California Veterinary Specialists - Carlsbad

excellent patient care from beginning to conclusion

While this is a terminal condition, their concern about the and quot;quality of lifeand quot; is what is important. We have spent over $1,500 (so far) to get the diagnosis and to start the chemo treatments. The doctor and staff are amazing. They are caring and try to help us through this very difficult time as we watch our furry family member die. Today was a quick visit because of a potential reaction to the chemo.
While it's expensive, I would recommend them highly to anyone.

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It took California Veterinary Specialists a week to figure out what it was. What he had, which was discus spondylitis, is not fatal. And yet, almost two weeks in, the neurosurgeon, Dr. Dhupa, called me and said they didn't think he was going to leave the hospital. So we immediately went down there and brought him home, and he is fine. He wasn't eating because he didn't want to be there. They kept telling us he was in too much pain to go home. This discus spondylitis is basically an infection of the spine and so it's excruciatingly painful. So not only was he in a lot of pain, he was in a place he didn't want to be in. And they didn't seem to really care that he wasn't eating. He lost 17 pounds in two weeks. If I walked my dog out looking like that, I would have been arrested! I had to drive down to Carlsbad every night to feed my dog. He was in too much pain to send home but they still wanted to run more tests on him. I was so mad. At least half of the staff I dealt with was rude. If your animal needs an MRI, fine. But take it home.

They went above and beyond trying things to take care of him. If they want vets who try to find every possible way to make your pet healthy or fix a problem they will do that. It is not going to be cheap. The cancer care was not cheap, it never is. They did everything that they could. They were pretty much open 24 hours. So, if something happened to your pet in the middle of the night, you could get in or if your pet is already there, they will call you in the middle of the night. They were using some new drugs, trying to get control of it and eradicate it. They give you the option and if you feel that you cannot afford and have to put them down they are very empathetic. They understand that sometimes, even though you want to keep your pets, you just cannot afford it. At the time, we were in a financial position that we could afford to do everything possible and we got him in 1994. He had been a good dog and they took care of our last two cats.

They are very good. They do get a little expensive when you use them on holidays or weekends.

Our dog was bitten by a rattlenake on an early Sunday summer evening. Thank goodness I was standing nearby and saw what happened. We live in Bonsall and the closest emergency animal center was California Veterinary Specialists in San Marcos. Our dog was already showing difficulty breathing by the time we got there. He was immediately rushed into a treatment room. We were treated with compassion and concern. Our dog came home two days later and you would never know he went through such a traumatic experience.

Superb. I could not think of someone more compassionate than the Oncology (Cancer) Veterinarians who treated my dog. They are literally some of the world's top veterinary oncologists. We (San Diegans) are extremely lucky to have them here. They were extremely compassionate and NEVER pressured me to do anything. They clearly LOVE their jobs and the compassion is clear, which is such an essential element of the process of trying to help your animal. They also have pets, and they will (if asked) tell you what they would do if it were their own pet. Their primary focus is on QUALITY OF LIFE. They do NOT want to unnecessarily prolong an animal's life if the animal will not have a good quality of life. I absolutely highly, highly recommend this clinic. You will be 110% happy you selected this clinic if your pet has cancer.

How did it go? Our dog still died. Initially after all of their treatments our dog did seem to be coming back from being so sick. The recovery was good for about a week and our dog started to go downhill again. We ended up taking him every day to our local vet for blood work and more pills and other interventions. On a Wednesday morning, almost 3 weeks to the day when our dog first took ill, he rallied enough to get up from his dog bed, go out the dog door, hid behind a yard shed, collapsed and died. Even the dog as sick as he was knew he did not want to die in our presence. Everyone who dealt with us was extremely professional and caring. That is not the issue. What we came away with from this entire experience the lack of candor. No one was straight forward enough with us about the prognosis - everyone was a cheerleader but no one said something to the effect - the majority of dogs do not recover from this - perhaps you want to forgo all these treatments, take him home - give him these meds to make him comfortable and let him go in peace and dignity. Instead the poor guy was subjected to so many procedures and tests and we were given a lot of false hopes for his recovery that we became complicit in prolonging his agony. I will forever be ashamed that we continued to let the people we placed our trust in to forestall the inevitable. We have vowed to never let that occur again to any future pet we bring into our home.

They are excellent. Everyone from the vets down to the office staff are first quality and the best. They are skilled and knowledgeable and also loving and kind. I trust them completely and would not go anyplace else.

CANCER CARE IS VERY EXPENSIVE. THE VETERINARIANS/SURGEONS ARE SPECIALISTS AND EXCELLENT CLINICIANS. THE CLINIC PROVIDED A HIGH/LOW ESTIMATE OF THE SURGERY. IN MY DOG'S CASE THE TOTAL ENDED UP NEAR THE LOWER END OF THE ESTIMATE. I WAS ABLE TO BRING IN MY DOG'S SPECIAL DIET. CARE WAS COMPASSIONATE AND COMMUNICATION WAS EXCELLENT. MY DOG IS GETTING FOLLOW-UP CARE AT THE CLINIC. THE CLINIC WAS CLEAR ON WHAT THE OPTIONS WERE AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF ALL THE CARE. MY DOG WAS/IS LUCKY - IT WAS POSSIBLE TO SURGICALLY REMOVE ALL THE CANCER. THIS IS DUE TO THE EXCELLENT PRE-OPERATIVE EVALUATION AND THE SURGEONS SKILLS. THE CLINIC ALSO DOES CHEMOTHERAPY AND RADIATION THERAPY IF CALLED FOR. THERE SEEMED TO BE NO JUDGMENT ON TREATMENT CHOICES A PERSON MAKES. I DID DO A LOT OF RESEARCH AND READING TO SUPPLEMENT THE INFORMATION GIVEN ME AT THE CLINIC. SOME RESOURCES WERE PROVIDED BY THE CLINIC. I DID NOT PUT AN 'AMOUNT PAID' DUE TO THE GREAT DIFFERENCES IN NEEDS OF EACH PET.

IT WAS A VERY SAD EXPERIENCE IN HAVING TO PUT A BELOVED PET TO SLEEP, BUT THE EMPLOYEES TRIED THEIR HARDEST TO MAKE IT EASY ON US AND OUR DOG. THEY EVEN SENT A CONDOLENCES CARD AFTERWARD.