Urban Vet

UrbanVet
Category: Veterinarians
Neighborhood: Queen Anne
Update - 8/7/2009
Urban Vet is one of, at best, a handful of the veterinary clinics that offers routine vaccinations (and boosters) without requiring an office examination, which makes sense if your pet has no. health issues. A vet tech will does this, and walk-ins (as well as appointments) "will do."

For this alone, it deserves commendation.

Many veterinary clinics as well as books on dogs and cat assume that one has at least a six-digit salary, which is perhaps why so many pet owners are scared off and, thus, NEVER bring their pet into a clinic.

I got boosters for rabies and FVRCP for both my cats at the same time, and the procedure went smoothly. I was even able to hold my cat on the examination table while this was done. (My cats' weight and rectal temperature were taken just before).

The price was either booster was $21, the rabies vaccination being $3 more expensive than the previous year while the price of the FVRCP remained unchanged.

The staff were friendly, relaxed, but still efficient. (The veterinary technician even admitted to me that most clients do not regularly brush their cats' teeth).

So I left today a satisfied customer.
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7/20/2008
What I learned from my visit to Urban Vet:

Reading other reviews of veterinary clinics, I have noticed a recurrent complaint that veterinarians often suggest all kinds of very possibly unnecessary procedures and the like.

It is really important to know what kinds of things a veterinarian will most likely do during an office visit, especially the very first one.

(In this terrible economy, doubly so).

Some of the things a veterinarian may recommend doing (de-worming, checks for ear-mite or flea and concurrent treatment, toenail trimming, etc.) may be things you can do (and have done) yourself at home.

Most of these treatments, as far as I know, are done routinely by animal shelters without prior testing (blood work, microscopic and/or fecal examination, etc.) as they are 95% risk-free.

It helps to consult the record given to you by the animal shelter (if you have adopted from there), which will list vaccinations and other treatment given.

The more information you have in hand, the more you will be able to ask intelligent questions and decide for yourself what is crucial to have your veterinarian do during that first visit.

A veterinarian will offer some services you could do on your own. You pay for the convenience of THEIR doing it for you, for their "being on top of things," e.g., scheduling when X or Y should be done.

For those with little or no interest in these sorts of things (or who don't have the time), you can just leave it for your veterinarian to decide. (I myself have an abiding interest in knowing what is going on with my pet as well as in heading off unnecessary costs).

In fact, less scrupulous veterinarians-I am thinking of the Cat Clinic of Seattle or the Queen Anne Animal Clinic, in particular--will recommend (or even bully you) into doing exhaustive tests. In fact, it is far more cost-effective and practical to treat, in order--and then by process of elimination--of the frequency of a particular medical disorder/condition associated with a cluster of symptoms.

Of course, this would not apply if it were an emergency.

(I know, as I have had a chronic cough for over 18 months. The doctor and specialists have tried to, in step-wise fashion and by process of elimination, to treat it based on the symptoms and by progressive testing).

In short: Do your homework (before you go in)! It pays in time AND money. You won't be dumbstruck when you take your pet in to the vet.

And you will better know how to take care of your pet, too.

http://www.avma.o...
http://www.catwat...

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7/18/2008
The not very known URBAN VET does not charge an obligatory office visit fee for a routine vaccination, a big plus in my book. They charge a reasonable one-time fee of $12 to set up a chart, if you are not already a client, for these vaccinations. (Why some clinics can get away with that is a mystery to me).

Office visits are $48. The vaccinations are about 20-25% lower than other places.

I took my second kitten here to get a vaccination for rabies, which the shelter had not provided. After making a visit and asking questions about the vaccination schedule she would know, I decided that I might as well do the first veterinary office visit as well, as the staff person was not frazzled by my request, diligently explained based on the kitten's shelter records, what it should be.

(This is a confusing piece of "business," as shelters do not explain to adopters what things will have to be done next. I suppose most people just bother with this and just leave it to the veterinarian to go ahead and do. Furthermore, there is some difference of opinion about the "when" and "how often").

The friendly vet tech actually spent some time doing more than just taking my kitten's weight.

Though personality may be a subjective matter, I found Dr. Keira Faulkner-- who is not the owner--to be a genuinely caring,ebullient vet, who listens to your needs--definitely NOT the case with all vets.

She was much more open to discussing AND explaining options, answering questions, etc. than the veterinarian at Elliott Bay Animal Hospital (a mile north), whom I had seen a few months earlier.

She discounted a significant part of the bill--ear cleaning, which I was not certain was absolutely necessary, as my kitten has not been scratching at his ears but was, in any case, a good thing to do.

Wanting to look at a slide of the ear debris under a microscope to check for mites seemed less practical than simply going ahead and treating for mites--if there were any--which is, I am assuming, why she wanted to ascertain their presence.

If the logic sounds confusing to you, if it was to me, too.

(In the future, however, I will be doing this task myself, as (1) there are over-the-counter products and (2) I prefer being self-reliant as well as enjoy doing things like this myself, whenever possible. Also, some simple procedures are expensive! For example, $47 for ear cleaning + ear-mite check).

I learned things here from the office visit, things which will me take better care of my new kitten.

It was not the perfunctory 10-15 minute office-exam-and-then -I'm-gone experience of the Queen Anne Animal Clinic. I was able to observe her give he rabies injection and flush-clean the ears. (The QA Clinic had refused to allow me to watch an injection).

So I was delighted that I could find a clinic with reasonable fees that makes an attempt to meet their clients halfway instead of just handing them the bill ("Now which do you want? We're waiting")..

I could quibble about some things--for example, the disappearance of the animal shelter voucher for the office visit--but on the whole, I was happy to find a veterinarian with good communication skills.

The fact that the physical surroundings are rough-at-the-edges did not make any difference. In fact, this is a very spacious clinic, with exam rooms twice the size of most clinics.

However, if dog noise bothers either you or your cat, coming here, despite the quality of the service, is something that you will have to decide for yourself and your cat.

Yes, you hear a lot of canine barking coming from either next door (The Dog Lounge) or from dogs receiving treatment. (Or is just that dogs bark all the time? I'm not a dog-owner nor intend to be, ever).

The main drawback I found was a certain insistence on doing things I did not think necessary: the ear cleaning and slide examination for mites, stool sample (to recheck for worms), or even the FVRCP booster. Nice but not crucial.

I did have the gumption to state that I could do the flea treatment with (leftover) Advantage myself at home. I think going ahead and treating for mites would have been simpler and safe as well, as the shelter animal records indicated that they had treated the kitten once for mites with Ivermectin--so it was safe to do.

Ditto for the tapeworms and roundworms--a repeat of droncit and/or pyrantel rather than doing an (unnecessary) stool examination.

Now that Dr. Heino is retiring from the Rainier Veterinary Hospital (and that their rates have gone up), this may be good bet for those of us who, don't have a lot of disposable income.