Our clinic requires an annual HW test to get meds. Two years ago, we switched to the Antech Accuplex 4 which tests for HW, Lyme, Erlichia and Anaplasma. We are finding about 2-3 dogs a month negative for HW, but positive for one of the others.
As other have said, you must have a valid VCPR to be prescribed medications by the vet, so that means 1 exam per year.
As for taking a dog/cat in the back, for a blood draw is it mandatory. Cats/dogs are not as easy or as willing to allow blood to be drawn from them. So restraint and possible needle redirection do happen. Small animal clients tend to not handle the vein being hit on the first time and pooky being stuck again. I will vaccinate either in the room with the client or in the back. I have my technicians ask to make sure it is okay with the client. If not, we will take blood for HW test if the patient is due and bring the patient back into the room with the client. Lots of clients don’t like watching their furbaby have needles stuck in them. I think we as horse people are different in that way.
I much prefer examining a patient on the floor if they are a big dog. If they are small and wiggly then yes, they go on the table. Otherwise, I find most are more comfortable on the floor. At times, you can find me, the pet, and the owner all sitting on the floor chatting away. Again, it depends on the patient, owner, etc comfort.
I have some patients that do much better with their owners and other that are far better away. Lots of my GSD are better in the back. I put a muzzle on them if the owner hasn’t and we get everything done with easy. Most GSD do best with less is more. So putting a muzzle on and having my techs pet their heads and whisper sweet nothings, while I poke is very effective rather than fighting with them.
In general, I muzzle most dogs. It is not because I don’t trust them, but rather, I don’t want to have to report a dog bite especially if it even looks remotely like a pit bull. It is the land sharks aka Chihuahua, the sketchy, poorly bred GSD, the little white fluffy dogs, and dachshunds that are the most likely to bite than the pits, but they are less likely to get euthanized if they do so.
I would have a huge problem is my vet took my cat or dog in the back for a blood draw just because.
Other than surgery my vet will take the cats in the back to be weighed as the big scale in the lobby is not accurate enough. I assume he will take puppies/small dogs there too. He took one dog in the back to cath for a urine sample as he could not get one in the exam room.
I have used this vet practice for 23 years. He always uses a tech to restrain the pets with rare exceptions. He is very particular about how the techs hold the animal to keep everyone safe.
DH and I are more than willing to have our dogs muzzled. When we first brought in Rosie who was a stray and Casey a dog we adopted we knew both dogs were willing to snap and put teeth on people if they felt threatened. The first number of years they went to the vet both were muzzled. In later years they did not need to be muzzled.
However when Rosie went to a specialty vet in her last year for an ultrasound I recommended she be muzzled. In part because they were taking her in the back to shave her belly and do the ultrasound out of my sight. I wasn’t happy about it. If it comes up again I may insist on going with them. The vet took advantage of DH & I not being in the room and decided to take her blood pressure for an extra charge of $48. He couldn’t be bothered to come into the waiting room to ask. He saw that she had a large growth on the spleen which we knew about due to xrays at our regular vet. She had additional growths on other organs that showed on the ultrasound. If she had high blood pressure he would be better able to talk about her surgery options. While I get that what he didn’t bother to find out was that DH and I had decided we would ONLY consider surgery on a 13 year old large dog if the growth was only on the spleen. If it looked like it had spread surgery was totally off the table.
By being out of the room it empowered him to make the decision without discussing it with us. I should have protested the charge but I was pretty devastated by the results when we were paying and leaving. Incidentally Rosie lived another 16 months.
Just to be clear: my dog has been to this clinic for the past 5 years. A different vet at this clinic, but all his records are there. So, as far as a DP relationship, I think we’d established that.
The clinic’s stance is this: we will test for HW and fecal, but will NOT prescribe HW meds without the wellness exam, even though the dog has been here several times in the last years. We will not give a prescription, you must buy the meds here.
I have had one horse vet that refused to write a prescription but required you buy from him. It just seems to me that the equine vets treat owners like they have a little more sense and knowledge. Maybe that is not true (according to others).
Anyway, what it probably boils down to is that I don’t like this vet as well as the other one and the clinic is expensive anyway, so I just needed to gripe. And, I wondered if others had the same experience: you MUST do this or I will not treat that…
Poor doggie: vet on Monday and groomer today. He may never forgive me.
[QUOTE=iberianfan;8677519]
Just to be clear: my dog has been to this clinic for the past 5 years. A different vet at this clinic, but all his records are there. So, as far as a DP relationship, I think we’d established that.
The clinic’s stance is this: we will test for HW and fecal, but will NOT prescribe HW meds without the wellness exam, even though the dog has been here several times in the last years. We will not give a prescription, you must buy the meds here.
I have had one horse vet that refused to write a prescription but required you buy from him. It just seems to me that the equine vets treat owners like they have a little more sense and knowledge. Maybe that is not true (according to others).
Anyway, what it probably boils down to is that I don’t like this vet as well as the other one and the clinic is expensive anyway, so I just needed to gripe. And, I wondered if others had the same experience: you MUST do this or I will not treat that…
Poor doggie: vet on Monday and groomer today. He may never forgive me.[/QUOTE]
Yes, you MUST have an EXAM EVERY YEAR to have a valid veterinary-client-patient-relationship. Those are the established laws. It is out of our hands. Your vet is obeying the rules.
https://www.avma.org/public/PetCare/Pages/VCPR-FAQs.aspx
We are not just assholes out to make money despite what the general population seems to think.
We had a dog who was such a jerk at the vet’s office that the vet suggested he see him when he came for the horses or that the vet come out to the car if we had to bring him to the clinic. That made all the difference in the world. The dog had no problem letting the vet draw blood or give vaccines, as long as he didn’t need to be in the crowd of anxious dogs in the waiting room. In the waiting room, he would pick a fight with another dog or urinate on the floor. It is nice to have a vet who is flexible, and can meet the needs of the dog and owner.
[QUOTE=HappyTalk;8676672]
Our clinic requires an annual HW test to get meds. Two years ago, we switched to the Antech Accuplex 4 which tests for HW, Lyme, Erlichia and Anaplasma. We are finding about 2-3 dogs a month negative for HW, but positive for one of the others.[/QUOTE]
A HW positive is rare where I worked, but a tick-borne positive (usually Ehrlichia) is usually a daily occurrence. I don’t think most owners realize that a lot of clinics use heartworm tests that screen for tick-borne disease.
