Our eight year old dog was booked in to have an operation on Monday to have a mammary tumour removed and to be spayed, cost of £320 approx.

The vet on the morning of the op said they could not do the spay as the cuts were in different places and would stretch her skin too much. Hubby signed the consent form after the vet crossed the spay part.

We pick the dog up later that afternoon and they try and charge us £450. This was questioned by my hubby as we assumed the op we be cheaper. They took £100 off as a "goodwill" gesture and then informed us that they had fixed our dogs small hernia!

Our dog has had this since she was a pup and it has sealed itself over. We have been assured numerous times by the vet that it is fine and does not need to be operated on.

At no point was this discussed with us, it was not mentioned in the consultation with the vet and was not on the consent form and we were not contacted about this afterwards. We only found out as the nurse was trying to make it sound like we should be grateful they had done it.

Do we have any comeback from this? We have a post op appointment with the vet on Monday.

Personally I am really annoyed they have done this without informing us either before or after, not to mention charging us for something we did not consent to and if it was done as an emergency why were we not told? I have resisted complaining so far but only because my hubby does not like to make a fuss.

Also we have paid for her tumour to be tested, are we entitled to ask for a copy of these results as we do not wish her to be treated with this particular practice any more than she needs to be?

Any advice would be welcome.

Ouch, that's not good. What do the forms signed say about what treatment they were giving? Our vet ones say that we give them authority to treat the animal as they see nessecary during anesthetia, however I presumed that means complications, not random other ops! I'd certai ly argue it, and see if they are governed by anyone (I think practices can be members of various society's).

You should be entitled to the results, they may chagr a fee to release them, I changed vets last year and had to pay £25 to get the notes transferred as my cat has a leg pin, so they new vets needed the info.

We had a situation like this a few years ago, one of ours went in to be spayed, they at the same time with no consultation with us pulled the hair from her ears, and charged us for it. This was a dog that we had worked so hard on to get her to allow us to even touch her ears and now we had a dog on our hands who had sore ears from the treatment. To say I was angry would be an understatement. I complained and left the practise never to return.

When they lose my trust that's it as far as I am concerned. We didn't get money back but I didn't ask for any. I just voted with my feet and went elsewhere.

My vet phoned me when there was a change in plan after they had started the op. They couldn't get me on mobile, so had to proceed regardless. But I think they should always try to phone whenever possible.

I dont think you have any comeback except refuse to pay/ small claims court. So look carefully at what you signed.

We are definitely going to ask on Monday when we go but I don't trust them anymore with regards to further treatment so we will go elsewhere even if we do have to pay for her notes.

Notes should be passed onto new vet, no charge, we just registered with new vet and signed a consent form and they did the chasing the old vet for the notes for us. Seemed to be how they usually went about things.

Thats good to know, as soon as she has had her stitches out then we will move her.