And there are vets with fantastic people skills, and/or very empathetic to animals and/or have brilliant diagnostic or technical skills. To get all of these in one package would be lovely but perhaps a tad idealistic.
As with doctors, some make great GPs, other are highly skilled surgeons, others specialise in particular body parts. It depends on your own priorities as to what you seek in a vet.
But we are the clients & we pay the fees (or our insurance companies do) so we have to also accept some responsibility in developing a good rapport with our vets if we want to be treated as responsible pet owners. It is, after all, a 2-way relationship, so as clients we must accept some responsibility for the relationship we have with our vets. A bit of preparation for a routine or non-emergency vet visit should be the least we can do, e.g. write down any questions you may have if you think you will be too emotional to remember, ensure that you have plenty of time to get to your appointment instead of arriving late, flustered and with a panicking pet, go armed with all the info you think your vet might need such as when you first noticed the symptoms, what changes in behaviour have you seen etc etc. I know it is very difficult to remain coherent & calm when faced with a major trauma to a much loved pet but vets have plenty of practice at dealing with distraught owners & should be able to make allowances in these circumstances.
If costs are a major concern for you, then at least be prepared to ask about the costs, alternatives, chances of success etc.
As for the large veterinary chains taking over from the small, local one man practices, this is just ecomonic sense as far as the vets are concerned but there are practical benefits as well. As medical science progresses there is so much more that can be done for our pets & no vet can possibly specialise in everything. If a practice with several vets includes those who specialise in, say, eye problems, or exotic species, or joint operations etc etc then clients would have the opportunity for consultations with these specialists within the same practice.
One of my concerns when choosing a vet practice is whether they have overnight hospital care for emergencies. It seems many practices are getting together to provide 24 hour emergency care which can sometimes mean long journeys for very sick animals just so they can be monitored overnight. Personally I would prefer that my pets are not put through this so a practice with 24 hour cover & hospitalisation facilities is one of my priorities (leaned through bitter experience unfortunately:().
I think also something none of us like to do is to have to ask ourselves difficult questions like can we afford/ should we put our animal through etc the vets can give us choices and alternatives but at the end of the day we alone have to make those decisions. Some of the problems highlighted in the original article and by some members here show a reluctance on the behalf of the owners for making these decisions.
I have personally paid nearly £3000 for one of our dogs cancer treatment when he was 6 years old - when the cancer returned he was 13 and I had to make a decision based on whether I felt the suffering he would be put through was worth it for just another couple of years life and although it broke my heart I had to say PTS was kinder to him.
So far we have never had to say we cannot afford any life saving procedures but as our money earning capacity dwindles (due to disability) I know the time will come, and we have already discussed what we can afford for our dogs - a difficult and distressing conversation but one that has to be done before we are in that position we felt. The vet cannot be expected to make those decisions for us IMO.
I completely agree molliepops. The vet is not there to make decisions, he is there to offer options.
Something I expected with my vet, when I had to make the agonising decison to put my old dog down.
I should never have had to make the decison, be advised of my choices yes, make the final decision, but not the ultimate decison
we had an old dog that we rescued a while back and cared for him until he was PTS long after he should have (long story) - even though my husband told the vets that he wondered if it wasn't kinder to have him PTS
I know this is always a very difficult decision (and one I have had to make several times myself). But it is not up to the vet. You know your pet best and s/he is your responsibility. If you believe it is kinder to have him PTS, it is up to you to say so firmly and get it done. I did that each time and did not meet with any opposition. I had a discussion with my own vet about this and he said he cannot, except in extreme circumstances, ever tell an owner to have the animal PTS, no matter what his personal feelings are. He has to leave it up to the owner.
I have in the past felt unhappy about two vets I took my animals to (not related to money issues) and I voted with my feet and went to another practice, I hope anyone would do the same.
I completely agree molliepops. The vet is not there to make decisions, he is there to offer options.
I agree with both of you and part of offering options is to consider what is possible then advice on costs, likely success, any pain, discomfort or exercise restriction involved etc so the owner can make an informed decision.
Insurance companies sell insurance by telling owners they can have the best possible treatment for their pets without worrying about the cost, these same companies then complain about the level of service and treatment options offered by the vets!!
Yes there are bad vets, as there are bad in any profession be it police, builders, accountants etc. but vet fees go up both because vets' overheads go up, (utilities, drugs, staff, business rates, insurance, rent, training costs, student loans, etc, etc) and because the treatment options expand all the time as science, skills and techniques improve.
At the end of the day if a vet doesn't charge properly he/she will eventually go out of business and no one will benefit, if they charge too much they will lose out to the local competition.
One day I found a large amount of blood on the floor by my parrots cage. The galah was bleeding from his chest. He does have a patch he plucks at. Avian vets are hard to find,so I rushed him to one that I had been told was good. The vet I saw said he might need various things done,and he would need tostay in.She hinted that she thought he had a potentialy life threatening illness, and he was underweight. I told them to do what they could to save him as my autistic son loves him so much. He is not insured.
2 days later I was told I could collect him. They had done endless tests, and told me that he had.......................... plucked out a feather shaft. That cost me nearly £600. They even wanted to charge me to remove the dressing they put on him. I was furious. Plus the underweight comment was false. He weighed exactly the right weight. They had even checked what sex he was, even though I already knew as he had been DNA tested. Needless to say that is one rip off vet I won`t return to.
I certainly have nothing but praise the various vets who've treated my pets over the years. My last dog was born with badly deformed back legs, which became far more evident as he grew. Since it was something unusual and this was in the days before internet was widely used, I couldn't really do any research into his condition. I pretty much had to put all my trust in the vets who saw him, to know what to do for the best.
He was referred to a specialist who advised against surgery,which would have cost in the thousands, because while it would make him look normal and walk normally, it wouldn't actually have any medical benefits. How easy it would have been for the vet to just go ahead with the surgery, because he knew I was willing to do anything if it would help. It wouldn't have been covered by insurance either since it was a problem he'd been born with.
One day I found a large amount of blood on the floor by my parrots cage. The galah was bleeding from his chest. He does have a patch he plucks at. Avian vets are hard to find,so I rushed him to one that I had been told was good. The vet I saw said he might need various things done,and he would need tostay in.She hinted that she thought he had a potentialy life threatening illness, and he was underweight. I told them to do what they could to save him as my autistic son loves him so much. He is not insured.
2 days later I was told I could collect him. They had done endless tests, and told me that he had.......................... plucked out a feather shaft. That cost me nearly £600. They even wanted to charge me to remove the dressing they put on him. I was furious. Plus the underweight comment was false. He weighed exactly the right weight. They had even checked what sex he was, even though I already knew as he had been DNA tested. Needless to say that is one rip off vet I won`t return to.
That sounds shocking MsWalker :eek: and it makes you wonder what sort of tests took so long to do on a parrot that had plucked out some feathers! I hope you have now found a good new vet.
I can't complain about my vets - part of a chain that does try to keep its cost down.
There is one dew claw I struggle to clip on Murphy so I gave up and get the vet to do it. Last time they charged the full £7.50, but before that they have sometimes only charged half price as only one nail is cut!
They talk through all the options. I'm a bit deaf and can't always understand their accents (mostly Australian/NZ, Italian, Scottish, Slovakian) but they always take the time to make sure I've understood.
They offer low cost vaccinations and neutering.
When Ratbag was very ill they did offer the PTS option and said the surgery was risky but a viable option. In hindsight, I shouldn't have taken the surgical option but I can't blame them for my decision. I wasn't ready even though Ratbag was. When I took him back a few days later the vet was very sympathetic, told me what he could try but gently guided me to the decision I knew had to be made.
Their OOH service (a different chain) has put its prices up by over 20% in two years which I'm not over impressed with. But they also provide PDSA care so I guess the fee I pay subsidies the charity. I'm tempted to reduce my donation this year!
They did have a high turnover of vets - a lot of Australians doing six/12 months but they now have a core of long time vets plus some Australians - the only draw back to a chain rather than a partnership.
There is another small vet near us. When Hansel went missing is was a vet nurse from that practice that found him. She took him to work with her and her vet checking him over and gave him some food. When OH picked him up they gave him a tin of I/D food and advice on building him back up. They wouldn't take any money.
Another vet a little further out is again well priced. But the chief vet's person skills leave something to be desired:D He does love all animals though. A lot more than people. He was my vet when I lived that way. Very strange man, but very, very clever.
I will say the other local vet is more expensive and is rather fond of dentals & selling you extras - one of the reasons I changed vet. However the partners are very experienced and knowledgeable. If you could guarantee seeing one of them instead of the employees it might be worth the extra cost. Bit of a judgment call. However they are in no way as bad as the vets described in the 'article'.
I took my guinea pig to a new local vets a few weeks back. They charged me about £12.00 on the day and gave me three lots of drops for him.
Then a few days later they sent me another bill for another £16.00. When I didn't send the cheque by return of post they sent another bill.
I've since found out that I could have bought the stuff they gave me for a fiver on a reputable animal website.
Talk about ripped off.
We were ripped off with drops a few years back when we had a dog with Glaucoma and we were paying our vet £36 for one small bottle and £28 each for 2 tiny bottles (£92) every 4 weeks for almost a year until one day when I met a man with Glaucoma who asked about my dog's eye that was very cloudy and I told him he'd got Glaucoma.
He told me he'd had Glaucoma for three years and after chatting we discovered that my dog and the man used identical drops that he got for the price of a prescription at Boots or Sainsbury's and he suggested I asked my vet to write out a prescription so I did and then started to get the drops at Sainsbury's for £11 and £14
Before I met the man with Glaucoma I had paid £1,196 for a year's drops, but after getting prescriptions to buy elsewhere the drops were costing £468 for 12 months which is a huge difference. My vet also has a 'dispensing fee' for lifting bottles from the shelf... it's not like the vet has to mix up medicines at all so what's the 'dispensing fee' for?
We were ripped off with drops a few years back when we had a dog with Glaucoma and we were paying our vet £36 for one small bottle and £28 each for 2 tiny bottles (£92) every 4 weeks for almost a year until one day when I met a man with Glaucoma who asked about my dog's eye that was very cloudy and I told him he'd got Glaucoma.
He told me he'd had Glaucoma for three years and after chatting we discovered that my dog and the man used identical drops that he got for the price of a prescription at Boots or Sainsbury's and he suggested I asked my vet to write out a prescription so I did and then started to get the drops at Sainsbury's for £11 and £14
Before I met the man with Glaucoma I had paid £1,196 for a year's drops, but after getting prescriptions to buy elsewhere the drops were costing £468 for 12 months which is a huge difference. My vet also has a 'dispensing fee' for lifting bottles from the shelf... it's not like the vet has to mix up medicines at all so what's the 'dispensing fee' for?
I think you need to find a new vet if you haven't already done so:eek:
I think you need to find a new vet if you haven't already done so:eek:
My vet told me to buy OTC Piriton for Buffy.
SM, I don't think Piriton is used for Glaucoma! Sadly we no longer have him but the drops he had were Xalatan and Trusopt - like some people have for Glaucoma -- one had about half a teaspoon in and the other about a teaspoon so it was a lot of money for so little... and after just over two years of using them my poor dog was complately blind but seemed happy for another three years as the female of my other two dogs seemed to take on the job of minding/mothering...
Our vets were taken over by a 'chain' last year and have got very expensive and the nearest other vet the other end of town is also very costly too because a friend who has four cats (ordinary moggies) had lost one back in July. They looked all over the place for the cat for over a week and put up posters but to no avail until one day in the other vet's window there was a picture of a cat that looked like my friend's one.
She called in and the vet said the cat was in the surgery at the next town where they did ops and boarded etc. My friend went along there and was met with a bill for £278 for board & lodgings and food, plus the vet said the cat needed 'treatment' as it had a head injury.... and my friend had no alternative than to pay up as she loved her cats but thought it was rather steep
Sorry, my point was that my vet will suggest the most cost effective treatment.
The Piriton is for allergies - allergic to what we don't know as though the vet gave the option for allergy testing and we took it, she wasn't allergic to anything they tested!
The vet warned that might happen and gave us the cost of testing and said that an exclusion diet (home cooked) might be an alternative indicator.
We still went for testing, useless as it turned out! But that was out informed choice.
There are 'bad' vets out there. Whether money grabbing or incompetent (I could tell you some incompetency stories that are close to evil!) but unless someone shows me concrete statistics, I like to believe most are reasonable at worst.
Comments
As with doctors, some make great GPs, other are highly skilled surgeons, others specialise in particular body parts. It depends on your own priorities as to what you seek in a vet.
But we are the clients & we pay the fees (or our insurance companies do) so we have to also accept some responsibility in developing a good rapport with our vets if we want to be treated as responsible pet owners. It is, after all, a 2-way relationship, so as clients we must accept some responsibility for the relationship we have with our vets. A bit of preparation for a routine or non-emergency vet visit should be the least we can do, e.g. write down any questions you may have if you think you will be too emotional to remember, ensure that you have plenty of time to get to your appointment instead of arriving late, flustered and with a panicking pet, go armed with all the info you think your vet might need such as when you first noticed the symptoms, what changes in behaviour have you seen etc etc. I know it is very difficult to remain coherent & calm when faced with a major trauma to a much loved pet but vets have plenty of practice at dealing with distraught owners & should be able to make allowances in these circumstances.
If costs are a major concern for you, then at least be prepared to ask about the costs, alternatives, chances of success etc.
As for the large veterinary chains taking over from the small, local one man practices, this is just ecomonic sense as far as the vets are concerned but there are practical benefits as well. As medical science progresses there is so much more that can be done for our pets & no vet can possibly specialise in everything. If a practice with several vets includes those who specialise in, say, eye problems, or exotic species, or joint operations etc etc then clients would have the opportunity for consultations with these specialists within the same practice.
One of my concerns when choosing a vet practice is whether they have overnight hospital care for emergencies. It seems many practices are getting together to provide 24 hour emergency care which can sometimes mean long journeys for very sick animals just so they can be monitored overnight. Personally I would prefer that my pets are not put through this so a practice with 24 hour cover & hospitalisation facilities is one of my priorities (leaned through bitter experience unfortunately:().
I have personally paid nearly £3000 for one of our dogs cancer treatment when he was 6 years old - when the cancer returned he was 13 and I had to make a decision based on whether I felt the suffering he would be put through was worth it for just another couple of years life and although it broke my heart I had to say PTS was kinder to him.
So far we have never had to say we cannot afford any life saving procedures but as our money earning capacity dwindles (due to disability) I know the time will come, and we have already discussed what we can afford for our dogs - a difficult and distressing conversation but one that has to be done before we are in that position we felt. The vet cannot be expected to make those decisions for us IMO.
I know this is always a very difficult decision (and one I have had to make several times myself). But it is not up to the vet. You know your pet best and s/he is your responsibility. If you believe it is kinder to have him PTS, it is up to you to say so firmly and get it done. I did that each time and did not meet with any opposition. I had a discussion with my own vet about this and he said he cannot, except in extreme circumstances, ever tell an owner to have the animal PTS, no matter what his personal feelings are. He has to leave it up to the owner.
I have in the past felt unhappy about two vets I took my animals to (not related to money issues) and I voted with my feet and went to another practice, I hope anyone would do the same.
I agree with both of you and part of offering options is to consider what is possible then advice on costs, likely success, any pain, discomfort or exercise restriction involved etc so the owner can make an informed decision.
Insurance companies sell insurance by telling owners they can have the best possible treatment for their pets without worrying about the cost, these same companies then complain about the level of service and treatment options offered by the vets!!
Yes there are bad vets, as there are bad in any profession be it police, builders, accountants etc. but vet fees go up both because vets' overheads go up, (utilities, drugs, staff, business rates, insurance, rent, training costs, student loans, etc, etc) and because the treatment options expand all the time as science, skills and techniques improve.
At the end of the day if a vet doesn't charge properly he/she will eventually go out of business and no one will benefit, if they charge too much they will lose out to the local competition.
2 days later I was told I could collect him. They had done endless tests, and told me that he had.......................... plucked out a feather shaft. That cost me nearly £600. They even wanted to charge me to remove the dressing they put on him. I was furious. Plus the underweight comment was false. He weighed exactly the right weight. They had even checked what sex he was, even though I already knew as he had been DNA tested. Needless to say that is one rip off vet I won`t return to.
Then a few days later they sent me another bill for another £16.00. When I didn't send the cheque by return of post they sent another bill.
I've since found out that I could have bought the stuff they gave me for a fiver on a reputable animal website.
Talk about ripped off.
He was referred to a specialist who advised against surgery,which would have cost in the thousands, because while it would make him look normal and walk normally, it wouldn't actually have any medical benefits. How easy it would have been for the vet to just go ahead with the surgery, because he knew I was willing to do anything if it would help. It wouldn't have been covered by insurance either since it was a problem he'd been born with.
There is one dew claw I struggle to clip on Murphy so I gave up and get the vet to do it. Last time they charged the full £7.50, but before that they have sometimes only charged half price as only one nail is cut!
They talk through all the options. I'm a bit deaf and can't always understand their accents (mostly Australian/NZ, Italian, Scottish, Slovakian) but they always take the time to make sure I've understood.
They offer low cost vaccinations and neutering.
When Ratbag was very ill they did offer the PTS option and said the surgery was risky but a viable option. In hindsight, I shouldn't have taken the surgical option but I can't blame them for my decision. I wasn't ready even though Ratbag was. When I took him back a few days later the vet was very sympathetic, told me what he could try but gently guided me to the decision I knew had to be made.
Their OOH service (a different chain) has put its prices up by over 20% in two years which I'm not over impressed with. But they also provide PDSA care so I guess the fee I pay subsidies the charity. I'm tempted to reduce my donation this year!
They did have a high turnover of vets - a lot of Australians doing six/12 months but they now have a core of long time vets plus some Australians - the only draw back to a chain rather than a partnership.
There is another small vet near us. When Hansel went missing is was a vet nurse from that practice that found him. She took him to work with her and her vet checking him over and gave him some food. When OH picked him up they gave him a tin of I/D food and advice on building him back up. They wouldn't take any money.
Another vet a little further out is again well priced. But the chief vet's person skills leave something to be desired:D He does love all animals though. A lot more than people. He was my vet when I lived that way. Very strange man, but very, very clever.
I will say the other local vet is more expensive and is rather fond of dentals & selling you extras - one of the reasons I changed vet. However the partners are very experienced and knowledgeable. If you could guarantee seeing one of them instead of the employees it might be worth the extra cost. Bit of a judgment call. However they are in no way as bad as the vets described in the 'article'.
He told me he'd had Glaucoma for three years and after chatting we discovered that my dog and the man used identical drops that he got for the price of a prescription at Boots or Sainsbury's and he suggested I asked my vet to write out a prescription so I did and then started to get the drops at Sainsbury's for £11 and £14
Before I met the man with Glaucoma I had paid £1,196 for a year's drops, but after getting prescriptions to buy elsewhere the drops were costing £468 for 12 months which is a huge difference. My vet also has a 'dispensing fee' for lifting bottles from the shelf... it's not like the vet has to mix up medicines at all so what's the 'dispensing fee' for?
I think you need to find a new vet if you haven't already done so:eek:
My vet told me to buy OTC Piriton for Buffy.
Our vets were taken over by a 'chain' last year and have got very expensive and the nearest other vet the other end of town is also very costly too because a friend who has four cats (ordinary moggies) had lost one back in July. They looked all over the place for the cat for over a week and put up posters but to no avail until one day in the other vet's window there was a picture of a cat that looked like my friend's one.
She called in and the vet said the cat was in the surgery at the next town where they did ops and boarded etc. My friend went along there and was met with a bill for £278 for board & lodgings and food, plus the vet said the cat needed 'treatment' as it had a head injury.... and my friend had no alternative than to pay up as she loved her cats but thought it was rather steep
Sorry, my point was that my vet will suggest the most cost effective treatment.
The Piriton is for allergies - allergic to what we don't know as though the vet gave the option for allergy testing and we took it, she wasn't allergic to anything they tested!
The vet warned that might happen and gave us the cost of testing and said that an exclusion diet (home cooked) might be an alternative indicator.
We still went for testing, useless as it turned out! But that was out informed choice.
There are 'bad' vets out there. Whether money grabbing or incompetent (I could tell you some incompetency stories that are close to evil!) but unless someone shows me concrete statistics, I like to believe most are reasonable at worst.