read it here in the month of February.

Nile Chilli Pepper (read the story before reading below- update July 2012 - link broken)

Anyway, I was an absolute mess and was worried sick for my little baby, and despite the fact that I was crying a river and the vet had taken about half an hour to get there (even though I called up as an emergency!!!!!) he decided to sit around and look for Chilli's files, not matter how much I tried to explain that Chilli had no files he wouldn't listen! And when convinced that I was right, he started going through my old Aby's files, in the mean time I was still crying and I had a kitten moaning in pain! When we finally got him checked out I was told that it wasn't bad but it could have been and that's $150 for calling emergency services!! Never doing that again! Gee I was mad, I wanted to slap the old bugger in the face and tell him where to shove that $150. But, I reluctantly didn't because all I wanted to do was get my boy home and forget about what had happened....

B Howarth, it makes you wonder whether a vet had even looked at your cat before you phoned to say you were collecting him.
Michael, that is awful,that vet putting money before your cats health !
I worked for vets for many years and met both good and bad vets but the emphasis was on the animals health and welfare those days, not on making money.
We changed practices with our cats a couple of years back after losing one of our much loved cats with a chest complaint.We saw all 4 vets at the practice over the course of 2 months, despite X Rays and many tests they couldn't diagnose Popsy's problem,she was in and out of their hospital, each time she came home we had to take her back as her breathing problems started again.Eventually we got to see the vet we really trusted, she kept her in for 2 days, then refered us to a cat specialist.Popsy looked even worse when we collected her and she died on the way to the specialist that same day.We didn't get a satisfactory answer to why we hadn't been refered to a specialist earlier,we didn't even know there was one very close to where we live ! Needless to say all this cost us hundreds of £££ and we were even sent a huge account for the last time Popsy was in their hospital and no apology that she had died.
Now even though I'm sure there must be good vets at our new practice, we've lost trust in all vets.One thing for sure,I'd never follow a vet nurse career nowadays if I was starting out again because to me animals health and welfare should always come before making money.