Share your veterinary nightmares---or why I hate vets! - Page 9

the dog that went in for ears and was said to be HW neg by Dr M, Went to Dr. C when the ears didnt clear up, Chronic ear infection.stronger antibiotics and momentamaxx after flushing... had him retest for HW and was a strong POS. Good thing I hadnt started her on heartgaurd yet, it would have killed her.

All I have to add , is I have heard almost all the above instances from one or more of my customers with my pups, and my immediate response to the owners of my pups....get your dog out of this vets office...I send home with my customers,,, do;s and don'ts let vets sell you or do these things.....cant even begin to tell you how many of them were scared to death by their vet that their ears would never stand without the vets help to the tune of 75.00 to 100.00 , and look at the way your pups sits , his Hips are bad...here is what you need to give your 19 week old pup....a bottle of 65.00 gluco/condrit/ pills and have him /;her spayed /neutered immediately and then there were all the misdiagnosis of   Dermadectic , with the same message to the buyer.....call the breeder and tell her she needs to go out of business....

Good thing,  my two vets , I have here, now , who I love and can trust,,,,know when I call and say , Im sending you a patient from another vet office who says ,,,,,,,,,,,this and that....they get prepared for the poor customer who needs nerve pills...and that doesnt have a sick pup, but the owner is sick with fright and unhappiness.

It is so horrible to have to tell all my customers,    please go to my vet,,,because the one your using has already caused many of their customers a bunch of money on  misdiagnosed visits, and sold them dangerous items not needed in a german shepherds body....

Vets are not nutritionist and I have the same problem with Raw feeding , from most vets in this area...Customers are torn between believing me or the vet....

I have the highest regard for the two vets here in TYLER AREA, and  my vet in Galveston, and LaMarque, who have helped me and talked me thru funny things, that I worried about years ago...they have taught me how to diagnosis and not worry.

My vets dont see very many of my dogs and some of mine have never darkened the door of a vets office..I use one vet who holds a monthly Rabies clinic for only 9.00 for a rabies shot on the second Sat . of every Month all year long...like Bob-O says, I dont need a vet to examine my healthy german shepherd that I monitor , and know the very being of health on, to get a rabies shot...

I handle all my own shots, meds and wormings and always have.  My vets have given me all the secrets they know and all the home remedies to keep my dogs healthy...

I don't hate vet's but they do get away with murder literally!  They need to be taken in hand legally and constitutionally.

I rushed to vote on this petition and perhaps you guys may want to also as they seem to be a lawless bunch of hacks.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/VETOVERCHARGING/

Just a crazy thought here, but don't you ever think the Vets themselves could possibly be thinking when they see a breeder come through the door 'Oh, no, here comes another know it all".... just because you breed doesn't mean you know everything about Veterinary Medicine... knowing your own dogs inside out is different to knowing Medicine..... just a thought...

Well... I have a 14 year old chihuahua who has developed a cardiac problem. Enlarged heart which causes a mechanical problem of pressing on the wind pipe and makes her cough.  This isn't the ususal cardiac Insufficientcy, with fluid building up in the lungs.  As I worked for 25 years as a Vet Tech I knew taking her in what was going on, but the 24 year old newly graduated Vet wanted to do X-rays ($100-200) a Cardiogram ($300), a senior blood pannel ($85), and full vaccination for Distemper and Rabies ($75) plus the Office call ($45)... so we're talking $750 before we even begin to treat my 8 lb 14 year old dog.  I'm on disability now, and that's a full month's "income"... not to mention the medications that she would need. I refused to have all the tests done, much to Jr's displeasure... and she called in the Senior Vet... who has known me for 20 years. Fortunately he checked my take on what was going on and agreed 100%.  He put her on Enacard, and lasix... to reduce the size of the heart and help with any fluid build up... and we started her on a trial cardiac med called Vetmedin and a low dose of Hydrocodone (also to help reduce the size of the heart)  reduced my charge from close to $1000 to abou $125... and we have a monthly meds charge of almost $100 for her.  I don't mind spending money on medication... or NEEDED diagnostic tests... but tests done just for the curiosity factor of "how bad is bad" that won't really change the diagnosis, nor treatment are being stuffed down well meaning but ignorant client's throats.  Cocoa can live for 10 months on what the inital tests would have cost if I hadn't known better.

   Modern Vet medicine is great... and in increased availability of testing procedures is great... but the overhead is pricing basic health care out of the range of the average person or family.   Vaccines that cost the vet $7 to purchase are administered and the client charged $75. AND AN OFFICE CALL!!  Without Rabies clinics (many also will provide Distemper vacs) it's a huge burden on the multiple pet owner.

I'm new here, but I can understand the thread here.  I agree with KenyaM...Most responsible dog owners, especially breeders, know their dogs better than a vet that only sees them once in a while.  And as for the office visits, my mother in law has never taken any of her dogs to the vet for even shots...much less testing for anything...strangely enough, for the absence of that 'essential medical care' all her dogs have lived long and healthy lives, dying at ages of more than twelve years.  Currently, I don't have a dog, but our old dog who passed away nearly a year ago, was about 14, and she'd only been to the vet because of injuries sustained because of a driver speeding through OUR driveway, and having been shot before my husband got her.

I'm intending to get another German Shepherd in the spring, and I'll be following my own conscience when it comes to medical care.  From what I've been reading here, and my own studies, it seems to me that dogs are given many of the same medications as people, for the same conditions.  Based on that, I'd bet that Holistic Medicine for dogs also utilizes the same herbs, etc, as for humans.

As for vet stories, this isn't related to Shepherds, but about fifteen years ago, my family adopted a Collie from a local animal shelter, that had been neglected horribly.  He had huge mats on him, and huge sores on his skin.  The shelter's full time vet told my mother that the dog had an allergy to fleas and that he needed to take some kind of medication, as well as have a prescription topical flea medication used, and that might help.  Mom called a groomer and described the condition to her.  She told us that what was wrong was 'Hot Spots' caused by the mats ripping at his skin and him licking at them.  Guess what?  After a full bath, good brushing out, and cutting the worst of the mats, as well as a couple of weeks of good food and time to heal, the 'allergy' cleared up, and he never again had a problem with his skin in all the years he lived after that.  In my experience, it's all about the money.  All medicine is more or less about money, regardless of the species practiced on.  It's amazing to consider the amount of money thrown away in this country every year for unnecessary medical care for people and animals.....

Crystal

 I don't hate Vets..in fact i've been in love with one for over 12 years now..So I live with ones, I have friends who are vets and I work in a vet clinic!!  Don't  forget that they have been teached to be generalist..they don't know about breeds and all their specific problems.  As a breeder t is important to find one that knows about different breed and are interested into knowing more by talking to reputable breeders and go see shows once in a while..  

But I do understand the horror stories you all talking about..The  vets (5) where I work are pretty much competant except for one..the boss LOL.  We have managed this situation by  giving him appointement for things like vaccines and regular easy stuff...we keep the medical problems for the good ones..We the technicians control the agenda. We ain't going to change him, he is too old for that now so we try to limit the chance for mistakes.

Here(montreal) vets are under stricts rules, have regular inspections and are not aloud to sell medications without seing the animals.  Can't vaccinate without an exam ( you can't buy vaccine here like in US)  Only the vets are aloud to vaccinate animals. Breeders and regular folks can't play vets around here...

The other way around is true too...How many backyard breeders come in the clinic looking  like they know it all.  How many dogs we have seen being bred at one year old without x-rays done.  Dogs with chain stuck in their neck from being tight to a dog house. Breeders that think only $$$$$.  the more puppies they produce and the more they sell.  The one that are sick are just throwed in dumpster to die.  I can go on and on..and those are GSD breeders too.  It really breaks my heart and one of the main goal in the clinic is to educate people where to buy their dogs.  Where to find good breeders.

So did I have bad experiences with vets?? Of course..but I had much more bad experiences with backyard breeders who just don't give a f... about their dogs..

Money rules this world...and it's not about to change soon unfortunatly..

Julie

Well, windwalker, rabies vax is the LAW, and the vet is certainly entitled to charge for an office visit.  Also hard to argue with a distemper vax.  Why would you blast a veterinarian for that?  Sheesh.

I would have refused all those tests, too, but really - if you REALLY want to know what's going on, well, that's what you do, run all those tests.  You people seem to forget that while we're all screaming about the vets ripping us off, the other half of their clientele will scream even louder if they're NOT getting offered all the tests available for precious poochie.

I work with many wealthy people - and yes, they demand the same level of care for their pets as they get from their own people doctors and they willingly pay for it.  To them it's normal.  Unless your vet knows you well, as the brand-new vet didn't yet have that chance, how are they to know which group you're in?  The senior vet, "who knew you for 20 years" knew which one you were and dealt with it accordingly. 

One of the reasons vet prices have gone so high is that now people expect that their vet's office will possess all the latest technology IF they should ever need it.  Vet doesn't have that stuff, he's considered behind the times and will lose clients.

btw, 24yo and already graduated from vet school?  If this was in the U.S. that's pretty amazing.  That means they got through 4 years of undergrad and a MINIMUM of 4 years of vet school plus passed their licensing exam, and probably means they got into vet school on the first try, which is hard to do.  Pretty smart.

I agree with Julie...there are bad vets and even worse backyard breeders who don't care about the dogs they produce.  BTW, I'm not sure I'd call them 'breeders" though...maybe substandard small-scale puppy factories, what we around here call puppy mills.  And a new vett, 24 and practicing already...either really booksmart or actually smart, but the fact is that this vet has very little actual experience in the real world.

The sad thing is that there are vets who get into the field for the money, not the animals.  There is a vet in my hometown here.  We used to have a feed mill next to a vet clinic, and I watched the younger vet at the clinic handle dogs in the back yard after surgery.  I remember one old dog he was going to euthanize, that could barely walk. He was really hard on that poor dog, jerked it all around and just generally being horrible, but at least, when he euthanized it, in the same backyard later, when the owners were holding it and crying over it, he pretended to actually care about the dog.  My husband and I call this vet Dr. Freak, and we don't take animals to him, ever.  When the senior vet retires eventually, my guess is that seventy percent of his clients will go elsewhere, as well they should.

I've noticed people on this list referring to Science Diet as 'Science Death'.  Never used the stuff, although the local shelter, who now refuses all donations of dog food, uses and sells the stuff (40# for $44, which is too much for anything but the very best food).  What's with the opinion on SD?  Just curious.

Crystal