Will your vet see you during an emergency?

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#21
My preferred vet is almost three hours away, they will absolutely fit me in if I call and drive down, after hours they have a separate e-vet. Locally there is only one small vet office, 2-3 vets on staff (head vet travels to 2 other towns). They will get you in for an emergency day or night but it will cost you.
 

Southpaw

orange iguanas.
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#22
From my perspective of working at a clinic, it gets a little bit annoying that we squeeze everybody in because it definitely pushes us behind schedule... which, would be okay, except the OTHER clients who have appointments that we aren't getting to on time, never seem to understand. Their vet appointment is just one appointment of many, they have other places to be and they get downright ticked off if they have to wait. I always hope they can appreciate the fact that this is what we would be doing for THEIR pet if it were needed, but no one ever seems to get that!

We have emergency spots that aren't supposed to be filled until the day of, we offer a "sit and wait" option ("I literally have no appointment time to offer you, but you can come on up and we will see you when we can"), or you can drop your pet off. For TRUE emergencies, which we rarely see (ie hit by car, actively seizuring, respiratory distress or some such), we'll basically drop everything and get to work on that animal.

I think we are suuuuuuper accommodating when it comes to getting people in, even new clients get squeezed in a lot.
 

MrsBoats

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#23
Our GP/Primary vet has regular office hours and if it's outside of office hours, they are closed. I have called first thing in the morning with an OMG phone call regarding my first rottie....and they told me to come in ASAP and they saw us. He had Cushings disease and a bunch of other stuff going on with him as he got older. The OMG phone calls were a monthly thing with us after he turned 10.

If I had an emergency and it was after office hours, I have an e-vet's office that's open 24 hours less than 2 miles from my house.
 

Brattina88

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#24
Generally, for me, yes. They will see me both as "omg I need to get in right this moment" and as a same-day client. They generally keep a certain number of slots open, for clients that wake up and find their pet is sick and needs to be seen that day.

There are five vets at the office, though I'll see three of them happily, and one will step in if absolutely needed. (for ferrets) I've never seen the fifth.

That said, **** happens, and I have no doubt that one day, they won't be able to fit me in when I need to be seen. For that reason, I have files at two other vets for "back up". One of which isn't an emergency vet, but always has spots open for emergencies.

Recently, the emergency vet near me stopped charging an emergency fee for clients, and I'm also a client there.
Pretty much this. There's four vets at the clinic. One vet is "mine", he's retiring and he's going down to part time so I'm not sure what's going to happen there :(. 2 out of the other 3 I'd see happily. One of them is ortho. The other one is my vets daughter, and she's good. One of them I don't care to see but in an emergency I would m
The jury's still out on the new guy I don't even know if they've technically hired him yet :eek:

They've always seen me right away for emergencies, I live practically right next door. This is the first time I've had a problem with it - though it wasn't a life or death, hit by a car or stop-breathing emergency and they were already booked up with tons of unexpected emergencies. There was people literally waiting in the parking lot. The emergency vet in the area does not have a very good reputation and I will avoid going there if I can.
 

JessLough

Love My Mutt
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#25
Now that I think of it, every time that I've had a real emergency, it was respiratory distress. I'd be pretty put off if they WOULDN'T take care of my animal in those circumstances (when I call and tell them I'm on the way).

I was there once for something else, and a guy came running in saying he needed help right now. He was not a client, and had a cat in his car that was just sitting there, meowing in pain. They took the cat in the back and told him to stay there, and whatever vet wasn't doing something right at that moment would take care of it. So, unless they were bombarded by emergencies that day, I'm pretty sure if you showed up, they'd see you.
 

Sweet72947

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#26
The vet where I work will take emergencies whether they just walk in or call first. If the pet needs care beyond what they can provide, they refer the clients to The Hope Center, which is a 24 hour emergency clinic.

If I have an emergency, there is a 24 hour emergency vet about 10 minutes from my house. I wouldn't go to the vet where I work for an emergency because it's 40 minutes away.
 
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#27
During normal business hours, they'll try to get you in same-day if it's urgent. I made a lot of same-day or next-day appointments when the cat was having urinary issues. If it's after normal hours, you'll have to go to the e-vet (of which we have several in the area), I don't believe they ever have an on-call person. I'm fine with this arrangement - I would never expect my vet to come in after-hours when there are so many e-clinics around. They have five vets.
 

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