State of Vet Care in the US
After living overseas for so long returning to the US always has it's surprises. But one of the worst was the state of Veterinary Care in the US. Now I have had dogs all of my life, NO ONE loves th...
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Well if this had been a one-off experience I would never have bothered writing about it. However I had a similar experience with a Vet in Minot ND with my big dog Nigel. And of course their insistence that my little guy Jake (in the photo) be classified as some breed accepted by the AKC.
That Vet did a blood screen on Nigel because he had all the symptoms of diabetes. Everything came back normal.
The Minot Vet was much more savvy about things than the one in Tucson however I still found myself leaving having spent a great deal of money with no answers or even a good suggestion and being urged to have more and more tests done. Then I solved the issue myself by watching the dog and changing how..not what, he was fed.
The vets one suggestion, to change the dogs to a very expensive food with low carbohydrates (which she sold) turned out completely badly.
I found the same dog food at a local feed store bought it (still very expensive) and fed it to my dogs as instructed. My two playful, happy, active pooches became like Zombies overnight. They were completely lethargic. They would not play or run or do any of the stuff they did before. It was like someone turned a switch off. After 3 days of this I switched them back to their old food. And almost immediately they got back to their old selves.
So while there are good vets out there, I do think that the way Veterinary medicine is being practiced today, with a huge reliance on expensive tests and more and more expensive surgical procedures with vets acting more and more like MD's for humans not only in the way their practices are set up and run but also in the way they view their role, things are out of whack on a serious level.
America is one of the FEW countries of the world where a "Prescription" by a vet is actually needed to buy medicines for a dog or cat. The upshot is, the care of our pets is slowly being taken from us and being put into the hands of an ever increasingly expensive and complicated medical establishment.
That Vet did a blood screen on Nigel because he had all the symptoms of diabetes. Everything came back normal.
The Minot Vet was much more savvy about things than the one in Tucson however I still found myself leaving having spent a great deal of money with no answers or even a good suggestion and being urged to have more and more tests done. Then I solved the issue myself by watching the dog and changing how..not what, he was fed.
The vets one suggestion, to change the dogs to a very expensive food with low carbohydrates (which she sold) turned out completely badly.
I found the same dog food at a local feed store bought it (still very expensive) and fed it to my dogs as instructed. My two playful, happy, active pooches became like Zombies overnight. They were completely lethargic. They would not play or run or do any of the stuff they did before. It was like someone turned a switch off. After 3 days of this I switched them back to their old food. And almost immediately they got back to their old selves.
So while there are good vets out there, I do think that the way Veterinary medicine is being practiced today, with a huge reliance on expensive tests and more and more expensive surgical procedures with vets acting more and more like MD's for humans not only in the way their practices are set up and run but also in the way they view their role, things are out of whack on a serious level.
America is one of the FEW countries of the world where a "Prescription" by a vet is actually needed to buy medicines for a dog or cat. The upshot is, the care of our pets is slowly being taken from us and being put into the hands of an ever increasingly expensive and complicated medical establishment.
