So I took my cute little guy on a hike this past weekend. I watched him as carefully as I could to prevent him eating what he shouldn't eat but he still managed to swallow atleast 2 mouthfulls of horse poop. EEWW. Well my last dog did that a few times and was fine. note the word dog though,not puppy. My poor baby started throwing up and his poop came out in squirts. I rushed him to a vet (mind you I was out of town visiting family so my vet was nowhere around) and she looked him over and decided he probably had gotten worms or germs or both from the poop and that was why he was sick. He was also a bit dehydrated so she gave him some fluids and some antidiarhea stuff and sent us home with directions to see how he was in 24hrs and then have him rechecked with our vet. I would do anything for my baby, but since it wasn't our vet we couldn't use our wellness plan to pay for it and it cost...well more then we really had for the week to spend. So I went to my vet a few days later (he was supposed to go in for his boosters anyway so I figured we could atleast get him checked out) he was feeling better, no vomiting but still some squirty poop. Here is where I am starting to have an issue because I said I had roughly 20$ in my bank account and could only get him checked out (since he was rapidly improving and was quite perky by this point) and I would come back in a few days to make sure he was all cleared up and to get those booster shots. I explained that to the vet, the receptionist and the nurse. Well they sent some financial advisor lady that works for the corporation in to talk to me and explain that they can't let me pay over time and if I can't pay today well there wasn't much they could do. Then she said they HAD to do one test. Parvo. My puppy was vaccinated against parvo almost right when he came home and has had NO CONTACT with any unhealthy dogs. He ate horse crap. The other vet not so much as hinted that anything else could possibly be wrong. She started pressuring me and MADE ME CRY saying that if I didn't have money to take care of my dog that I shouldn't have one and there were plenty of people who could take care of one. So I got the test and it came back negative and sunny is in PERFECT health eating quite lustily thankyou, but she put me through hell and I left feeling about as bad as sunny did. If I wasn't already paying for a year of service (banfield pet hospital) I would leave. It wasn't so much the vet that I didn't like (actually there is a vet that works there that I and Sunny adore) it was the scare tactics and the insistance that some very expensive tests "needed" to be done and very expensive medicines not covered under their plan "needed" to be administered. I would do anything for sunny but I had JUST PAID another vet that I wasn't expecting to have to pay. I know that dogs require a lot of time and money. I feel that I am a reasponsible dog owner and I am looking into supplemental doggy health insurance for such occasions(and an emergency credit card) but the whole situation was very upsetting. Oh, and they told me that they needed to keep him for a few hours until they got a shipment of the test so I left him there, got home and recieved a phone call that they were mistaken, test was there and administerd and I could come and get him. The poor little guy was in the kennel there for over an hour while he was sick and sad anyway. GRRR.
Sorry, just had to vent. They called just a little while ago and wanted to know when I could make a follow up appt.
Sorry, just had to vent. They called just a little while ago and wanted to know when I could make a follow up appt.