Why I hate the vet's office: A vent by LBR

[ladybugred]

This has nothing to do with the vets in the practice, they all rock! LOVE my vet!

No, this is about the patient’s “parents”.

As my cat and I are sitting waiting to be shown to an exam room, a young woman comes in with an Am Bulldog. This YW probably weighed 125lb, the dog 130lb easy, and of course Balboa, yes that was his name, had never had a training session in his life!! But that’s ok, because she was using a choke chain, wrong, it was down around the base of his neck and he was at the end of a 6+ ft leash. Did I mention that he barked, constantly.

As we are waiting for the bill, a woman comes in with a big fluffy something that wants to make friends with the other dogs in the waiting room. BFS’s owner let’s BFS sniff any dog it wants whiile she mindlessly chats with other people, back turned to BFS.

Then we have the Shitzon (shih tzu/ bichon) owner going on about how spectacular designer dogs are, and how much better than pure bred, to the owner of two PB Goldens.

Standing next to me at the counter is an older lady with a cat in carrier on the floor. Said owner of Goldens gets called to the Exam room, as they walk past cat carrier on the floor, Golden sniffs CC. Cat lady starts harranging the GO, GO responds “he’s just curious” curious what it feels like to get a shredded nose!

As goldens leave exam room, one sticks his nose in my cat’s carrier, then up my bum. Still curious I guess.

Did I mention the Aussie mix that barked CONSTANTLY, So I couldn’t think?? Owner’s idea of quieting it is “shhh Rover, it’s ok”. NOT WORKING!!!

Let’s not EVEN get into the second cat lady, who thought Fluffy was freaking out because of the dogs, and complained about dogs voiciferously (isn’t this why there are cat specific vets?), even tho he mewed twice and looked pretty calm given the situation (I watched him for a mo while she fetched his poo sample from the car)

Needless to say, when I got home, after giving kitty some tuna, I cracked a beer!

LBR

[Come_Shine]

[QUOTE=ladybugred;5657223]
Needless to say, when I got home, after giving kitty some tuna, I cracked a beer![/QUOTE]

After reading that, I need a beer, too! :lol:

[apcohrs]

Wait.

It’s ok for you to be perturbed by owners of unmannerly dogs, but if other cat owners are perturbed by those same dogs disturbing their properly contained cats they should go elsewhere?

fruitbats and all that.

[atr]

Not a dog person here. Don’t dislike them, but I am rather wary of strange dogs having been unprovokedly bitten rather badly a couple of years ago, and and I’d really rather prefer that your dog stay away from me when I’m sitting in the waiting area at the vet with my cats.

And then there are the owners who are oblivious to the dog lifting it’s leg on every available surface be it the food display or whatever…

And the people who bring their cats in in their arms–no collar, leash or other restraint. Yikes.

[ladybugred]

Ap- If you go back to the begining, it’s their “parents”. A dog isn’t going to act mannerly if never taught. I didn’t have an issue with the dog putting his nose to my cats crate, my bum, well, annoying.

LBR

[ladybugred]

Let me add, normally when I go the office is quieter, much quieter. After expriencing that chaos for 20+ mins, I have a whole new respect for the techs/receptioists at the front desk!!(this would be a bowing down smilie if we had one):yes::yes::yes:

LBR

[dalpal]

Isn’t this the basis for one of PetMeds 1-800 commericals. :lol:

[StGermain]

Ha! The only time I’ve had a really bad experience in my vet’s waiting room had nothing to do with the animals. There was a “pet parent” there who sold real estate, and wanted to pass her card out to everyone in the WR, and chat about the locations of their homes and did they need to move? What is it about insurance and real estate salespeople?

StG

[Pony_Someday]

Now I know to fully appreciate the separate dog and cat waiting rooms at my vet.

[Kryswyn]

What Pony Someday said. The 1st vet I used in VA had a cat waiting room and a dog waiting room with separate entrances. How intelligent!

My personal pet peeve, although I understand it and wouldn’t leave a vet because of it, are ‘office animals’. One vet had an insane parrot who even the techs couldn’t stand because all he did was scream. I’ve had vets with cats who roamed the waiting room (SO exciting for those of us with healthy Jack Russells waiting for shots). Current vet (love them) has office cat, dog and 2 cages of tweeting birds).

Perhaps this is why my dogs always look forward to going to the vets, on the off chance they will be allowed to hunt?

[Caoimhe]

I always have tech staff glare at me for having an un-neutered male German Shepherd/“husky” cross. I try to explain that he is a purebred WORKINGLINE German Shepherd imported from Germany, but they are usually ignorant and scoff telling me my dog is bound to get testicular cancer and will be insanely aggressive to other dogs, all while my “crazy” UN-neutered gasps German Shepherd is laying down quietly while a lab tries to jump on him. God forbid I ever mention that I do Schutzhund and bite work with my dog.

Needless to say I have found another vet who is amazing and can actually appreciate a German Shepherd that is NOT a black and tan, roach backed, showline GSD. :))

[Marshfield]

The other week I had a bruise on my boob from the owner who allowed his utterly untrained Boxer to jump up on and paw me. He got offended when I gave the dog a firm “Off” command. Drives me batty at times. I recommend puppy school to all puppy/young dog owners. The majority blow me off.

[supaflyskye]

[QUOTE=Caoimhe;5657451]
I always have tech staff glare at me for having an un-neutered male German Shepherd/“husky” cross. I try to explain that he is a purebred WORKINGLINE German Shepherd imported from Germany, but they are usually ignorant and scoff telling me my dog is bound to get testicular cancer and will be insanely aggressive to other dogs, all while my “crazy” UN-neutered gasps German Shepherd is laying down quietly while a lab tries to jump on him. God forbid I ever mention that I do Schutzhund and bite work with my dog.

Needless to say I have found another vet who is amazing and can actually appreciate a German Shepherd that is NOT a black and tan, roach backed, showline GSD. :))[/QUOTE]

I’d love to see a photo of your GSD. I love the physically functional working style German Shepherds.

The waiting room at my vet’s office is sort of compartmentalized. Like w/ tiny half height cubicle type things w/ benches along the edge of the room to keep animals from being forced into close proximity of each other. Of course, that doesn’t prevent oblivious dog owners from sitting in the compartments while Fido roams around the room and wanders in and out of other compartments 10’ away at the end of a retractable leash.
Honestly, however, I haven’t had any major recurring problems w/ animal behaviour at the vet, at least not recently. Our family dog when I was younger was always “that dog,” though (oh how I pity the owners of “those dogs”). The one that was muzzled and possibly sedated yet still screaming and trying to lunge at other dogs across the room. She was fear aggressive and was scared of other dogs and terrified of the vet. She was extremely well trained but just totally lost it at the vet despite having never had a bad or traumatizing vet experience in her life.

[JanM]

I really do like the idea of separate waiting rooms, or a separate cats only practice. I think one factor is that many vets offices are so overbooked and they end up with too many animals waiting for too long. And I don’t appreciate the fact that people seem to think controlling your animals and keeping them leashed or crated seems to apply to everyone but themselves.

And Caoimhe-I know what you mean about the tech staff being very opinionated about client business. If any other vet in town had decent hours or offered boarding I would have switched from the vet practice I used for my last dog. I found the office staff to be really aggressive with their personal opinions about my decisions about my animal’s care, and I don’t recall asking them for their opinion over the trained vets. Actually, I understand that the one tech that had been there for a long time and was very happy to share here opinions was asked to leave by the senior vet after she contradicted him in front of a client. I hate out of control animals in a waiting room, or even worse kids that are unsupervised and allowed to approach strange animals without permission-a great way for a bite or other injury to happen.

[MajesticDynasty]

lol you learn to deal with it working at a vet’s office. I’ve been working at one for almost a year.

My pet peeve are the clients who are all up on you and insist that you cannot hold their dog. Oh and those super hard to handle dogs are under 25 pounds 99% of the time.
Or the ones with the vicious little dogs that they owners insist are sweet and nice and refuse to put their baby on the ground so we don’t get bit trying to take the baby from momma or daddy.

Usually at my work, we hurry to put the ‘trouble makers’ in a room so the other people can breath.

[KateandKc]

In the waiting room at the ER vet with my boxer…gaping wound in his side from being attacked by a dog at daycare. He’s sitting next to me and minding his own business.

Someone with a medium sized dog on a flexi leash wanders in and has no control. Dog is about a foot from my boxer’s face (80 lbs and cranky due to pain/attack), owner ignored my “Dog isn’t friendly, keep away please” nice request. Finally I said really loudly “My dog bites!”. Flexi owner still oblivious and wants to let they say hi. I finally said “Get him Yo!”…flexi owner finally hauled her dog away and sat across the room giving us dirty looks.

Receptionist about fell over laughing when she figured out what was going on, and then brought us back to a room ASAP.

I hate the idea of socializing pets at vet offices.

[asb_own_me]

Does it ever occur to any of these genius pet owners that the other pets there, besides perhaps not being friendly or particularly interested in meeting thier pet, might be there for an ACTUAL ILLNESS and not just routine checkup/vaccinations? That the illness could be CONTAGIOUS?

I find that your average Joe pet owners are morons. I bring my dogs in on a short leash…after peeking through the door myself to “scout”. I give warning looks, I position my body between my dogs and other people/pets, and when more is needed, I give it. I don’t bother with any “Fido isn’t friendly” excuses. They aren’t even true (only one of my four dogs has any fear aggression issues). I simply say, “Please don’t touch my dog” or “Please don’t let your kid/dog/fruitbat touch my dog”. If they are really moronic I leave out the “please”.

There’s no time for wishy-washy.

[ManyDogs]

Wow.
Thank goodness our (new) vet came out Wed. afternoon and took care of our 4 horses and 10 dogs in less than an hour. :yes: I guess since he does both large and small animals, he is OK with making house/farm calls.
PerchX thought she would dance around a few steps but I put a stop to that. I agree about “pet parents”. What a term. I love my animals, but I’m not their parent. I’m a responsible (I hope) owner.

[shiloh]

I took one of my cats a low-cost spay/neuter clinic. While I was there a woman walks in with her large Shepherd-whatever X dog who proceeds to growl and bark aggressively at everyone and everything in office. Her idea of discipline was the basic ineffective sing-songy “Oh, stop now…” I move my cat in his carrier as far away as possible in this small space and wind up in a corner. She finishes with receptionist and moves over to my side of room where dog continues to go into pre-attack mode. As I’m feeling a bit fearful of this dog, I ask her politely to please move her dog. She responds, “Oh, he’s okay.” Dog is now actively eyeballing me and growling with hackles up. Ask her again, slightly less politely, to please move dog. Again with the lame-ass response that he is okay. I tell her that her dog is scaring me and I get treated to eye-rolling and general huffy-puffiness. Long story short, after others ask her to move she stomps outside.

What I wanted to say and what I want to say to everyone who says their ill-behaved child or animal is “okay,” is “look you dumb b*tch, I don’t care if your ______ is okay. I’M not okay! So take your child/dog/whatever and go someplace else!”

Another story - took my Mustang on a group trail ride. Now this horse hated dogs after being attacked by them and would go after them if given half a chance. Some fool let his dog run up behind this mare who gives it the evil eye. He lets dog do this several times, though I have asked him to call his dog off and have also moved my horse. After multiple idiotic “He’s fine” responses I finally tell this man “Look, unless you want your dog to visit the moon you’ll get him away from this horse who WILL kick him.” He moved the dog.

[maunder]

I had a similar experience waiting at the specialists office with my Peke and my Jack Russell. This is a BIG office and you can get out of the way of others by going around corners or sitting across the room so since I was waiting for a while I went to a far corner.

My Jack Russell can be totally fine with dogs and then if he thinks one has insulted him he’ll definately let them know. I’m aware of this so keep out of the way.

I was talking with a very nice lady and she starts to say, “uh oh, uh oh, uh oh!” I thought, “Huh?” then look up and see a HUGE Newfy right in my dog’s faces (and mine). I said very clearly and loudly, “THERE ARE DOGS OVER HERE”! I couldn’t see the door or the reception counter from where I was sitting. This dog had been on a Flexi leash and unrestrained. The owner didn’t reel him in but the vet techs quickly took this person to a room and she gave me a dirty look as she passed. She said, “He’s just being friendly”. I responded, “well my dog might EAT yours”. Sigh.