Chihiro guards herself from the elements, to avoid another vet visit anytime soon
Last week I talked about switching vets, and how much more pleased I am with my new one than my old. Today I thought I’d share just what my new vet does for me, why I don’t mind spending the extra money to take my pets here than to the old low-cost clinic.
A typical visit to the low-cost clinic involved calling at least a month ahead of time for an appointment, waiting at least 20 minutes in the front room, and then seeing the vet in a back room for only about 5.
To be fair, that’s what most doctor visits are like and all my pets’ visits to the clinic were only for routine checkups and shots, nothing that takes too long. As I mentioned before, however, I often felt rushed to keep my actual time with the vet short, with the vet giving quick answers to any questions that I had and exhibiting signs that she wanted me to move along.
In contrast, I did not have to wait long to get into a room at my new vet. Once I was in the room I did have a longer than usual wait, but an emergency case came in. If I were the one with an emergency case, I’d want to see the vet right away, so I did not mind waiting myself.
Most importantly, I did not feel rushed at all once I saw the vet. He answered my questions thoroughly and always seemed patient with me, despite the fact that the office was closing soon. He also impressed me with how meticulous he was in diagnosing Chihiro.
Rather than just looking at her ear and making a proclamation about the problem, the vet took swab samples from her ear and sent them to the back for testing, in order to determine the type of infection. Once he received the results, the vet showed me an anatomical picture of the inside of a dog’s ear to help explain the nature of the problem.
The vet was equally comprehensive when testing Chihiro’s eye; in fact, I thought the test he did was pretty cool. Even though the vet guessed her eye problem had something to do with the infection in her ear, he wanted to rule out other possibilities. One common eye problem in dogs is that their tear ducts can clog, which leads to build-up.
In order to determine whether or not Chihiro had a clog, the vet dropped a dye into Chihiro’s affected eye. Because the tear ducts are connected to the nose through the sinuses, liquids entering the eye will run out through the nose.
The vet flipped off the lights, switched on a black light, and the dye in Chihiro’s eye made it glow an eerie green. Soon enough, we noticed the same green color trickling out her nose. That ruled out a tear duct clog, and ruled it out in a very cool fashion, I thought.
My vet continues to impress me even after my visit. About a week later I received a feedback form in the mail. The week after that, a fortnight since Chihiro’s appointment, the vet called me to follow up on Chihiro’s problems; I’m very pleased about getting this level of service from my vet, and was happier still to tell him that Chihiro’s doing fine now.
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