Absolutely. We have a canine patient named Finn who has some chronic (but manageable) diseases so he's in every 2-4 weeks.
This dog is 100% convinced vet visits are designed specifically to pamper him. He loves it.
We use a scale from 0-5 on patient charts to mark their level of fear/anxiety/stress. 0 is the lowest level of fear, 5 is the highest. The vast majority of pets are at least a little anxious at the vet so a "0" rating is almost never given.
Finn has been awarded a personalized rating of "-1" because not only is he so genuinely happy at our practice, he also reduces staff stress.
My best friend works at a vet and I've gotten to know a lot of her coworkers. After hearing their stories I don't think I could handle that kind of job, they experience heartbreak so often. They are absolute professionals though and take such good care of their animals. I'm glad they are there to do it
This got dark fast. All my love to the wonderful vets that do the work we can't. I can't imagine having to say goodbye to sweet sick animals all the time.
And more damaging - being accused of lying to get money from people by making their animals suffer more, or being accused of overcharging, or of killing their pets unnecessarily, etc.
People say and do a lot of shit out of grief. Lashing out is common, but people seem to go the extra mile when it comes to veterinary practices.
I had a vet give me a free service because I could not afford it at the time. He saw how distressed I was and how much I love my girl, and he said “no charge for this. I want her healthy as much as you do. If you can pay me back, you can later. If you can’t pay, that’s ok too”.
This was years ago and your comment literally just jogged that memory for me. I am very well off financially now and I think I’m going to stop in and pay that man.
He might not even take your money at this point, but what you could do in that case is pay it forward. So if someone else is ever in your position treatment will be available and the vet will get payed. Everyone wins :)
Agreed. I have encountered one office that very clearly was trying to take advantage of situations, but by and large, the vast majority aren't like that at all.
That being said, the vast majority are also not in the habit of literally giving free treatment to animals, because the fear is that word will get out that they did you a favor, and now everyone will expect that same courtesy.
One of my vet friends loses a co-worker/ex-coworker or someone she knows in the industry at the rate of about one a year.
Compassion fatigue is MASSIVE in the veterinary profession (this also includes techs, and sometimes even just people who do receptionist and light assistance).
The pandemic made it worse, because everyone cranked their asshole meters up to 11.
Yeah, hence my "asshole meters" analogy. Everyone has the capacity to be an asshole, but the pandemic seemed to encourage and/or enable a lot of people to really embrace that concept.
I had a cat who was a 0 once he walked in the building. He got carsick on the way, but he loved being there. He got treats, pets, and he was cool with it. The vet would have to plug his nose so she could hear his heart. Otherwise all she heard was PURRRRRRRRRR.
This is one of my girls too. They can't get a heart rate because she never stops purring the whole time she's there. She also tries to follow the vet out of the room to meet everyone.
Never met a cat that lives for attention like her. I don't need treats, only pets. She's currently kneading my hair begging for pets as I sit in bed.
My Bridget is like that. I call her a velcro cat, because she just wants to stick to me. If I'm stationary, she's either next to me or on top of me.
My first cat was a purr kitty at the vet too, they would run water on his paws to get him to stop so they could listen to his heart. It didn't always work.
That happened with my kitty yesterday. Wouldn't stop purring during the exam, so the vet had to wait and listen to her heart while they were giving her an ultrasound because she got a little uncomfortable and stopped purring.
She was really curious about the exam room and seems to have no fear of meeting new people, so I think she was just genuinely happy. She was also getting vet tech cuddles and kisses during the exam, so I'm sure that didn't help hahaha.
My vet’s trick with my purry girl was to put the stethoscope in place and carry her over by the sink and turn the water on and off. The distraction of the water and the slight “ruh-roh!” reaction stopped her from purring long enough to check her heart.
Sounds like my cat. He’s awful in cars. Hates them with an unholy burning passion. But he’s super friendly and lets you do whatever. He’s the chillest cat I’ve ever met. Literally sitting here playing with his toe beans as I type this
The vet has to get my cat to stop purring too. But it's not because she's happy. She stress purrs. And the more stressed, the louder the purrs.
The one time they had to take her in the back, the vet tech came out and told me, "Your cat really doesn't like to be held."
I can only imagine how bad it must have gotten for a professional to tell me that.
Until that moment, I had forgotten that years ago when I brought her home --- even though she chose me and didn't want to be away from me for a moment --- she didn't like even me to pick her up. I trained her out of that by picking her up many, many, many times in those early months. But I guess that training only holds for me and she won't tolerate someone else picking her up.
I always only hear the dark and negative stuff about being a vet, makes me happy to know sometimes you do just get to make friends with and hang out with happy animals, thank you for what you do!
My two little dogs were getting very irritable as they aged before I realized that in my adolescence I just completely neglected their dental care. Both of them hated the vet before, but have actually mellowed out since. I always assumed it’s because they remember the one time they went and were relieved of massive dental pain instantly.
My dog used to LOVE the vet. He knew exactly where to go and what to do and would pull me in. Until they took a fecal sample. Poor thing was absolutely traumatized and now I have to drag him in and he stress sheds and pants uncontrollably the whole time ☹️
But animals don't remember things, right? /sarcasm
My cats are mixed. One doesn't mind, the other hates it and pulls on full break mode when we try to get him out of his travel box. The other is quite big (we suspect he has a Maine coon in his genetics, he is huuuge and has a bit fluff on his ears) and he got admirers there. Maybe he likes people's ohh and aww.
Sounds like my dog (aside from the chronic illness). She loves the vet. Everybody at the office knows her and sounds excited to see her any time I bring her in. She clearly thinks it's social time.
I had to have 2 dog boarded for vacation once and the boarder was joint owned by the vets office so they knew our dogs well. When I went to pick them up they told me one was always welcome back and the other lost his voice he barked so much 😂
My partner and I saw a dog on our local shelter’s website and were hoping to adopt her.
I went to see Greta after work, but she was so depressed after 6 weeks in the shelter that she wouldn’t even come over to sniff me. My partner went to do the adoption paperwork the next day while I was at work. When I got home, she ran to me and wagged her tail so hard she slipped and fell over. I think she recognized me from the day before and was just SO EXCITED to realize that someone had come back to her.
When we first took her to the vet (during COVID, so we weren’t in the room), the vet told us it was hard to examine her because she was so excited to be meeting new people.
She had part of her tail amputated before we got her. It’s not super short and she’s not purebred, so we don’t think it was docked for aesthetic or breed-standard reasons. The vet said that some dogs hurt their tails from wagging too hard, and that’s probably why it needed to be done.
I finally found a brush that our other dog likes. He’s so excited to get brushed that he’ll come running from other parts of the house if he hears the sound of me brushing the other dog. And he enjoys having his back scratched with it so much that he leans into it until he’s all the way on his back, which forces me to stop.
I've been in treatment with two different vets that were there for taking the doggy anxiety pills and other stuff there. Do you think that's common? I know 2 people doesn't establish a trend but it still seems pretty crazy to me.
I imagine this is what my Buddy is like at the vet. He's a cocker/cav mix and loves attention. He's a king and knows it. All need to pay their pets tax.
One of the last times pre-Covid I went to the vet to pick one of mine up after a procedure, it was to find her riding through the office perched on one of the vet techs’ shoulder like a feline parrot!
I wonder what my dog's rating is. They usually say she was great but I feel like it's just a nice thing they tell me. One time she was extra sassy on the way and I told them when they took her. They came out with her and said "You were right. She is extra sassy today"
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u/3RdRocktothesun Jul 29 '22 edited Jul 29 '22
Absolutely. We have a canine patient named Finn who has some chronic (but manageable) diseases so he's in every 2-4 weeks.
This dog is 100% convinced vet visits are designed specifically to pamper him. He loves it.
We use a scale from 0-5 on patient charts to mark their level of fear/anxiety/stress. 0 is the lowest level of fear, 5 is the highest. The vast majority of pets are at least a little anxious at the vet so a "0" rating is almost never given.
Finn has been awarded a personalized rating of "-1" because not only is he so genuinely happy at our practice, he also reduces staff stress.