Ahwatukee Commons Veterinary Hospital

Reviews 4

AU

Audrey S.

My husband and I have been taking our pets to Ahwatukee Commons Veterinary Hospital for three or four months now and have spent roughly $1,500.00 on medical services there. I wish I could say that the money was well worth it, but I can’t. Yesterday marked our last visit to ACVH. We recently adopted a dog and brought him to Ahwatukee Commons for a medical evaluation. One of his eyes was weeping excessively and he was pawing at it so we asked that Dr. Howard, our preferred vet, to take a look at it. It was discovered that our dog had a scratch on his cornea. We were sent home with several medications and were scheduled to return two weeks later for a re-check. Dr. Howard was unable to do our dog’s re-check, so my husband and I reluctantly went with Dr. Elliott—my husband and I had been avoiding her due to some bad reviews she had received online. We were hopeful that she would turn out to be as helpful and caring as Dr. Howard. Unfortunately, she was nothing like her. She was rude, uncaring, and unprofessional—she is the reason we will no longer be going to Ahwatukee Commons Veterinary Hospital. During our re-check, Dr. Elliott told us that our dog’s cornea had healed. She also told us that our dog appeared to be suffering from entropion and ectropion and, consequently, required costly eye surgery. My husband and I were shocked. My husband and I will pay whatever it takes to keep our pets healthy. We’re human though and costly vet bills make us cringe. We told Dr. Elliott that we’d spent quite a bit of money at Ahwatukee Commons already and that we couldn’t believe that the $20.00 dog we adopted from the county shelter needed such an expensive surgery. Dr. Elliott’s response: “I don’t know what to tell you”. We weren’t looking for advice—we were just expressing how shocked we were. We also weren’t looking for financial guidance, but Dr. Elliott took it upon herself to council us on our spending. She told us a story about a friend of hers that had seven children and how she was constantly complaining about the money required to care for them. Dr. Elliott said that she had one child at the time and that she would just look at her friend and say, “That’s why I only have one”. Dr. Elliott was implying that if we didn’t want to have to pay to take of our pets that we shouldn’t have any. If this is how she feels about customers that are able and willing to pay for their pets’ medical expenses, I can only imagine how she feels about customers that are facing financial hardship and are unable to provide medical care to their pets. Aside from her comments implying that we shouldn’t have pets, Dr. Elliott also insinuated that if we hadn’t bought Christmas presents yet, we should use that money to pay for our dog’s surgery. My husband and I never stated that we didn’t have the funds to pay for our dog’s surgery and we certainly never asked Dr. Elliott for financial advice. Dr. Elliott was out of line. In addition to Dr. Elliott’s unprofessional behavior, the vet techs handle our cats like they’re dolls. I’ve had several vet techs attempt to carry our elderly, 14lb Siamese with one hand. Anyone that’s familiar with cats knows that this isn’t the proper way to hold a cat. Every time I bring my Siamese into ACVH, I tell the vet techs that she doesn’t like to be scruffed—she will struggle and urinate all over herself. Despite this, a vet tech decided to scruff her and, as a result, she soiled herself. My cat came out of the back room, absolutely terrified. For these reasons, I do not recommend Dr. Elliott or Ahwatukee Commons Veterinary Hospital. UPDATE: My husband and I took Teddy to see a specialist. The veterinarian that we saw recommended entropion surgery but not ectropion surgery. We spent several hundred dollars more to have his surgery done by a specialist, but it was well worth it. I’m glad we didn’t have Dr. Elliott do it.

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KA

Katie Holmes

Wow!! After experiencing several mishaps with our Vet for prescription approvals through 1800PetMeds, they decided they werent providing the care our dogs needed and wanted us to go elsewhere. The vets office charges 2-3 times the price compared to the online medication, and they make excuses as to why that is. Perhaps they just didnt want us to buy elsewhere. I dont know. Its funny too because anyone who knows us, knows our dogs are pampered. They only get the best of the best of eveything. However, because of the number of problems weve had with intestinal parasites, it is extremly expensive to get rid of them. Thats the only reason I went through Petmeds. After several go arounds with this, I only wanted to expedite approval, and no matter what we did to help that, we met obstacles every time we needed to fill prescriptions. This delayed my dogs from getting better. Yet, I was never rude to them. In fact, I have been extremely patient with their office, given the circumstances. I have never in my life been "fired" as a paying customer, and its shocking considering how much money I spent there in the last 2 years. It was more than enough to consider getting pet insurance, but insurance doesnt cover pre-existing conditions. Although we considered going elsewhere for a long time because of this problem, now we have no choice. Oh well. We will be better off Im sure.

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KI

Kirsten Dirks

I <3 Ahwatukee Commons Veterinary Hospital, and will never take my pets elsewhere. Dr. Howard saved our cats life. We have several rescue kitties, one whom is quite old. We used to take him to a vet right up 48th st, just S of Elliot. After a series of misdiagnoses and countless hundreds of dollars in vet bills, our cat ended up in the ER with heart failure. I started taking our precious old kitty to Ahwatukee Commons after receiving continually terrible, outdated service at the other place, and I am so glad we switched! The veterinarians and staff at Ahwatukee Commons Veterinary Hospital really are the best, and still continue to impress me with their knowledge, range of services, genuine compassion, reasonable pricing, etc (I can go on, and on. And on...) I have friends who take their pets to Ahwatukee Commons and they all love this place as much as I do. I would not pay attention to any negative reviews - I am willing to bet they are coming from a competing veterinarians office. Every one I know who has come to Ahwatukee Commons loves it. Thanks to Ahwatukee Commons, our old kitty is still happy and as healthy as can be!

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FI

Fire Breathing Moon Beam

OThis place was horrid. They tried to tell us the cats were not up to date on their shots. Since we adopted then out of pet smart we know they are up to date. They were even looking at the records showing they were up to date. I think her name was melissa? The lady said they had the "acceptable" amount of shots. She tried to tell us one of the cats didnt have his rabies shot. He had to tell the lady that they have all the necissary shots x2 even though she was looking at the papers. Not only that but we were quoted $17 for the first cat and $11 for the second. That equals $28. We were cgarged $40. For about a less than 4 hours. We came back and got our cats early because he was left with a bad impression. The ladies were nice but the employees trying to sell us a rabies shot when they alraady have it (with proof), they misquoted us, we had to pay extra just for them to come out of those tiny crates 1 time a day? We will not bring our cats back there again.

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