When I adopted my first dog here I started taking him to the same vet that my housemate took his cats.
They seemed ok for little stuff, but once Jake got really sick and I took him back to them over and over and did tests and they said nothing was wrong with him.
Finally they did a barium xray (at my demand) and found he'd swallowed a squeaker from a dog toy. He had to have surgery and luckily pulled through, but it cost over $5K with all the visits before etc.
1/
Then about 5 years later he got sick again, and we went through the same shit. Finally they said they'd keep him overnight for more tests.
They called the next day, told me to pick him up, there was nothing wrong with him.
We went to get him and he was acting weird. Not happy to see me, just weird. And he stunk. I mean it was -30C and he stunk so bad we had to leave the windows open on the way home.
2/
When we got home I took him out to pee and he was peeing these huge blood clots. I freaked out, I called the vet and started yelling at them like WTF did you do to my dog?
I was absolutely livid. They're trying to tell me that it wasn't happening while he was there and I told them straight out that they were full of shit. Poor guy was puking everywhere and they told me nothing was wrong with him.
3/
I asked for recommendations on a new vet, friends put me on to this one place, I called them and told them what was going on, they said bring Jake in. The other vet refused to release his records to them, and I called them back and tore another strip off them and then they did.
The new vet found that Jake had a raging infection, and an intestinal blockage. So he had to have surgery again.
4/
Jake never liked going to the vet. I mean he liked people and was always up for adventure but the vet was just a terrible place.
Funnily enough, once we switched to another vet, he loved going and made friends with everyone there.
The moral of the story I guess is that if your dog doesn't like going, there might be a really good reason.
5/
@nonayadambidnes That's very kind.