5 things your vet staff is tired of hearing.

I’ve worked in the vet field for a couple years now. Currently, I work at a busy emergency clinic. We see a lot of patients every day, and I love my job. Well, most aspects of it. There’s a couple things I’m absolutely tired of hearing, and it dawned on me that some pet owners may not know how much they’re truly affecting their vet staff with the way they talk to us.

1. “My dog hasn’t been feeling well for 2 weeks now, I really need them seen.” These calls come in a lot at 6pm on a Sunday. If your dog has been sick for 2 weeks, it’s not an emergency. 2 weeks is a long time to call your regular vet and get an urgent care appointment. It’s a lot of time to call the emergency clinic during better staffed hours. But it doesn’t warrant an emergency. And these are the clients that most often will verbally berate staff members when we aren’t able to fit them in. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to get your pet seen and get them feeling better. But I can’t in good conscious allow a non-critical, overall stable pet come in while my coworkers are trying to keep the critical, true emergencies alive back in the treatment area. If your pet has been sick for 2 weeks, it’s not my responsibility to make it a priority during emergency hours.

2. “You won’t treat my pet because I don’t have any money? Do you even care about animals?” Yes, I do. I care a lot about animals. But like I said in my first point, it’s not my responsibility to make your animal a priority. Having pets is a privilege, not a right. And it’s expensive. Treating them in an emergency can cost a lot of money. Honestly, if I didn’t work in the vet field, I wouldn’t have the pets that I have, because I know I would struggle to treat them in a true emergency. But I also know there are a lot of resources that can help with emergency vet costs, and researching those BEFORE the emergency happens is the best thing you can do. There’s credit card options, loan options, pet insurance, etc. But berating your vet staff is not a viable option. We will work with you, but you need to be kind to us so we can. Accusing us of not caring because we, as a clinic, cannot do everything for free, is not the way to get help.

3. “Well my breeder said…” No. Please don’t start your statements with that phrase. 9/10 your breeder didn’t attend years of vet school. And when your breeder says something like, “your puppy shouldn’t get a rabies vaccination until it’s 6 months old, under any circumstance,” it also becomes a legal issue. In my state, dogs and cats are required to be rabies vaccinated, by their vet, at 3 months of age. Many other states have the same requirements. Also, I don’t want to hear, “my breeder said they already gave vaccines/dewormed my puppy.” When there’s no records of that, we’re starting over. Parvo is not a fun virus to watch your dog fight. If there are no records of your puppy getting vaccines, we are going to treat it as if they never got any and start them over, because taking the chances of your puppy getting potentially fatal diseases are not worth it. There are plenty of reputable breeders who breed good quality dogs, but they aren’t veterinarians, and we need our clients to remember that.

4. “Oh, he/she won’t bite.” Any pet is capable of biting if they are scared, uncomfortable, or in pain. ANY pet. I don’t care if you’ve had your pet for 10 years and they’ve never shown an aggressive tendency, I’m going to go into every appointment knowing there is a chance the pet will bite me. And if your pet gives me signs that they are getting upset, I’m going to take extra precautions to make sure my coworkers and doctors, as well as myself, don’t get injured. Please don’t get offended as a pet owner. We don’t judge your animal because it gets upset with us, but we do judge you if you don’t understand we need to put our safety first. My own cat needs to be sedated to have an exam at the vet. She’s awful, and she will try to bite as soon as she gets the slightest bit uncomfortable. And I understand that, and I don’t want my doctor to get hurt, so we sedate her. I’ve never lied or undertalked how she is, and I also don’t have coworkers who judge me when it comes to my cat’s attitude. We won’t do that with your pet. I promise. Working in ER, I see your pets in some of their worst moments. They don’t understand what we’re saying to them, and they feel so sick, and we understand if their first instinct is to fight. But you, as the owner, can understand what we are saying and doing, so we expect your first instinct to be understanding and helpful, not upset that we maybe had to put a muzzle on your dog to take the X-rays we needed to, or that we needed to give your cat some light sedation to perform the procedures we make to make them feel better. We don’t do anything that isn’t necessary for the well being of your pet, I can promise you that.

5. “Your wait is ridiculous, how can you make me wait 6 hours in your parking lot?!” First of all, be thankful your pet is stable enough to wait for 6 hours. We have patients in the back crashing, and all of our technicians and doctors are working together to try our hardest to keep them alive, even if it’s just until the owner gets there to say goodbye. Second, if you were in a human ER, a 6 hour wait would be expected. We are trying our best. We are most likely short staffed. Even if our parking lot is relatively empty, we have patients in hospital that need our care as much as the patients waiting to be seen. And we are trying our best. We are moving as quickly as we can, and if your pet can wait, that’s a good thing. You don’t want to hear us say, “okay, meet me at the door, I need to bring Fluffy in right now for someone to look at him.” If you don’t want to wait, feel free to call other clinics. Or go home and call us if your pet becomes unstable. But if you do wait, just know we are making you wait so we can give your pet the attention and care they deserve. We can’t see everything at once. We don’t have the doctors or the staff to do that. Covid times has made that 100% worse, and I know you as a pet owner are feeling that, too. But it’s nothing compared to how your veterinary staff inside the hospital feel. We hate making you wait. It stresses us out, it worries us, and we hate it. But we do what we can when we can, and you will get our utmost attention when we are able to give it. We are constantly doing our best, and I’m not sorry if our best isn’t good enough for you.

Moral of the story, just be kind and understanding to us. We’re trying our hardest, I promise. We give our 110% to our patients every single day. If you don’t think we do at our hospital, then maybe you need to go somewhere else. Because my coworkers and doctors deserve nothing but the utmost respect from our clients, because we work our butts off for your pets every single day, 24/7, 365 days a year. We haven’t closed a single day during the Covid crisis, regardless of how short staffed we are or how full our hospital is. We are always there for you, and we need our clients to be there for us, too. Know that we understand your frustrations, and we feel them 10-fold. We are always trying our best, working through the burnout and short staffing to do whatever we can to help your pet. Help us do that please. Don’t tear us down anymore than we already tear ourselves down. We work in this field because we love your pets and for no other reason.