If it was an emergency, would your vets do a home visit?

[Rosiecat]

My vet did a home visit on Tuesday to vaccinate my 20 buns for myxo and to microchip Rosie, Darcy and Nala.

They are coming out again in about a month for the buns' VHD jabs.


(Just reminded myself there why I work full time  )


Sarah

[forever_missing_my_boys(Lisa)]

my vets always say that its best if the animals can be brought to the vets as they have all the equipment there .

[Sabrina (Auferstehen)]

My vets as far as I know don't do home visits.

However there is a vet on call 24 hours a day and they have a transport van for folks who can't bring the animals in themselves as well as numbers for pet taxi people.

I don't drive over here so if my husband can't get off work it's normally a bit harder to get the cats to the vets.

[Ela]

My vets do house calls and they  also have an animal ambulance for pets that need to get to the surgery but he owners cannot bring them. You do have to pay £10 but it is much cheaper than the private companies who offer these services.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

I've never asked but I doubt it.  They do usually only have one vet on call and the point about not being at someone's house in case another person rings is a valid one, imo.  When Magpie died and needed to be rushed to the vets I wouldn't have been impressed if the vet had been at someone's house and had kept us waiting.  Also, if it's an emergency they really need to have the equipment that's at the surgery.  The only time they would go out, I think, is if the emergency itself justified a house call and I assume they'd call another vet from the practice (who isn't on call) to cover or something.  But they do like you to go in unless it's totally impossible.

[Desley (booktigger)]

My emergency vets dont - their reason is that they only have one vet on call, so if they go to someone's house, there is no vet on the premises, and as an animal hospital, they might get emergency drop-offs. My personal vets can only do housecalls at certain times, as again we have one vet in the branch I use, so they have to wait until consults are over.

[rosiesmum]

I was also shocked went vets in my local area would not come out to see Rosie. When Rosie had her infection, her stomach was in an awful state, I was worried about it and called the RSPCA - useless they gave me a number for my local RSPCA - they are shut at weekends - this happened on a Sunday.

I then called a vet who was listed as an Emergency call out vet, but she wouldn't come out as I was not in her area. I then called someone else, who again would not come out, but gave me some advice over the phone, ie. basically banadaging Rosie's stomach up (her stitches were ripping - due to the infection and she had a large open wound)

I have no transport either, the Emergency Vet I took Rosie to originally would not see her as I am still paying off the orignal bill from them.

That was the same weekend, the Locum vet told me, she was in a very bad way (so misinformed there too!)

Thankfully my Vet saw her first thing on the Monday and refused to PTS. It was 48 hours of pure hell!

[Sue P (Paddysmum)]

Ours doesn't either - he will do non emergency home visits but charges an extra £70 plus VAT call out fee.

[Dawn (DiddyDawn)]

I was shocked to say the least as I remember talking to an old dear once when Sean was working there and she said he'd come out to her as she had no transport.  I also know on a few occasions, the vet nurse has been on the phone talking to people and arranging to pick their pets up as they can't get in with them.  This has been fairly recently as well so I don't think they have a different set of rules unless it's just at night time........but then again, the old dear that Sean went out was late evening 

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

No they wont!

I dont think my London one would have either but I agree that a sheep is no more imprtant than another animal, only that its somebodys financial livelihood!

I had to rush Kocka to my london vets at least 3 times and on one of those I had a time limit to get there cos they would have closed and if they hadnt have seen her then, I do not know if she would have survived. I also had to get her to the emergency vet 2 days before she died and had no transport and then she had to go to the normal vet in the morning cos emergency vet closed at 0800 and the rest of the story you know.

I think that vets are not providing a service in most cases , only doing what is best for their pockets

[Dawn (DiddyDawn)]

I took a guy's dog in to be spayed this morning at my old vets as he had no transport etc etc and I was sorting a voucher out for him.  Anyway I took her home early this evening and she was fine.  I then had to go over to Leeds, I then got a phone call when I was about 3/4 hr from home off my hubby to say the guy had been on the phone and that the dog was bleeding heavily.  He had no transport and no money, he's not on the phone apart from a mobile and he had no credit on that so he used a neighbours phone and instead of phoning the vets he phoned me    Anyway hubby told him the earliest I could get there was about 10pm and to phone the vets up in the meantime.  I then phoned him and asked if he'd been in touch and he hadn't rang them because he had no money      Anyway I rang them and was hoping they would go out as I wasn't sure how bad she was, but they said she would have to go in even though I was his only chance of transport, and it meant another half hour on top after getting to his house for me to get back to the surgery so in total a good hour

When I got there, I asked what they would do in an emergency and if the owner needed them to go out to the house.  Her response was we try and insist they bring the animal in and if they stick to their guns, they usually find a way round it        The reason being, if a sheep is in labour for instance, and they have a distance to go on a house call, it may be impossible to get back for the sheep.  I can understand this but surely all animals are important and as far as I was concerned, I wasn't sure if I was going to have a dead dog on my hands when I got there because of the time it took for me to get to her.  I'm going to check with the other surgery tomorrow to see whether or not they do house calls and if not why.