Every day our team tackles all kinds of visits and care: wellness exams, vaccinations, lab work, toenail trims, day admissions for routine treatment–plus helping pets with diarrhea, pets with intestinal parasites, pets for surgery and dentistry, plus acute illnesses, chronic medical conditions, and trauma.
Our team is highly trained to treat each pet as an individual with unique needs and personalities. This takes skill, effort, compassion—and time.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on the vet field, which was busy before. The pandemic requires extra safety measures and special protocols and is adding extra challenges. One of the biggest challenges is appointment shortages.
We know wait times are longer than usual. Wait times have grown since appointment spots are in short supply. It’s simply an issue of time and staffing requirements. We want to see your pet! We simply may have to book your well pet’s visit for a few weeks away instead of a few days.
Our team works diligently and carefully every day on our schedule. We book visits based on what each pet needs. We keep several spots open every day for sick pets, and those spots fill up every day almost immediately. We always keep a wait list and will call if a spot opens up. We will see your pet if we can.
What Can Cause a Longer Wait at the Vet?
On the day of your visit, you may have to wait a bit longer than usual. We know this is frustrating. Please be patient with us! We are dedicated animal lovers, and we are busy helping pets. Unfortunately, procedures become more complicated than anticipated every day. The doctor may be in surgery longer than expected because of something unexpected, or can be in surgery with an emergency C-section or trauma. Or the well pet exam turns into a sick pet medical work up.
When an unexpected circumstance arises, we may fall behind. For example, a patient with a well pet vaccination appointment comes in and is very sick. This turns into a different type of appointment and involves more of our staff time. We are very fortunate to have in house laboratory, x-rays, and ultrasound and want to help your pet. However, using all of these takes a set amount of time. We will take urgent care as we can safely work them in. These cases will also set our schedule behind. For every emergency care pet that we work into the schedule, we will fall a little behind. Please be patient, because we are working on someone’s precious pet, and the next time it could be yours.
Sometimes a pet is especially nervous, and we have to take twenty extra minutes for that nail trim. All these extra minutes for best care really do add up.
When a pet parent is running even a few minutes late, the ripple effect can put us behind all day. Please call us if you’re running even a little bit late! We’ll figure out if we can still squeeze you in or need to reschedule.
What to do to help?
Let us know if there is something going on that we need to look at as you make the appointment! This will help us help you and your pet better by scheduling appropriately. If it’s a dog that needs vaccines but he has been coughing, let us know. If you pet has not eaten in 5 days, but you didn’t call because you were already coming in for a well pet check up and vaccines, please let us know. We may be able to work you in earlier, or at least know that this is a sick pet coming in. A lot can be addressed within the normal well pet vaccine appointment, like ear infections. However, a critically ill dog waiting for a vaccine appointment is not fair to your pet.
Referrals For best care
What is a referral? A referral is the best option for a pet in need of care we cannot give. Referrals are situation dependent and made with expert assessment. We give a referral to an urgent or emergency hospital when it is best for the pet.
We are not an emergency hospital. Those hospitals are staffed for trauma and critical illness only and do not see regular exams. We are a general practice animal clinic so we see everything from wellness exams to severe illness and chronic medical condition to urgent care conditions. If you call with a critically sick or injured animal, we may refer to the local emergency hospital or even a competitor down the block , if we are at overload and can not give your pet the time it deserves. Rest assured that we all want what is best for your pet. A doctor will not leave your pet on the surgery table to see one more client in the lobby. If animal needs more specialized care, we will refer you and your family pet to a facility that can provide optimal care for your pet. If it needs advanced imaging like a MRI or CT scan, a special surgical procedure outside our skill set, or other specialized care, we will find a facility and doctor for you. We have referred to Oklahoma State University, University of Missouri, Texas A & M Veterinary College, Colorado State Veterinary Hospital and luckily numerous local specialists as well.