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Vets On The Net
Finding A Vet through the 'Net: A few good starts to providing a Veterinarian Referral Service. |
At first I thought that finding a Veterinarian Referral Service on the Web would be as easy as ... Oh say, tossing the ball for Ophelia and Huxley (my canine friends) to catch. However, if I had thought about it, Ophelia loves to chase the ball but prefers to retain complete ownership rights once it's caught, and Huxley, although he has excellant retrieval skills, will (after two or three times of this ball-catching and ball-returning) decide that he's had enough training, drop the ball on his way to investigate that rock, at which point Ophelia will happily snatch the ball up and establish complete ownership rights.
Are you still with me?
The point (there is a point) of all this is that there are not that many Vet Referral Services available on the Web, and most of them could use some assistance. Perhaps if we (meaning you as well as I) contributed to some of these, we would be helping to "beef" them.
There are a few commercial Sites providing Vet Referral listings, but each is either incomplete or limited to a member listing. VET USA's Listing Service and Veternet's Vet Search both have nicely done Search Pages, but Veternet provides more information on their listed Vets. And if you're in Canada, there's Pawprints' Vet Listing.
The most comprehensive listing was to be found at APA's (American Pet Association) web site called Vetfinder. AltVetMed also provides a well-done referral listing of AHVMA's (American Holistic Veterinarian Medical Association) Directory with keyword abbreviations for methodolgies practiced. Unfortunately, AVMA's (American Veterinarian Medical Association) Web Site conspicuously did not have a directory. And considering their position (somewhat similar to the AMA in human medical practice), perhaps we should suggest that they do include Referral Services.
Perhaps, more than just a listing of associated member Veterinarians, what would really be useful is a client referred listing of practicing Vets, clinics, and animal hospitals.