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Chase~n~Thunder

Some of my thoughts

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my vet experience

Posted in Uncategorized on August 22, 2010 by chasenthunder
squishy

My doberman "Mr.Squishy"

I got to thinking today and just decided to blog about it (usually not by thing but hey whatever). I’m gonna start out by saying that i grew up in a family that really doesn’t believe in vets, if the dog is hurt use herbal remedies and over the counter meds and try to make him feel better, so other than the annually *have-to-have* shots my dogs never went to a vet unless it was a huge emergency. But in the past 5 years I have decided that the reason I never used a vet much was because there wasn’t a vet around me that I actually liked and trusted.WOW!!! I realize now, that is a BIG deal.Basically my whole life my family grew up using the same vets,Dr.Dumas, Dr.Equis, and Dr.Noital (some names have been changed to protect the identity of the persons in question).
Dr.Dumas has a small medical practice in a small town that I once lived in, I was in need of a head cone for my great Dane and none of the Vets in the area had them big enough. Well Dr. Dumas’s office said they could order me one and that I could rent it for the time i needed, “OK, sounds great lets do it”…. “it will be here in about 3 days”… great, I go back 3 days later Dr.Dumas is sitting at the front desk (again, small office not a lot of things for him to do all day) I ask him if he had received the shipment with the cones. after asking his 2 receptionists and his wife he tells me no nothing has come in and to try again tomorrow… ok not a problem I will be back. Everyday for two weeks I went into that office and everyday for two weeks when I walked in the door Dr.Dumas was sitting at the front desk, and everyday for two weeks HE DID NOT RECOGNIZE ME!!!! Had no idea what I was their for…. HELLO!! and he still practices…. I later find out that I had 9 different people in my community who took to that vet in a series of 6 months, all with dogs showing different symptoms and all of which got the same answer from the vet “your dog has been poisoned there is nothing we can do for him”…. seriously? I recently met the owner of a Mini Pinn that weighs 35 lbs, she is so overweight that she has no tail, its sucked up into her butt-fat, turns out this mini pinn has the same skin condition that my little dude (you will hear about him later) has and Dr.Dumas is having her injected with steroids, started out at one shot a day and when the dog starts scratching again the dosage is expanded, this poor mini pinn is getting 4 shots of steroids every day now. So instead of trying to find a different way to cure her he is making situations worse by making her larger.
Dr.Equis really is a nice guy…. he just doesn’t know it…I took a great dane puppy to him that was about 8 weeks old he diagnosed her with parvo within 5 minutes of talking to me and basically sent her home to die… I wasn’t going to have that for an answer and I force fed her and medicated her myself as much as possible and she came out of it, most dogs don’t live through parvo but since he didnt actually test her I think she might have had corona. I pulled her through it, but maybe since a puppy came in earlier that week with the parvo he was doing a “your dog has what his dog has” thing and just blew her off….but sense I had used him my whole life I went back to him… My yorky was starting to look mangy, he was loosing all of his hair and had these blisters and I felt really really bad for him because he itched constantly. Since Mr.Equis is a long time family friend I figured I would go and see him and see what he had to say about my little dudes condition. I guess me being a family friend meant nothing to him because he talked to me about like you would talk to your neighbors front porch. Its like I wasn’t there, he gave me answers to all the questions I asked but did so with 3 word answers.He took his temp, glanced under what hair he had left and sent us back up front I think me and dude spent 15 minutes in his office that day left with one medication and spent over $100… The medication made the dog sick and when I called the office back to inform them about it they told me “it happens”….. 3 weeks later there was no change in the dog, he still itches, he still has no hair, and I am still giving him these meds… Thats it new Dr…
After being referred to a vet by someone I really didn’t know I figured what the heck dude is at his worst he really has nothing more to lose by going to this new place. I make an appointment and altho a little iffy I made the 30 minute drive to see this new vet. I open the office door and almost instantly I have two receptionist walk over and start loving on my dude, he is loving this. One of the girls give me some paperwork to fill out and the other is still petting little dude. Before I am able to finish all the paperwork the vet calls me back into the exam room. He weighs the dog takes his temp and starts asking me lots of questions… yes HE.. is asking ME questions…. getting the dogs complete history… amazing… after getting his info and looking at the dog for a little he tells me what it may be. he listed 3 different things that “could be” wrong with him and told me how he was going to go about determining which one it is. he took a small skin scrape from the dog, did something all medical like to it and placed it under the scope, he left the room for a minute and brought out a book…. now i am confused…. he then calls me over to the microscope tells me to look into it and showed me a picture in a book that looked identical to it “wow”. he says “looks like your dog has *edit this part cause i cant remember* also known as demodex mange, it cannot be ‘cured’ alot of dogs get put down for this because it can be expensive but you have several options and we can maintain his condition and get his hair back”….wait a minute let me clean out my ears did he just say that I had options??? I was in the office that for well over an hour with 3 prescriptions and less than $150 out of my pocket… 3 days later dude had little bitty hairs growing in all of his bald spots… I was meaning to call the vet to thank him but before I could I get a phone call from the office of Dr.Wow asking how my dog was progressing and if he was ok on his medication… ching ching grade +A….
Ok now I am going to tell you about Dr.Noital, I have not used him in a while but my cousin took a dog in there the other day his leg was messed up pretty bad swollen three times its normal size and he could not bear any weight on it or hardly move it. She goes into Mr.Noitals office Spent 15 minutes looking at it said the dog was bit by a spider (mind you there was not any scabs, holes, or injuries on the exterior of the leg) and put him on 2 medications, $190 send him home. I take this dog into my own custody two weeks later, and take him to Dr.WOW. I tell him the whole story as he starts to examine the dog in the waiting room because he didn’t want to stress him too much by putting him on the exam table. He took the dogs temp and weight and immediately started working on getting x-rays (Dr.Noital didn’t do  x-rays) after getting the xrays they revealed something that was very disappointing the “cloudy” look on the bone just wasn’t right, “there is something wrong here” as he points to the funny looking xray picture. He tells me point by point what looks right, what looks wrong and what looks really bad. He tells me it would be cheaper on me (i am just fostering the dog) to treat him for a bacterial growth, but if that don’t help we will have to treat him for a fungal growth or we can do a blood test and figure out which it is before you pay for any meds but the blood test has a cost to it…. YES! OMG! he is giving me more options!! blood test lets go for it. its a fungus problem. “if this was a little dog I would suggest amputation but with a dog his size (great dane) I don’t recommend it, but you have the option to do that or I could send you home with meds to try to get rid of it but he will need several months of meds” then he asked me if i wanted the meds that where cheaper or the ones that worked faster…. I don’t know that I can handle all these options I aint used to this 🙂 I go the pricey route because I want to get him fixed I want to get him cured and i want to find him a home… Two hours and just two hundred dollars later I was on my way home a happy pawrent with a dog on its ways to being healed…The very next day the dog was putting weight on his toe (amazing) a big step forward from the “dragging” he had been doing for the past two weeks… and again 3 days later I get a call from Mr.Wows office asking about the dogs progress…
Yes I have used Dr.Wow several more times than listed above and every time i use him I get the same welcome from all the staff and i get the same one on one conversation with the vet himself. More and more often now I find myself referring new people to Mr.Wow and I myself take my dogs to the vet every time they walk funny or start coughing. I want whats best for my dogs and I always have I just now have realized that i didn’t get my dogs the vet attention they deserved because they didn’t deserve to go to a Dr. that really didn’t seem to WANT to see them. I now have a vet that explains things to me, lets me understand what he is doing and informs me step by step what he thinks and what he is going to be doing next.


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