What do you like about your vet?

[Marsha Cassada]

Took one of my hroses to the vet today. Hawk went for a dental checkup, but I had a few other things to ask about:

The little spot on his belly that is sometimes raw looking concerned me. It is the umbilical stump, and because it is hairless, flies irritate it more. I can be extra alert about that.

A raw spot on his foot above the hoof, which turned out NOT to be something terrible, but a simple wound from pasture vegetation.

Inside his ears--can horses get ear mites? He said he had never seen a horse with ear mites. Lice, yes, but not mites.

He is not a chatty vet; I have to ask questions. But he answers them readily. And he never treats me as though I am a silly female for noticing every small thing about my hroses.

This is a vet in a rural area, whose practice includes lots of cattle work and farmers/ranchers. So I apreciate him taking the concern for my horses seriously.

His barn is also clean.

 

[mininik]

I go to a vet that's 30 minutes from here even though there are MANY OTHERS (including one within walking distance) in the area. I get along well with the vet and most of his staff. He was there for me at 9 PM on a Saturday when one of my dogs had a serious head injury. The office is lovely, the vet answers questions honestly and the pricing is fair. The only thing I don't like is that they push Science Experiment and other lower quality products, but I just ignore that in favor of all the rest. If I could find a similar practice that promotes natural/holistic/homeopathic/alternative medicine in this area you can bet I would make the switch.

OOPS! I almost forgot about the above mentioned dog's specialist (opthamologist) vet. We drive two hours one way to see her. Again, the office is lovely, the vet answers questions honestly, the staff is nice and the pricing is... ouch, but worth it. The only thing I don't like is that they'll schedule me for a certain time and expect me to be there, but I may end up waiting an hour or more past my time to see the vet.

 

[anoki]

how many vets DO I have!!! LOL

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Moxie's (and eventually the pups') Chiropractic vet!!! He also does accupuncture treatments in conjunction with the chiro work. I drive an hour one way to his clinic. He is really a horse vet, and we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE him for the horse work too, but it is hard to book him to come out our way, and we can't use him for emergencies. I don't like any of the other vets in his practice, so I only use him for chiro work. He is always bang on with his diagnosis too!!!!! Which is why we like him soo much for the horses!!! He is only in his clinic one week out of four, so it's hard to catch him in clinic. When he is in, he is BOOKED solid!

My local vet clinic we have started using for horses. The older horse vet, I do not like....I will not get him for a vet call for my minis nor my big guy. The newer (well she's been there for a number of years now...) horse vet I like a lot!!!!! Is very up to date on everything, and if she is worried about something, or isn't sure about something, she finds out everything she can about it!!! She calls and double checks on how things are going (she was the equine vet on call the night Mox had her c-section. It wasn't a horse call, so she didn't get called in, but checked the pager in the morning, heard my message and called me to see if Moxie was ok!!!).

I also use my local vet clinic for day to day dog stuff. I'm still torn on whether I like them or not....there are a couple of the vets that do clinic work that I don't like, and a couple that I prefer, but I can't guarantee who I will get when I go in. It is also a rural clinic, so they do large animal practice as well as small animal work. I WILL say, that the vet who did Moxie's xray when she was pregnant was right on with the number of pups. And he did call me the next day to see how Moxie was doing. I don't find him very up to date on dog stuff, especially repro....mind you he IS a cow vet, so I guess I can give him a little bit of slack (and I don't know how many people in this local area that are into dog breeding and DO use the vet). They are reasonable with prices. AND they DID do Moxie's c-section in the middle of the night on a weekend!!! So no, they maybe aren't my first pick, but without driving for hours to someone else, they are quite decent....and I wouldn't go to anyone else in this immediate area.

~kathryn

 

[The Simple Life Farm]

My vet is great!!!! But the one thing that stands out for me is his calming voice. I can call him with an emergency, and just hearing his voice calms me down (I tend to panic over every little thing with the horses).

 

[ErikaS.]

I live in a rural area and own plenty of cats, dogs, goats, ferrets, and of course my mini. My vet treats them all, office hours or late at night on his "day off". His rates are more than reasonable and he takes all of my concerns seriously. What can I say? He's just awesome!

 

[lilhorseladie]

Well, Our vet is new in town. I wouldn't use the old vet here, as he didn't like horses. The thing about this vet and dealing with Shadows locking stifles is, that he admits what he doesn't know, tells me what he thinks can be done and above all else, he will listen to what I say! The man had never heard of a horse with locking stifles before he saw shadow. He had never heard of the surgery, but still he listened, researched and surgery is set for next week with an assisting vet!

 

[Sonya]

My vet is the greatest vet! First off....he cured my lab of mast cell cancer, not once but twice. There are so many things I like about him...

He is at my beckon call 24/7...I have his home and cell number

He is knowledgeable when it comes to every animal I've ever owned while living in this area: horses, goats, cats, dogs, chickens, parrots.

His prices are extremely reasonable

He explaines everything in extreme detail...even showing me textbooks, others lab results, xrays

When I go to the office to get supplies...food, etc...he will take me back into his lab/operating room...show me what's wrong with whosever animal..show me slides..explain everything..he loves to talk about his work and the animals he treats.

He has invited me to tag along when he goes to the zoo next month to do routine exams on the monkeys, amphibans, goats, cattle, horses, tigers, lions...basically he does all the routine checkups on all the animals except the elephants/rhinos. He will treat them for minor things, but is not a specialist with any of the animals so he says when it's time to get someone else in there. I hope I'm able to go and don't have to work.

He is the most wonderful vet ever, including his staff...I treat them every year to large Holiday baskets to show my appreciation for all they have done for my animals.

 

[Jill]

I love my horse vets and my dog vets.

The practice for my horses, Keswick Equine Clinic, vets has 4 vets and I love them all. They are available 24/7 every day of the year. There have been times they've been out here helping one of my horses at 2am. Everytime one of them is here, I learn something. They know me well enough to know I know my horses and am hands on. A lot of times when I call with an issue, they give me instructions and have me follow up with them and we take it from there. I look forward to "routine" farm visits with them. Dr. Greg Schmidt is my favorite and has been my vet of choice for 10 years now. But, when we had issues with a newborn filly, I got really attached to a new young vet (Dr. Martha Mellish) and look forward to her coming out here on calls in the future, too. Just such nice and competent people. Later this week, Thursday, Dr. Schmidt's going to be out here pulling coggins, floating teeth, and gelding Blue (shhh... Blue doesn't know he won't "Be The Man" he thinks he is much longer).

The practice for my dogs, Blue Ridge Animal Hospital, has 4 vets, too. We have one in particular we especially love (Dr. Beamer) but all four are wonderful. When we've come home from work and found an issue with one of the dogs, they have stuck around to give us time to get there with our dog. They explain things and are very carrying. Winston, my golden child Shih-Tzu, had to have a couple bladder stone surgeries. The first one was at a big hospital in Northern VA but the second one (same surgery) was at our Vet's clinic. The recovery when our regular vet did it was 10x easier on Winston (such a huge huge load off my heart) and the cost was only about $1,000 including tooth cleaning when it had been more than 3x that at the other place.

Our horses, dogs and us are really lucky.

 

[Sassy'sMom]

I LOVE my vet! He is always there, whenever I need him, no matter what day or time of day. His office (and apartment) are less than 15 minutes away from my house. I have had him out so so so many times! And I could drive to his office in my sleep. I first of all had a big horse that had an unexpected foal, and called him out for that. Then my big mare colicked a few times and he came out each time (always on weekends or evenings!

Then, my little ones, with four of them, it seems there is always something with one or more of them. I had teeth floated on one, another one gelded, and he has come out and looked at 3 of them that just didn't seem right.

With the last one, she was sick, and he put her on antibiotics. When I called to say it had spread, he had antibiotics ready for the other ones with just a phone call, twice as a matter of fact.

And, with my dog, he is awesome!! My little black pug puppy (

) got into D-Con awhile back, he was awesome with getting us through that as soon as it happened, so there were NO complications from it. Then he came down with Parvo, and wow did he get us through that one too! Now I just had him neutered this week, and he took care of that with ease!

I am actually hoping to not talk to him nearly as much in the next few months! I think I need to just have a portion of my paycheck just go directly to him each month! But, he cuts me breaks all the time and doesn't always charge me what he could for things he does for me!

My husband says I just call him out to see him, not because I need anything with my animals!

By the way, my husband is awesome with my animals too! He bought me my pug. And, I have a chance to get another black pug, male, neutered, 1 year old, for free! And, if I wanted it bad enough, he would let me have him! We have 2 house dogs already and I just don't think I can have another!! The people getting rid of him just want to find him a home, they too busy to have another dog! I am so so tempted anyway to just say yes!

 

[dangerranger]

We use several vets, and the thing they have most in comon is that they really like our animals. I drive 80 mi round trip to our dogs vet. for horses we use two. one for problems that I can trailer in for. she only works out of her clinic but for those type of problems shes much less expencive. nearly 1/2 as much. the other I use is mobil only as she has no clinic. I use her for emergencys and teeth . she does a much better job of floating teeth. she seems to be more in control of how deeply she puts the horses under. she gets them under enough that she can really get at the rear teeth without getting them to where they are falling down. we have used a couple that I wont call again. two because they wernt that intrested in our animal. and one was just gougeing on his prices. he charged us $80 per horse for spring vaccines, in a situation where he was doing 20 horses at one time. he was esentialy charging 1/2 a ranch call for each horse. DR.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I like the idea of a gift basket. Just a little expression of appreciation. I think I'd do a restaurant gift certificate, and do it at Thanksgiving, instead of Christmas--too many goodies at Christmas to even appreciate it all.

Or, the next time I go to his clinic, maybe take a baked goody. And an idea from Tricky Woo in James Herriot's books--have the gift come from Dapper Dan and Hawk!

We actually have two excellent vets here. The other has a noisy, rather messy clinic; the last time I took my horse there, by appointment, he took time out from preg checking and branding cows to look at him. I stood with my horse in a mooing, clanging, singeing maelstrom. It was stimulating for me, but not sure the horse was as happy with it.

Both have such reasonable fees, I don't know how they make their living.

 

[barnbum]

Our office has several vets, but I have a favorite. It's his "stall side" manner. Andy is calm, a wonderful listener and he acts like there's no other place he'd rather be than with my horses. He never hurries. He takes the time to let the horses sniff him. He spends time with them after shots so they know he has good scratches to offer too. I remember leaving him in the pasture with Jazz as a yearling, while I ran back to the barn for something--when I returned he was talking to Jazz calmly. I asked if he was able to get the shots in and he said "Oh yes, I'm just letting him know I'm a good guy." He said once "NO one knows their horses better than you." That made my day.