VCA Smoketown Animal Hospital

Reviews 4

RU

russell frost

Final words from 2016... We lost the little dog mentioned in this review. Aggie died at sixteen, which isnt bad for her breed but there is no doubt in my mind that her last years were dramatically and tragically afflicted by the treatment she received during her last visit to VCA Smoketown. Since that visit, until the time she passed, she exhibited lasting reactions to the vaccines Dr. Shellenberger, in my opinion, recklessly gave her. I would be very careful with the upselling of medicine at VCA Smoketown. Original review... "Primum non nocere" First, do no harm. Thats basic precept of modern medicine. Weve been customer of the VCA Smoketown clinic and Dr. Shellenberger for almost five years now. And Ive held off writing this review for a while because I wanted to be sure I just wasnt reacting angrily to a few incidents. Look, there are two types of vets. Type one works with you as a partner and creates a regime of treatment to cure your pet. Type two sells you animal medical services and just like the service writer at the car dealership, their job is to sell you as much as possible. And sure, its good for your pet but its also wasteful, expensive and sometimes dangerous. We recently took our dog to see Dr. Shellenberger for a tooth problem. He immediately recommended we update all our dogs vaccines. After carefully explaining to the doctor that this particular dog has already had a bad reaction to vaccines (were not anti-vaxers by any means) he insisted that these were important, necessary shots. We continued to decline. He went and loaded up his syringes and we told him that the dog has a history of problems with vaccines and we would rather not. He continued to explain that they were safe and it wasnt a problem and the dog would need them for continued treatment. So what happened? Shellenberger gave the dog four vaccines in less than a minute. in the same location, in the shoulder. Within minutes the dog was having a reaction to the vaccines and he had to administer some anti-histamine intravenously. Within five minutes the dog was showing signs of dramatically lowered blood pressure and yes, more anti-histamines. Since then (about three weeks ago) the dog has been seriously ill. Weve seen two other vets from VCA Smoketown, none of whom could do more than recommend more services/x-rays or even another referral to another VCA Smoketown vet. In other words, were not done healing your dog yet. Its difficult for us to think that if Shellenberger had only listened to us and not gone crazy pumping our dog full of vaccines we neither wanted or needed that we wouldnt have the the same healthy, happy dog we had a little more than three weeks ago. Instead we have a dog with a number of symptoms that cant sleep, cries out in obvious, extreme pain regularly and acts as though weve been beating since it was a puppy. I cant blame the dog, if wed taken her out of VCA Smoketown before "treatment" she would be, arguably, her old self. There are two types of vets. One wants to partner with you to treat your pet. The other wants to sell you are many services as they can. VCA Smoketown is the last sort. If you feel your dog is the next potential profit center for a vet, youll love VCA Smoketown. If you like spending money on medical treatment, necessary or otherwise, youll love VCA Smoketown. There are times when no amount of money is enough to heal your pet. We know that feeling well. But there are times when your pet is just another customer, adding to the clinics bottom line. Thats the feeling were left with after our last series of visits to VCA Smoketown. As we see her shoulder bunch up in pain and hear her wail intermittently its tough to reconcile that this was necessary for her and for her own good. We hope that over time she will recover and were now looking at alternative vets.

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Jeffrey Packard

Barb and I own Ella a year and eight month old Newfoundland. She began to hobble and limp in pain after running and playing when she was a little over a year old. We found out from Dr. Gayle Jaeger at Smoketown that she had to have shoulder OCD surgery on both of her front shoulders. Dr Jaeger and the team, everyone, at Smoketown Vet did an incredible job. Dr. Jaeger was wonderful, understanding, kind to Ella, professional, skilled, patient and a great surgeon based on the awesome results. Ella now runs and swims - shes a Newfie! she swims and swims and swims and swims! and plays and chases and now at full speed and with great ease. Were looking forward to years and years of great companionship and activity. The care and friendliness and skilled and persistently achieving rehabilitation team headed up by Dr. Sarah Urban was fantastic - Ella was excited to go there every time it was rehab day - they treated Ella like a star - and even sent home a silly picture of Ella just because they were enjoying spending time helping her recover. The administrative staff was wonderful from accurate reasonable estimates to working with our vet insurance company to handling Care Credit to efficient appointments and kind effective service. Their prices were reasonable and the service and result and attitude and ability were five star. I would recommend them to anyone with a pet needing surgery. They were a blessing. Thanks to all of them.

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Amanda Baxter

I gave this place 1 star and thats only because it makes me at least pick one. Horrible! First they traumatized my dog in the groomers to the point he didnt want to go back in the rooms anymore. Next they had me thinking my dog had kidney failure due to eating some grapes. When his blood work was fine then they said he had an obstruction in his belly and sent x rays to a radiologist. Apon review they said he had no obstruction but next told me he had a mass on his lungs and then pretty much told me to find another vet that would do an ultrasound on him as if they no longer wanted to be his vet. When this all started I went in for him throwing up. They put him on meds for a stomach ulcer...he doesnt even have a stomach ulcer. I found another vet willing to help my dog. Turns out he is perfectly fine. No kidney failure, no obstruction, no mass on his lung. I was instructed by the new vet to stop giving him that medication he didnt need. This place had me distraught thinking I had to put my dog down bc of a mass on his lung and then said I should call around to find places to help him. Who does that!! My dog is fine and I will never go there again.. they are just a money hungry corporation that doesnt care about animals. They took me for $400 and I left knowing nothing other than I should call around for help. Wtf!! Please do not take your pets to this place!!

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Jennifer Marinari

When we took our kitten to the vet, they didnt notice that her nose had some crusted on mucus. It was obvious that something was wrong with her. She has allergies, or something along the lines of it. We had to figure that out ourselves. The vets have no idea what they were doing. And we were supposed to have an appointment yesterday, they never called us though we asked them to remind us. Terrible service. And the receptionist was so bitchy when we checked out. She made us feel like we were being rude when we were confused. They also completely overcharged us. We payed $40 more than we told we would have to pay. We should get our money back, and I have the papers to prove that we were overcharged. I would never go back, and I dont recommend anyone does. They dont have a clue as to what theyre doing. All they care about is your money. Ive heard stories where they have forced a dog to wear muzzle when they barked because they were scared. My co-worked told me so, and I didnt believe her. How terrible. Now I have no doubt in my mind that this vet would do something like that. Never going back.

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