On Feb 2nd of 2021 me and Smudge, my 4 legged hirsute son … a now 9 yo Chihuahua began our year and half odyssey, which I’ve had the misfortune to run into veterinarians with all levels of skill sets. We’ve seen vets who got As in College and those who most likely needed to take their Boards a few times.

What is scary, is if I with a medical background who knows what to look for, or what I’m looking at has issues. What will become of those pets, who aren’t so lucky.

A recent episode, when I couldn’t get him into his primary vet, and had to rely on Emergency Vets for the weekend. He saw 2 different vets, in 36 hours before the 3rd one diagnosed him correctly and admitted him for 3 days of treatment with TRIPLE ANTIBIOTICS, fluids and monitoring. The 2 prior, would not listen to what u told them, and I’m not the pushy type … saying look at my background, I try to be a help not hindrance. But that has a 33% success rate. Which us scary.

My advice … dont be afraid to get 2nd and 3rd opinions if you don’t feel satisfied with a 2 min exam, and off ya go. You know what your pets baseline is. When they look at them, especially if they haven’t seen your pet before that day. If something amiss doesn’t immediately jump out at them. Then that is their baseline for your pet. No matter how much you say, this is not how they normally are. So if it’s something they have to go look for, they may not go looking for it.