Value Vet

After never being happy or remotely satisfied with the grossly overpriced Vet that had been seeing our Zipper and Sascha for all these years...West Hills Animal Hospital. (Stay Away!)...I decided to seek a different Vet for my "babies."

I about had it with those Jerks and a half. One day, I took my diabetic cat in, whom they complain about and hate because he hisses when he is frightened. When I was paying the bill, I turned around to catch one of their technicians bad-mouthing and making ugly faces at my Sascha. I had mentioned that the technicians at Dr. Rackear's on Ventura like him and dont have nearly as difficult a time with him as they do. I must admit, I have never seen Sascha take so well to a stranger as he has with them. He calmly and quietly went over one of their shoulders the first time he had ever met one of the techs.

So, when the West Hills Animal Hospital tech contradicted my claim about Sascha not being so difficult to another client, she closed the books forever on our ever going to them again! Besides, they had way too high a turn-over any way. Every two years was a new Veterinarian.

On a recommendation from a friend, I took them to get a checkup at ValueVet. What a horrid mistake! I will state that my friend's usual Vet had since left VV by the time I took my boys in for tests.

What an Incompetent! I brought my boys to this doctor for a check up. I was concerned about Zippers on-going vomiting which no Vet has ever been able to figure out. Side note, they are "twin" brothers from the same litter (different fathers) and are 13years old.

I was talked into running all these tests on both of them, which cost a staggering $700! only to have him come back and give me horridly disheartening diagnoses. Dr. Doom said that one of them (non-diabetic one who has always been healthy) was going to have to be put on some form of dialysis for four or five days. He urged me to put him on this (very costly and painful procedure) as soon as possible, as it was highly important, and we needed to be reverse his "condition" immediately before any further damage was done. He also informed me that Zippers condition was potentially life threatening, and "was nothing to mess around with" due to any delays. I told him that I understood, but that I wanted to obtain the records for a SECOND opinion. Thank GOD my boyfriend insisted that we get a second opinion!" else we would have subjected Zipper to unnecessary suffering due to a garbage analysis.

I went to pick up the records (it was a pain to get the xrays which at a bill of $700 gives me ownership of them, and they still screwed up! I repeatedly said I needed xrays for both, and I discover later that they only gave me one!). As I look over the lab work results, I discover to my dread that this idiot doctor had swapped his bad news dreadful diagnoses of both of them!

Incompetence! Trusting only Saschas specialist who was the one who discovered how to help Sascha regulate his diabetic insulin when he nearly went into near fatal insulin shock twice because his dosage one day became too high. Incidentally, Dr. Doom ran all these blood tests on Sascha yet he never asked me when I had administered his insulin for the day. Well, it was within 2 hours of running those tests which means that all his blood sugar levels would be way too high to ascertain anything. Idiot doctor knew that Sascha was diabetic, too.

We took them to The Great Dr. Rackear for the second opinion. As she was looking over the lab results of Zipper, she stated that it was impossible for Dr. Doom to have come to the conclusions that he did by simply looking over his x-rays and from the tests that were taken. Rackear said that he needed to have taken more intrusive exploratory testing to determine that Zipper had 1) an enlarged heart, 2) an enlarged liver, and 3) one kidney that was way too small! He also reported that Sascha had an enlarged liver, as well. I dont think he ever took into account of the uncommon size in bone and body structure of both of them. Dr. Rackear believed that all the x-rays showed was that Zipper had a lot of fat in those areas since he has recently gained a lot of weight and is a bit top-heavy.

In the end, when I told Rackear that we no longer had a regular Vet and the reasons as to why we dumped West Hills Anmal Hospital, she gave us the name of the only one doctor...Dr. Kunin. She said, he has a good reputation and that really takes special care with all his patients and spends a lot of time with them. He practices in Woodland Hills. I wish I knew of this Vet much sooner as I have for years been unsatisfied with WHAH. So, I did some research and discovered that he is highly raved about.

So, again, I say if you love your Furry Babies, then avoid both ValueVet and West Hills Animal Hospital like the plague!