Are there any good veterinarians anymore?

[tallyho8]

Ever since they started selling health insurance for pets, veterinarians have started charging as much as the insurance companies will pay making it even harder for people with no pet insurance to be able to afford a vet. In my area I am no longer able to get a vet out for my horses because all the vets gave up on horses and switched to just dogs and cats because they make so much more money on them and much quicker.

We have owned a mutt for 10 years that we rescued from the pound the day before they were going to put her down because she had heartworms. She had been owned by a person who neglected her and was accused of abuse and had the dog taken from them when she was 1 year old. I treated her for heartworms and took great care of her for the next 10 years and she was a great watchdog.

As she aged she slowed down a little and would lope to the barn with me on the golf cart which was 1/4 mile from my house and then she would walk back. Suddenly, within a week, she stopped eating her food and started losing weight and energy fast. I took her to a vet to be checked out. The only thing the vet could find wrong with her was that she had fleas and he thought they might have given her an infection so he gave me some antibiotics to give her.

A week later she had lost another 5 pounds and could barely walk 50 feet. I took her to another vet who examined her and said the only thing he could find wrong was she had hookworms and gave me some wormer to give her and a different antibiotic. She would only eat hamburgers and steak and no kind of dog food at all.

The next week it was evident she was dying and I brought her to a large animal clinic that was referred to me. They gave her lots of tests and could find nothing wrong with her but gave me a different antibiotic to give her. A few days later she was skin and bones and could not even get up and was drooling and would eat nothing. I had to carry her to a vet and have her put down. I had now spent well over $1000 on vet bills just to have them tell me I had a healthy dog that was dying for some unknown reason. I couldn't control my tears as she slipped away.

I have had at least 50 dogs in my lifetime and everyone of them had a reason for dying and I never had to put down a "healthy" dog before. This gave me much more stress than when I had to put down a dog with kidney failure or liver damage. This dog went from healthy to dying in one month due to veterinarian failure and I did everything in my power to save her. I would have liked to have a necropsy done on her just to find out what killed her but that would have been another $1000 and not helped her any. Are there vets out there anymore who do anything other than give dogs shots and worm them?

Thanks for listening to me vent. This seemed to help me find closure.

 

[tacticalturnip]

I'm sorry. That's heartbreaking and infuriating.

 

[square1]

Sorry about your experience. To the original question, I don't know, but there's going to be a lot ferrer in the not too distant future. Vets for large farm animals are already in very short supply.

 

[workinonit]

Good Vets are a dying breed. Our good vet around here sold out to a female vet with pink and purple hair and semi-retired. He still helps out when he is needed.

 

[riptides]

So sorry for your loss. You obviously were trying to do the right thing. That's what matters.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Out here in canada we only have 5 schools providing the course and they only take a handful of student a year so you need perfect grade and outstanding pre requisite to get in some people are push to pursue a different career or path like going to Europe and rack up crazy student loan... our current vet is like 60 year old and it doesn't look like there is anybody to replace him at sight... but it is crazy how a 5 minute vet visit is expensive a few vaccine and deworming and you get crazy bill.

 

[masseyrider]

I had a great vet taking care of my critters.
She's semi retired now and only looks after a few long term clients. Mutley and the gang still get their annual checkups and shots from her.
However the vets who bought her practice are just into it for the cash.
They always have reasons for X-rays, blood tests and on and on.
A friend took her cat there for worm pills. The cat choked to death on a pill they tried to force feed it. She still got a bill for $450.
Even if it hadn't choked, $450 for a F...ing worm pill. Disposal of the body was more.
Once my guys move on to the other side I won't be getting anymore. Their doctors costs more than mine.

 

[2manyrocks]

Our family's long standing vet passed away a few years ago. I don't recall him ever charging more than $20 for routine things. He was very accurate at diagnosis without having to run a lot of tests. I miss him terribly.

The vets that came afterwards have assistants and a lot of overhead. They run a lot of tests. The bills are much higher, but the quality of care isn't, but for some reason people in the community think they are great compared to the older vet whose experience dwarfed theirs.

The worst recent vet experience was when my daughter's cat became blocked. She took him to an overnight ER vet who wanted to charge her something like $2,000-$3,000 to treat him in the middle of the night. She called me about 2 am to discuss. Told her to get out of that ER office and bring him to our vet who charged about $80. He was fine afterwards.

We had a GSD mix who was as strong and healthy as can be. He suddenly started not being well. One vet charged me for a bunch of blood work and said he was sick because his dog food bowl obviously wasn't clean. Found another old school vet who looked at the blood work and said it was lukemia. Just a couple of weeks and he was gone.

We've had many pets and used a variety of vets. A select few were good. Most today seem dependent on running tests to make a diagnosis.

I'm sorry this happened. You did your best to give your dog a good life.

 

[ddbackhoe]

took great care of her for the next 10 years and she was a great watchdog.
Are there vets out there anymore who do anything other than give dogs shots and worm them?

Thanks for listening to me vent. This seemed to help me find closure.

Amazing how attached we get to our pets. Your friend gave you alot of good years and good memories. I’m sorry the end had so much heartache attached.
There are some really good vets still out there, finding them is tough. Getting on their schedule may be tougher yet. We are very lucky, the vet office we use does large and small animals, the docs (6) have a broad range of age and experience and they rely on each other when something unusual pops up. They even still do farm calls but are set up so that you can trailer in if you want.

 

[orezok]

I don’t know about other places, but out here VCA is buying up just about every independent vet service. They then double, triple or more raise their rates.

I’ve heard of instances where they demand $1,000 to $2,000 deposits before they will even look at an emergency pet.

 

[2manyrocks]

Vet bills are a good reason not to have pets.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Vet bills are a good reason not to have pets.

I would rather not bring them to the vet

 

[Oaktree]

Good Vets are a dying breed. Our good vet around here sold out to a female vet with pink and purple hair and semi-retired. He still helps out when he is needed.

Vets, period. We've had several close up shop around here over the last 10 years or so. Then again, if someone was a good vet, it wouldn't matter one bit to me what color her hair was or how many tattoos she had.

One thing I've noticed is a tendency to make you feel guilty for not obsessing over a pet's health. Maybe 15 years ago, I had a cat whose ear was kind of nasty looking, like it had an infection or something. Now I'm not one who considers pets "family members", but this vet managed to convince me to have surgery done on the cat. When I got it back, that ear, and part of the other had been removed, and the cat looked truly miserable. A few months later, I decided it was better to have it put down, and, again they tried to make me feel guilty for wanting to do that.
To this day I kick myself for putting the cat thru that, and have never again set foot in that practice.

Now maybe they do this because their customers increasingly demand that kind of treatment...those who consider their pets to be their "kids", but to me it's just wrong.

 

[masseyrider]

A friend of mine had an older beagle.
Found out it had cancer.
Paid over 20K to treat it and it died anyways.
I would never do that to my critters and it's not just the money.
If a person finds out they have cancer they can look at their options and decide what to do.
The poor animal has no idea. Can you imagine being taken into an operating room by aliens who are doing all sorts of things you have no idea about. Injecting you with stuff that makes you even sicker. You're in a totally foreign place with shiny lights...
After this horror show you die anyways.
I'm old school.
Should the worst scenario happen I would take them out, talk to them, reassure them and put them down in a manner they have no idea it happened.
This would be considered cruel and I'd have charges brought against me.

 

[Jstpssng]

The vet I went to since getting my first dog sold his business a few years ago and worked long enough for the new guy to get established, then retired. So far his replacement seems like he will be good. Another, who I liked equally as well just posted a notice stating he has been unable to find somebody to take over the business and was asking people to come pick up ant records they might need.

I am sorry to hear about your pup. It's hard enough to know when we can't help them ourselves, but to not be able to find out what is going on has to be worse.

 

[Rockbadchild]

This is tough situation and I understand you grief, to give the benefit of the doubt to the vet, like human medicine practice things are not always obvious. Doctors like Vets they are caring people and want to save you or your pets, human error happens in both cases, as example both of my grand parents die of human errors (miss diagnosed for my grandma and chain of unfortunate event cause by multiple human error causing a collapse of his immune system causing a pneumonia causing his death ). When you get a dieses that's not common it can be hard to diagnose, my dog had lungworm and it took a years to diagnose, my dog was the only case in our region so it wasn't common. She was fine but as soon as she would exercise she would puke phlegm. Usually vet know how expensive things are so they don't want to run unnecessary test so they usually start with the most likely and go down the line form there and they deal with customer on both side of the spectrum ether they want to spend the minimum amount of money and if its too expensive (but curable) they simply say put him down or they want him/her saved at all cost and run all possible test... Like doctors sometime you should get a second opinion...

My cousin have a old Crocker spaniel it was given to him while he was already pretty old... he had a lump on his side so he went to the vet, the vet told him its cancer he need to get operated... he said no he is too old its not worth it, the vet told him he is going to die within a year... he answer ho well lets be it then... he walked away and that's been over 5 years and the dog is still kicking...

My sister cat eat a something and was plug up and stop eating. Brought her to the vet got operated but the cat didn't survived, the vet only charge her for anesthesia and some administrative fee... not for the operation itself saving her over one thousand dollars... and I know a few examples like that from this vet

From all the stories above none of them was from the same vet.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Ever heard how Chris Distefano dog died ... I am also wondering about the other dog

 

[Egon]

Just remember that veterinarians require many years of eduction before they can set up a practice which in itself is an expensive operation.

If they work with large animals they can be injured and do get to work in some pretty ugly situations.

 

[joemd11]

OP, sorry for the loss of your dog. It’s always a miserable punch to the heart.
We’ve always had several pets so we’re no strangers at the vets office. It does seem that vets today are more reliant on tests ($$$) than going on a gut feeling or intuition. For example, two years ago we took our 13 year old Sheltie in because she seemed to be drinking more water than usual. Vet did a “wellness check” that included an exam, blood, urine, and fecal checks. All came back normal and they said she was in great shape. The very next month she was back at the vet and the diagnosis was that she had cancer which had spread to her heart and the recommendation was to put her down that day. We were shocked but followed their advice. My question was how could all that testing not show a cancer that had been growing for quite some time.
I have a few more examples but don’t want to be long-winded. I do think vets have one of the toughest jobs out there. The patient cant verbally tell you how or what they are experiencing. I guess what I’m trying to say is that expensive tests and procedures, that vets seem to be pushing, don’t always result in a good outcome.

 

[5030]

Just remember that veterinarians require many years of eduction before they can set up a practice which in itself is an expensive operation.

If they work with large animals they can be injured and do get to work in some pretty ugly situations.

At least here, licensed Vets have to be MD's (GP's) first. Just so happens that the guy I rent hay ground from is a vet and owns his own practice so we get excellent care for the animals at a reduce cost. In fact, he makes house calls.