I have four vets I use/have used regularly as an adult. All four practices hold spays overnight. Fair enough, it’s major organ removal. Three of them (“boutique” vet I used in MA, small animal/exotics vet up north here, mixed small/large practice up north), when doing a simple castration of a cat or dog, do it as outpatient. “Boutique” vet even suggested, as they scheduled it same day as the appointment where we talked about it, that I also leave my other cat so surgery cat could have his buddy with him in recovery! Other two practices here in MI (‘up north’) have the animal come in that morning, do the procedure, and pickup late afternoon/evening assuming recovery goes well. The small-animal-only may be a tad pill/procedure happy (they threw everything and the kitchen sink at my parents’ elderly dog before bringing up the “e” word after it was obvious arthritis meds were not going help acute renal failure and my parents started refusing to buy more pills) but they aren’t big into keeping animals as inpatients longer than they have to.
My practice down here…they’re the ones I mentioned in the cost thread. Not at any of the other three would it cost me $430 to get out the door for annual shots and one inconclusive blood test they had to repeat (heck, the boutique and the mixed practice would eat the cost of the screwed-up test for the wasted time, especially since it involved upsetting my elderly dog a second time.) They did not used to require castrations stay over night as they didn’t keep P.C. But now I’ve been told not only do I have to have Gunpowder in at 7:30am with the surgery (a non-complex castration) done in the morning, I can’t pick him up until office hours (9am) the next day! What really seems wrong about this, besides, again, three other practices just not doing this, when I signed for my puppy’s spay the morning of her surgery the disclaimer I had to sign included the line that after eight P.M. there is NO ONE AT THE PRACTICE SUPERVISING THE ANIMALS.
So they’re requiring that I leave my cat for 24+ hours for the least-invasive surgery there is, and capping it they do not have anyone there after 8pm to check and see if there ARE complications. Rather than I pick him up, and if in the unlikely event there are issues, I run him to the emergency clinic (a different vet over the state line in Indiana that is open nights nad weekends; this clinic doesn’t do emergency care.)
Am I missing something (along with the other three vets I’ve dealt with?) I like that this practice has walk-in hours and is right here in my town, but I’m beginning to feel rather aggressively upsold…