Changing to a new doctor for myself is easier than changing vets. The dogs get to know the people in the office. Our current vet has the nicest vet tech and they’re fairly close (by Texas standards) to our house but they’ve gotten outrageously expensive. I never walk out of there for less than $150. We’ve been talking about changing vets and it seems like most everyone we know who has pets has changed from the vet we used to Dr. Fritz Speck. I hated to do it but financially, we just had to.
It was time for Rita’s shots and it seems like it’s always well over $100 when I take any pet for shots. I called ahead to Dr. Speck’s office and it was less than $50. Even with getting Rita’s nails trimmed and glands expressed, it was $52 total.
I wanted to take Rita first since she’s pretty resilient and nothing much bothers her. She loves everybody and never makes a sound when they’re giving her shots or trimming her nails. Speck . . I leave the room because he starts screaming as soon as he realizes where he is. In fact, we get in the car and he knows he’s going to the vet and he starts screaming. When we lived in Kentucky, which was at least 10 years ago, I took him to the vet and while waiting, one of the vets came and got me ahead of other people waiting because she thought he was hurt . . he had been yelping the entire time we were there.
Even though the new vet is farther away, he’s open on Saturday mornings and I love that Vince can go with me for Speck. I don’t mind taking Rita and Boots by myself but I have a hard time dealing with Speck.
Now that the new vet has been “Rita approved”, tomorrow is Speck’s turn. He is up to date on his shots but I want to see if the new guy can offer us any help with his breathing issues. I talked to the new vet about it today and he said he will get a specimen/culture and send it off, make sure we’re treating for the right thing and go from there.
We don’t expect a miracle but we want to know, in the end, that we did all we could do to help him.
The way I look at it . . if the vet bills are close to half of what they were, when old Speck is gone, I can get another dog and we’ll still be saving money! We’ll try having Rita by herself but I really think she needs a companion, especially since she’s so used to Speck being around.
Theresa says
I agree, dogs need a companion, especially when you can’t be there.