Animal Kingdom Veterinary Hospital

Reviews 4

A

A Private User

AK has treated my parents two purebred miniature schnauzers, Quaker Monk Parrot, and two of their cats over the past 10 years. They have also treated my brothers purebred Chocolate Lab, and they now care for our purebred Golden Retreiver. (I only point out the purebred part as I am more the reluctant father type than the animal lover and when you shell out thousands of dollars on a dog - you learn to only go with the very best of Drs.) As a family we have experience with several vets going back 30 years now and I would say hands down there is no comparison to AK. AK has always been outstanding to work with and has provided the utmost in care for our animals. Dr. Vicki has an outstanding approach to care and an equally wonderful "petside" manner... We have certainly had the nightmare type experiences with other vets and would not trust our animals to any other organization. Also, in response to a post below -- it has never been our experience that AK has ever pushed anything unnecessary - in fact I would say it is quite the contrary - they seem to be averse to recommending most treatments and actually encourage natural healing as much as possible. Again, this has only been our experience - the reviewer below does also admit to not having any personal experience with AK and seems to base the review on hearsay.. An excellent example of AKs approach was when we once had to take our damlation in for emergency kidney stone surgery. We made the mistake of NOT taking him to AK, and instead the vet we ended up using (in livonia) botched the surgery and nearly killed the dog. After several months of recovery and additional problems the same vet wanted to perform another stone surgery. We took him into AK and they took x-rays which showed us that by this point the dogs U-Tract was so full of stones there was no way to save the animal. (They would have surely benefited more from giving us another surgery) The other vet was prodding us to do an additional surgey at several thousand dollars. AK not only helped properly diagnose, but we were able to go back against the other vet and force them to admit negligence on the first surgery. If we had only listened to my parents and taken him to AK in the first place we would probably still have him here with us today.

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A

A Private User

I have been going to Animal Kingdom for 5 years, but after the last two visits I will not be going back. I chose them because they are excellent with rats and small exotics, but now all three of my girls have passed on. Last year when I brought my senior cat in they told me I needed to work on getting her weight down, and they put her on a hella expensive Hills T/D diet-- and gave me the dry and wet food. They VASTLY miscalculated how much wet food (3 cans a day for a 10 pounds cat?!?), and I called back twice to get them to provide correct calculations, but nobody took the time to make sure I was getting correct information about my cat. Regardless of what actually happened, which was probably just a transcription error, it made me feel like my vet was disregarding my cats health (I specifically brought her in for weight concern) in order to make more money. I also researched Hills T/D on-line, and its jam-packed with preservatives, the first three ingredients are animal byproduct filler, and vets are often paid to be representatives of the food...its like $40 for an 8 pound bag, seriously... My normal doctor is Howard, and shes been great (until that time), and this time I saw Dr. Maskey. Shes new, apparently, but she seemed incompetent and like she was on the verge of falling asleep. I noticed she made several basic errors filling out my cats chart (her age and weight) and she made minimal efforts to make my cat feel at home, did not really look me in the eye, and told me my cat needed a dental cleaning somewhat badly and would "have trouble eating in a 1 or 2 without it" despite the fact that the year before I was told her teeth looked fantastic, but when she left the room I saw that she had written down all sorts of information she did not bother to convey to me about my cats health. So when I came home, I had to do the research on my own despite being charged $38 for an office visit consultation. In the past few years, several friends who I had initially recommended Animal Kingdom to have had similar issues with their cats there. The room was disgusting this time round too even though it had apparently been "cleaned:" copious amounts of other animalss hair, and a small amount of poop in the corner where my cat chose to hide...

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LI

Lisa Steichmann

We have been seeing Dr. Marsh since she started practicing and have always had excellent experiences with her as a vet. After 28 years with her though we are leaving this practice. Weve put up with how expensive they are (considerably more than other practices in the area) because of our devotion to our two dogs and our faith in her. But the customer service has been poor, we waited 45 minutes to be checked OUT because the person dealing with us was new and didnt know the procedure just a few months ago. Weve been given poor advice (I think due to miscommunication thru their staff) and encountered problems (but never with Dr. Marsh). In 28 years weve not been late to an appointment except once, when we called because of car trouble and rescheduled. But this week we ended up 8 minutes late (by our clock, ten by theirs) for our appointment due to an accident that had traffic backed up. Although she had an appointment two hours later available (which didnt work for us) she wouldnt impact the three appointments following us with a ten minute delay and see us. I suppose this is their policy and maybe they are tired of people being late. But to us, after all these years and the drive to get to them (we live north of Ann Arbor) it feels as though those minutes are more important than our history with them over all these years. When we decided to end our relationship they mailed us our records and were done. We asked if Dr. Marsh was told of our concerns and were told yes. Were saddened that we apparently were much more willing to deal with problems on their end than they could deal with us. Now we are looking at cheaper vets, closer to our home, that our friends rave about. And I feel like a chump for arguing that they were worth the drive, the cost and the inept staff in the past because of how much I respected Dr. Marsh. I would take a pass on this animal practice if you are looking for a vet.

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A

A Private User

This was supposed to be one of the best places I could take my ferrets, and maybe it is... as long as you get to see Dr. Marsh, and NOT Dr. Kim... Dr. Kim did not seem at all knowledgeable about ferrets. We took mine in for diarrhea that wouldnt clear up. They basically told us that thats what ferrets do, and theres not a whole lot you can do except treat the symptoms. they didnt even do any blood work until after we pushed them to do it. Instead of giving us our options, and explaining everything, they told us that they can treat the symptoms. And then theyd ask us if thats what we wanted to do... Of course we wanted to do everything possible, so we did everything they told us to. After he passed away because everything we tried didnt work (by the time he passed he was pooping blood, and they told us that was a GOOD sign and that he had irritable bowel syndrome. HA ya right.) Well, we found out my ferret actually had giardia, and after reading about it online, he had ALL the classic symptoms of it, but Dr. Kim did not catch it. Also, now I have to take my other pets in to get them checked for this parasite. We will never take any of our pets to animal kingdom again though. Another thing... They dont have overnight care, so I wouldnt recommend them for routine procedures or very sick animals that need round the clock care. We had to take our sick ferret to the emergency vet in Novi, when we needed to have him hospitalized overnight. For being a clinic of that size there REALLY should have been overnight care, and its unacceptable that there isnt.

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