My wild experience..wild garter!

[jaleely]

Not all business owners, some are good at their work, bad at being an owner. it happens. lol
I see your points and they are valid. But just like with anything, some vets make people resentful, or feel over charged. It takes a long time to find a good match between vet and owner just like with patient and doctor.
But at the same time...not everything is as bad as it seems. I can't articulate well over the internet as well as i can in person. maybe i do one thing bad, but do in fact do some things for the animal well.
it's not uncommon for owners or rescuers to do a lot of their own stuff that they are able, just do to cost, and we're not talking trying to be cheap to be cheap, but out of necessity.
I also just spent 1,800 on my dog. But, at the same time, that whole incident i had someone new to the biz, and she did xrays without asking me, then charged 150 for the xray, and 150 (listed) to read them. I would have said no if consulted. So, she thought she was doing the best thing for a preventative measure, but she also didn't ask me history or even consult me, and if she had there would have been no need to jump to that conclusion.
But c'est la vie.
Many times i have found in this particular industry (and some other choice ones) that if people see you are willing to spend a little...they will gouge you a lot.
I took my dog to a vet years ago. He had been itchy since he was a 6 weeks old, my local vet said it was food allergies. did no tests. Just tried to sell me on science diet (which his full of fillers and not healthy food at ALL no matter what anyone says, ingredients are there to look up and are proof) and proceeded to try to sell me shampoos for his "dry skin" she saw. On my yearly road trip to oregon, i finally noticed patches of hair missing, and took him in to the vet there in rural oregon. The guy took a scraping, looked at it under a microscope, and said it was mange. Gave me the medcine, and actually told me not to bathe him fully with it, but sponge bath, and take the drippings and run them back over him so the medcine would last longer and not get wasted in a full huge bath.
Now THAT is a vet. That is someone who wasn't out to sell something, that vet was out to help and give care to the animal. (turns out he just has a lower immune system. is not allergic to grain)

When i took my snake in for the $200 gland issue, she knew right away what it was, and explained the whole thing to me. Showed me how to clean the gland, and expel the solid puss, as snakes produce puss differently than mammals.
I continued to learn about that, too for anything in the future.

As for treating at home. You are absolutely correct that since i had no experience, and since i was unsure, and wound up under-dosing, i shouldn't have done it.
however....every avenue i explored previous to that did not make monetary, or medical sense. I did not need the run-around.
I have had good vets and good experiences, so i also know when i'm being treated stupidly.
Which leaves the only option, home care.

So, i learn more until i can do it. In this particular case, under-dosing does not harm the animal (and one dose won't create a huge resistance to the parasites), so though bad, i did not really harm her.
Still may not be right, but i refuse to be taken advantage of.

I just hate the excuse that vet school is expensive so vets need to charge more. That needs to quit being said and more logical and factual arguments need to be made, such as like here...i am not a vet. You are right. *shrug* doesn't mean i need to be told that vet school is expensive so i should pay what needs to be paid according to some vet who owns their business and needs to recoup costs.

I've studied biology, and am still in school and learn more every day so i can go to the Moorpark Exotic Animal Training Management program. Will i ever have the knowledge of a vet? no. Will i be able to do some things a vet can do? Yes. I can now care for and clear an impacted musk gland.
And, despite how you may find more than me in a microscopic examination of fecal matter...i still found something indicating treatment was needed, and i still narrowed it down to a treatment that would take care of both types of parasite that it could have been.
Next time i look at least those will be out of the way, and i can look for more things. If i susupect i'm over my head i'll get help. But in this case there are only so many parasite eggs and dead parasites. I mean, you can see them. You can define them and match them. I did not perceive danger for the animal.

Anyway... i really am fine and not mad or anything. you're very good at articulating on the net! : ) I'm not..lol
i just don't like that one comment about vet school.
I'm still paying off my liberal studies degree (pointless!) and am going to school again.
But i'm pretty fair minded on this. When i make crafts or items others want, i factor in actual cost to me, time and profit margin. I do feel that many people do not do that precisely, instead they are motivated by greed and by when they see an easy target. it's an easy field to do that in. May not be nice to rationalize that, and it may feel like defense is needed, but the truth is...there really is *nothing* people can do about it when their animal needs help. It's either pay it...or the animal may die. It's not very fair. And there really are vets out there who ruin it for the good ones by knowing that, and consciously taking advantage of it.

[joeysgreen]

You are right; it's not about having to pay for someone's student loan. Nonetheless, certain rules of life prove true. People don't work for free. People that have invested and sacrificed a lot for education expect to make more than if they had not.

You are also right with how important communication is. Take your mangy dog. I can tell you from what little history you have provided that it was demodectic mange. I can also tell you that neither vet was wrong in how they approached the case; nor did your first doctor's actions have anything to do with selling you. Skin disease is a vast chapter in itself and truth be told dietary allergies are a heck of a lot more common than mange in most practices. Perhaps if your vet was better able to communicate with you why they were trying said food (a diagnostic test in its own right) and that the cream was an attempt to make your dog more comfortable you may have a better impression of them. When the food didn't work, the skin scraping was probably next on the "to do list". Now perhaps your rural vet is more experienced, or sees mange more often in his location. Nonetheless, if the skin scraping was negative and it did turn out to be a food allergy (or autoimmune disease, Cushing's, fungal dermatitis...) then what vet would be your hero? The fact is, graduation doesn't give you a crystal ball.

I want to be clear that I don't think you are stupid or less smart. I just think you know different things. An "ideal" vet works with what you know (in many cases it's a lot more about your specific species husbandry) and combines it with what they know, to make a treatment plan that works for both pet and owner. I routinely teach owner's how to give various injections, or treatments just as you were taught how to flush an abscess out. They will keep this knowledge forever but I would never expect them to know when it's appropriate to do so should the pet get sick again. For instance; your snake gets a swelling behind the vent again. "No problem, I've done this before"... but what if this time it's a tumor? Thus goes the saying, A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Now you say I articulate online well; I assure you it's only because this is a topic I know solidly. If this were a liberal study conversation, you would definitely be the articulate one!

[d_virginiana]

In my experience, reptile vets generally won't gauge you for simple things like x-rays, fecals, or simple runs of anti-parasitics or antibiotics. But the study of exotic medicine is still very young compared to regular vet care (I live less than fifteen minutes from the first non-zoo exotics clinic in the country and the university that offers one of the only veterinary exotics programs around). If it's something that requires a ton of testing to figure out, or something that involves extensive surgical intervention, you'll probably be charged three times as much simply because the procedures are new and people who have training to perform those procedures are few and far between.
I'm not basing that on the 'vets go to school so they need to recoup costs' thing, just on having had several different types of ailments treated by my exotics specialist and what tends to be reasonably priced vs. what doesn't. Of course the people who are willing to bring in a ten dollar snake for a fifty dollar parasite treatment are also the kind that are likely to care enough to try super expensive things to save their pets, so it may seem like gauging.

Just mentioning this because I had what I knew to be a parasite issue with one of mine awhile back. Turns out it was a very uncommon parasite that required an atypical medication regimen. If I had self-treated that based on what I knew to be parasite symptoms rather than just taking in a fecal and having it treated at the vet, it would've just delayed the treatment for a serious issue that much longer. I'm a biologist with access to university grade microscopes, and there's no way I'd have been able to identify that on my own. The way I see it, why take the risk when the safer alternative isn't that expensive?

btw I am not trying to start/prolong an argument here, but the topic of when taking a reptile for vet treatment is beneficial/when it's a crapshoot is interesting for me. It frustrates me to see people refuse to pay basic costs for reptiles as much as it does to see people recommend for a thirteen year old to take a frog that is clearly going to die to a vet for hundreds of dollars worth of medical procedures (saw that earlier on a different forum), so it's interesting to hear others' opinions on where exactly that line is.

[jaleely]

>>>>You are right; it's not about having to pay for someone's student loan. Nonetheless, certain rules of life prove true. People don't work for free. People that have invested and sacrificed a lot for education expect to make more than if they had not.

That's true, but still shouldn't be something brought up in giving reasons for prices : ) Because, it's obvious no one works for free. It's also obvious when something costs more than it should.

>>>You are also right with how important communication is. Take your mangy dog. I can tell you from what little history you have provided that it was demodectic mange. I can also tell you that neither vet was wrong in how they approached the case; nor did your first doctor's actions have anything to do with selling you. Skin disease is a vast chapter in itself and truth be told dietary allergies are a heck of a lot more common than mange in most practices. Perhaps if your vet was better able to communicate with you why they were trying said food (a diagnostic test in its own right) and that the cream was an attempt to make your dog more comfortable you may have a better impression of them. When the food didn't work, the skin scraping was probably next on the "to do list". Now perhaps your rural vet is more experienced, or sees mange more often in his location. Nonetheless, if the skin scraping was negative and it did turn out to be a food allergy (or autoimmune disease, Cushing's, fungal dermatitis...) then what vet would be your hero? The fact is, graduation doesn't give you a crystal ball.

As for this one, you make a good point. However I still stick to my guns that i believe i was given a bad service. Not only do i know sales, and when i'm being sold, but I had already tried dietary measures on my dog. It's beside the point. I think it just goes back to how eager some people are to jump to conclusions that earn them money, rather than do exactly what you suggested and though hypothisis and conclusion find a solution. Now, the rural vet...he may have had more experience and knew right away...but that's not what made him the hero...what made him the hero, as i said, was his willingness to give treatment that also made me feel like he wasn't trying to sell me on something. He gave advice, and a treatment plan that saved me from buying bottle after bottle of medicine. And it worked.
I don't want to drag this on, but below Lora asks "where is the line drawn" and i belive that for me, it's at "when do i feel like i'm being taken advantange of". If i feel like i can *safely* do it on my own, then i will. If i can't, then it's worth paying for. So then the determination is my own, on what i feel is safe for the animal or not..and that will always probably differ with someone else's opinion. There are obvious ones, but for instance, i feel it is safe for me to treat my wild caught garter with the treatments i know of, and with the parasites i've determined she has.

Same, if my same snake gets the same impacted glad, and there is the same discharge, yes, i would treat it the same. If however, i felt i could not clean it as well...i would take him in. Or, if the discharge was different, or the feel of the lump, or if anything else seemed different, i would take him in.


>>>I want to be clear that I don't think you are stupid or less smart. I just think you know different things.

: ) Thanks! and i mean it.

>>>An "ideal" vet works with what you know (in many cases it's a lot more about your specific species husbandry) and combines it with what they know, to make a treatment plan that works for both pet and owner. I routinely teach owner's how to give various injections, or treatments just as you were taught how to flush an abscess out. They will keep this knowledge forever but I would never expect them to know when it's appropriate to do so should the pet get sick again. For instance; your snake gets a swelling behind the vent again. "No problem, I've done this before"... but what if this time it's a tumor? Thus goes the saying, A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

and i do see what you're saying here.
I hope to find a vet that would be ideal, but until i do, i have to weigh my options. Which is that once i took my snake i suspected of having a RI in...she assured me she knew snakes very well, worked with reptiles all of the time. When i got there, she didnt' know the species....a common carpet python. she told me she couldn't sex it, because she wasn't confident in her abilities (which is fair to say) but she did imply she COULD over the phone...so that was annoying. At the same time, she physically handled my snake in a way i found alarming, and in the end, told me my snake was wheezing because it had some shed in it's nose...which she *saw* move into the nose and dissapear, and that's why i couldn't see it. She then told me to take some eye drops i'd gotten for my dog and drop them down my snakes nose to dislodge the shed.
Now....we're getting into a few things here, but let's just say i wasn't going to waste the expensive eye drops. I did agree the snake wasn't sick...but instead found she wheezed because she was upset...and it was entirely possible it could have been shed, but to this day? no. and for her to say she saw it disappear in there? no. 3 years ago. Since then i've had my snake checked again, and she is fine. i was being a worried mama. but, she also told me her actual experience with snakes was that she helped "rescue" one, one time. but she didnt' like to feed it because she was vegan. Okay. that's fine. But clearly this woman wanted me into her office desperately. This was the same office, but different vet (and the last time i went there) to just one of the times i went there for my dog. I've been to a lot of vets in my area. I've had a lot of different tactics tried on me. I am guessing that you are so adamant and believe so much in the honesty and integrity of your field because you probably are and work with and for a good vet. It's just not the case in a lot of areas. My area has poor choices for reptile vets, and since it's so near L.A. many people feel they can charge whatever they want and get it, because it's the "rich" area. I really do have to shop around, and make my choices carefully.

>>>Now you say I articulate online well; I assure you it's only because this is a topic I know solidly. If this were a liberal study conversation, you would definitely be the articulate one!

And that is very politic of you, but entirely not true, LOL i'm terrible at all of it. I just can't let it go because I really have had a lot of experiences and many of them are not good. I judge harshly because i abhor any poor treatment of my animals, i care about them a great deal. That can be a detriment, because i do not trust a lot of these people to treat them, and am left to do it myself because of it. Which....may not always be best. I admit that. It's a toss up. Always is.
Because sometimes you pay, and it's still bad treatment, or worse treatment than if you'd done it yourself, if you are able. It's always a judgement call "in the moment" it's not as clear cut as "what is the line" or "always take your animal to a vet" because frankly, not all vets are good, or honest. same with any field or job. not all car technicians are good or honest, not all doctors are good or honest.

[joeysgreen]

ARAV's Find A Vet

Hopefully one of these guys is within driving distance. Being an ARAV member, they have shown an active interest in learning about reptile vet.med. I know of Ken. H. and highly recommend him; so if Berkeley is only a day trip away, keep his # on the fridge.

Ian

ps, Just last night we had one of our "special" clients call. He's a lawyer. "My dog has diarrhea. I'm not paying for an exam, what's the vet going to do anyway; look at him and tell me what to give him? Can I give him immodium? What about Pepto-bismal? ...." If only my job was limited to treating animals