Garden State Veterinary Hospital

My healthy dog died after bringing her home one hour later. GSV over sedated her to the point that she could not lift her head. Please do not take your pets to this place. They do not care about your pet. All they care about is charging you excessive fees. No calls from the vet after my dog passed. Office staff is so unprofessional. This place should be shut down!!!!l. My family is so broken hearted over her passing. I do not want another pet owner to go through what my family has experienced.

My dog was brought there 3 times in 2 weeks. They did X-rays, ultrasound and bloodwork and kept him for days in the hospital. He had a urinary tract infection secondary to not being able to urinate normally. He was discharged from the hospital stating that he was eating and urinating normal. After thousands of dollars later and still very sick we brought him to Red Bank Veterinary Hospital. They immediately told us he had a 2 centimeter mass that they felt while doing a rectal exam. He could not urinate on his own and still wasn’t eating. I was very disappointed in the care he got and why they didn’t find the mass. I always brought my pets to that hospital in the past. After spending 10,000 dollars between both places we had to euthanize him. There was nothing we could do for him. If they did a rectal exam the first time we brought him there we would have saved him a week worth of suffering and thousands of dollars.

I am so VERY sorry that I did NOT read reviews before going to this money grubbing place. I give people the benefit of the doubt...I haven't wanted to write the deservedly negative review but really they have left me no choice. They engaged an attorney to sue me about a year ago, we are going our 2nd time to court. I recently tried to settle for the original amount, even though I truly do NOT believe it was fair. I feel they baited and switched and charged me an astronomical amt of $.They will not accept now and are forcing me to go to court. My dog was experiencing neurological issues. His gate was off and his legs were very weak. Here is a timeline of the events. Basically, after almost $4,000 worth of tests, the $2,675 MRI which was not necessary, my dog was diagnosed with an incurable neurological disease. Sunday, October 2nd, 2016 • Visited Neurologist @ GSV • Dr. ran tests, couldn’t find anything • Recommended I go see an ortho (Dr. Scavelli, the owner of Garden State Vet) Wednesday, October 5th, 2016 • Saw Dr. Scavelli in SI Office re Ortho. • After Eval he said I should bring Presh for Nerve biopsy. He didn’t know what it was. He filmed him walking and his gate was off. • I asked the price, was told less than $1k. Told him I wasn’t working and he said would give me payment plan. • I still told him it was too much $. • When I left he called me and told me I really needed to come Monday and have him have the test. I was impressed with his concern and agreed Monday, October 10th, 2016 • My Dog went for nerve biopsy • Dr Scavelli called me and said other dr’s examined him and think there are 2 separate issues and since he is already under they want to give MRI. • I told him my financial situation AGAIN and asked if it were his family pet, what would he do? He said do MRI. • I asked how much and he said he “DIDN’T KNOW OFF HAND but less than if we had to do this at a later time.” Did NOT authorize cost, I authorized procedure • I was impressed on October 5th with his concern and him reaching out to me again, so I authorized the MRI, NEVER thinking it would be $2,675 JUST for the MRI! I almost didn’t do nerve procedure for only $1k seriously were they kidding me??? Tuesday, October 11th, 2016 • Went to pick up My dog. • Was told MRI was negative and biopsy results were forthcoming. • I was taken in the front and presented with a bill for $3,696.79. I began to shake—they now had my dog hostage. • I tried to negotiate fee, told them it was unreasonable. • Tried to negotiate pmt plan, was told the only payment plan Dr. Scavelli would approve was for 6 months @ $616.13. • I signed the plan under duress & paid all I had-- $10. They were holding my sick dog hostage! I had hoped to get a job very soon! October 22, 2016 • Received a call from neurologist from GSV and she said the ORIGINAL NERVE TEST results came back that precious had an incurable neurological disease – Polyneuropathy. • I went to the Dr. originally for neurological issues and that is exactly what it ended up being. • After we got off the phone I thought about this and realized this was a BAIT and SWITCH! • The MRI was NOT necessary, I was lied to. • I am so disappointed in Dr. Scavelli. He seemed like such a concerned and nice man but how could he think if I can’t pay $1k for nerve tests that I am going to be able to pay almost $4k for these tests AND that I could manage a 6 month payment plan? I was taken. The attempted to collect from then on and I received a summons that I was being sued in Nov 2017. November 22, 2017 • Called Garden State Vet to explain predicament and see again if they would negotiate. They said it was with lawyer now and I should have done that already…I did! On October 11th, 2016. I didn’t think I had any negotiating power. Late November 2017 the attorney jerked me around talking about settlement and they wanted to include $1,250 worth of legal fees (which was apparently on the promissory note you sign when you enter into a payment agreement with them which I signed UNDER extreme mental duress. This has been a horrible experience and my dog is getting worse and worse, which is hard enough to watch. The sad thing is....no one has EVER asked how my dog is doing.

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This took place at there Iselin office on rt 27. Worst vet place I ever been to. Went in the evening. They took my cat right into the back soon after arriving. I thought I go with it, but they say I stay here. While doing forms a fast food delivery comes for Sara Metcalf, front desk and she's be loudly complaining with the person for what seemed like 10 minutes, really loud too in front of every 1 there. The vet finally comes out, wife tells vet Justine Murray its symptoms. No pooping or peeing. The vet says there is a blockage. What will it cost I ask. $3000 and cat stays here 3 days. I tell vet I cant afford it, can I pay now and take my cat home. Vet leaves me and wife in closed door room, comes back minutes later and says she spoke to the bosses over the phone and we could put the price at $2000 and go up from there. I tell vet I cant afford this, I want my cat and I'll pay the bill now. I'm not disputing there prices, I just could not afford it. Vet leaves room again, minutes later comes back, we can set you up with payments, I tell her I have no money for this, can I have my cat, I will pay now. The vet is starring and talking to my wife, my wife is all upset. I tell vet I am not approving any of this. Vet leaves us again comes back says for $540 I can try to unblock cat but no guarantee. I again say no I want my cat, I want to pay now. And you now should be taking money off my bill because your holding my cat against my will. Vets leaves us again in closed room, I tell my very sick (health issues) let us get out of this room. Vet calls us into room again, I am refusing but we go in again, vet says for $136 I can put cat to sleep. I told vet I want my cat. I want to pay now. I ask front desk to call police, which they didn't. I went looking for my cat, I didn't find him. Now Sara does call police, 5 officers arrive, I am not arrested, and 1 officer gets my cat and bill is paid. I thought it was over but now I must go to municipal court for this. I assume they want my wife hospitalized over this? I just wanted to pay the bill and bring my cat home to die in my arms, peacefully as he did, and not alone at the vet. David S. 08830

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This is the first negative review I've ever written because I feel very strongly that Garden State is a bad hospital to take your beloved pet.  If you want your cat or dog who's like a child to get well, get diagnosed correctly, or die peacefully - do not take them to Garden State Veterinary.  I wish I had checked Angie's List and seen all the "F" reviews before taking my cat for services from October to December 2015, wasting $6500.00.  Obviously we loved our cat dearly and would've tried anything to help him get better. We did not know that most of Garden State?s vets are recent graduates and lack experience to handle complex cases.  Before the final 4 days of his life when he had trouble breathing, he did NOT act sick so we didn't know it was cancer that had spread to his lungs (thus incurable).  For 14 years he was a healthy and happy cat, until the last few months when he began to develop strange infections (mouth, eyes, ears) and a rare skin disease, all treatable with meds and healed prior to our last GSVS visit.
Two months ago in October when our cat developed a rare skin disease, our normal vet referred us to Garden State Veterinary for X-rays, Ultrasound, and CT scan, but Garden State couldn?t find anything wrong.  Last weekend after we noticed my cat had trouble breathing, we admitted him to Garden State on Sunday.  One of the ER docs put him in an oxygen cage to help him breathe, took the usual blood tests and X-rays, and ran IV with mild antibiotics.  The ER vet on Sunday was not a radiologist and could not tell us if the white areas on the new X-rays meant cancer or lung infection.  Although we worried about leaving our sick cat in an unfamiliar and stressful environment with total strangers, we were told we couldn?t take our cat home because he needed the oxygen tank to breathe, and that Internal Medicine would take over the case on Monday and run more tests.
The Internist (Dr. Demarco) who took over my cat's case had more experience than the recent grads, but terrible communication skills ? rude, argumentative, inflexible ? basically, every conversation with her turned into an argument.  We didn?t see our cat on Monday because we didn?t want to confuse him and wanted to give him time to heal, so we did not see his condition was deteriorating.  We had to argue with the Internist to give our cat Baytril, because our normal vet suggested we try stronger antibiotics to better determine if this was an infection or cancer.  On Tuesday (Day 3) we went to visit our cat.  Our poor cat started wailing, crying his heart out - he was clearly suffering, struggling to breathe, and absolutely miserable ? it was obvious he was very unhappy and desperate to leave GSVS.  We were shocked that his condition was drastically worse compared to Sunday and he was not responding to antibiotics like he had in the past (indicating possible cancer).  Also, we were very concerned we may not be doing the right thing by keeping him in an institutional environment, away from home and those he loved, alone and afraid. 
Again, the doctor would not listen to our concerns that our pet seemed to be getting worse, not better.  She dismissed our fears that our cat might think we abandoned him there for 3 days and his stress level and depression could be making him more ill.  She told us we couldn?t take our cat from the oxygen cage and we need to give the antibiotics more time to work.  She wanted to keep him there and keep running tests since she still had no idea if this was cancer or an infection.  The doctor often made unprofessional remarks to us ? even accusing us of "wanting to take him home to make him suffer" (when the opposite was true) and implying that we were cruel - when in fact, SHE was the one who made our cat suffer before his death, extending the period for his pain and suffering.  We felt terrible for leaving him there and we had no idea he was really getting worse by the hour. Later that night, we got a call at 4:30AM that my cat had stopped breathing and passed away.  The fact that my cat?s death happened so quickly after our visit was further proof that his condition was not going to get better.  My poor cat ended up dying all alone in a cage, in a strange environment with strangers - cheated out of a peaceful ending by the arrogant doctor with poor judgment.
Always remember to trust your instincts about your own pet, you know better than anyone else.  Don?t be afraid to change doctors if he/she does not listen or dismisses what you say. We pray our cat understands we wanted to give him his best chance by leaving him at the hospital, and hope he did not die feeling abandoned by his family at his sickest, worst time in his life.  I will always regret that we trusted the ?expert? instead of my own better judgment.  We should have insisted a different vet take over, since the Internal Medicine vet (Demarco) never LISTENED to us and argued about everything. After we witnessed our cat?s worsening state on our Day 3 visit, we should never have allowed a stubborn, know-it-all doctor push us into keeping him there longer, against our instincts and prolonging his suffering.  A different doctor would have agreed that it was too stressful for everyone involved to keep my cat in ICU when he wasn?t showing signs of improvement, and given us a sense of peace about revising the plan (i.e. euthanasia versus more pain and suffering).  We could have returned that evening to say goodbye, hugged him one last time and made him as comfortable as possible, before one of the vets put him to sleep, feeling safe and loved.  It would have been a far more peaceful and humane way to let a beloved family member die ? our cat would?ve felt peaceful, happy, and safe with ?mommy and daddy? by his side, despite some trouble breathing in the last few minutes.  Instead, he died alone in a cage in an unfamiliar environment in the middle of the night, with strangers.  Obviously, my family is upset and grieving.  We spent thousands we could not afford ($6500 total at Garden State Veterinary, plus thousands more at other animal hospitals this year).  We left our cat in the hands of an arrogant, unprofessional, rude doctor who would NOT LISTEN to our concerns, misguided us, and made bad judgment calls.  Besides the highly disappointing treatment by Garden State Vets we received - my cat died the week before Christmas 2015.  So very sad.

I took multiple pets to Garden State over many years, and was one of their best clients so I was told (based on $ spent there I'm sure). I stopped going there due to the multiple pets that were misdiagnosed and killed there.  I had one dog with metal bars in her back who was put in the MRI machine and killed. They blamed me but it is not the client's responsibility to know about their machinery - they SHOULD have processes in place to protect the animals (like reading the chart first, or asking the client to fill out a questionnaire. Lucky for them I am not a litigious person and didn't sue.  Oncology was responsible for the death of my cat with lymphoma.  She had two bleeds from the chemotherapy and just got done with a blood transfusion when the oncologist gave her another chemo round which killed her in hours from another massive bleed. In knowing more now, it would have been procedure to stop chemo. They do not have  a radiologist which I didn't know.  Even though they tout themselves as "specialists" - one of the most important specialties to have is a board certified radiologist.  Unfortunately I didn't know that their young recently graduated vet was reading the radiographs.  Despite my cat having history of stones she told me it was kidney failure and by the time I took him to University of Penn it was too late.  They said he was misdiagnosed and had multiple stones and blockage. He instead could have had a life-saving surgery.  (Penn actually sent the stones to a specialist in midwest  for analysis).  UPenn also told me that Garden State  misdiagnosed two other cats. Garden State had wanted to do surgery on one's bial duct but UPenn  said , no,  she did not need that surgery that instead the cat had triaditis and was put on meds and she's now doing great for last two years.  Luckily I got another opinion from UPenn Vet (Matthew J. Ryan) and both cats are properly treated and healthy.  After the last three issues with Garden State I stopped going there and use my vet and use  Red Bank in an emergency (though their overnight team are  inexperienced just like Garden States overnight team) and sometimes UPenn in an emergency though 1.5 hours from me. And, go to UPenn in Philadelphia for any specialty needs. I currently have a cat going to neurology and one to dermatology and surgery.  Red Bank also has an excellent opthamologist that I have always gone to over Garden State eye doctor. Dr. Ringo is great.  I've learned to trust my judgement and to get second opinions.  Everyone makes mistakes, but when you have a consistent number of failings - you need to start looking elsewhere. To everyone reading - if your pet is not doing well at Garden State - take them to UPenn Veterinary (Matthew J Ryan) and tell them to ignore anything done or said at Garden State and to start from scratch.  People should contact the Veterinary Medical Board also when they feel they have a legitimate claim against any vet and they have all their paperwork.

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They're a specialty clinic. They have a 24-hour emergency room. They're open on holidays, 24 hours and 365 days a year. If you have an emergency, they'll take you in. The way they mostly get you in is your vet has to refer you to them or you need to get a referral to them. They're good overall. The vet was great. They do everything there, like surgeries. They have a whole team of specialty vets. They're on the expensive side but they're really good. I have pet insurance and I'll have them fill out the form for the insurance and then I submit it to my insurance company.

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Because my cat gets very stressed out during long car rides and pees on herself sometimes, we transferred my cat's care to an ER and Specialist who is much closer to us than an hour away.
Everyone was very nice at GSV and I felt Dr. Warwog genuinely cared about my cat's well being. I just wish Dr. Warwog was closer to us geographically, as we would have preferred to stay with her. The only negative is that sometimes she was hard to get a hold of, but I guess that is because she is very high in demand.
If any of our cats need a surgery in the future, I will definitely consider using GSV and Dr. Warwog again!

Four thousand dollars and they couldn't diagnose him. It was a one-week hospitalization and they stabilized him. Because they couldn't diagnose him, he ended up going back on medications that caused the pancreatitis in the first place. He ended up being rushed to Red Bank Veterinary Hospital two weeks later and went in for a week there, who immediately diagnosed him. They were nice but when you look at the quality of the facility compared to Red Bank, I would say Red Bank's quality is like an A and Garden State's is like a B-. The front desk people are nice because they just have to deal with emergencies. The fact is that they kept trying to explain like, "Well, we can't diagnose this because he didn't fall in the normal trajectory." I was like, "Yes, he did." According to the other hospital, he definitely did. It upset me that not only was it $4000 but they didn't diagnose him and he ended up in another hospital two weeks later with the same event because they didn't diagnose him and he went on the medication that caused it. I think that they're good for basic like if you need help for something that happens during the night. This is what I said to somebody who was there from North Jersey with their dog and they went there to get an answer. I'm like, "I'm going to take him to Red Bank if there's a problem again and you should go there, too." They're more qualified at Red Bank. Their price was on par because it was like $3500 at Red Bank for the next week. They respond pretty quickly.

My experience with them went fine and well. They were efficient, reasonably priced to our amazement and they did a very good job. I didn't personally take him but my husband took him, so I don't have any specific but we were worried and they took care of our worries and it was an emergency.

He was excellent. Everything was great. We basically just went to him for a second opinion. We stayed with our original dog surgeon. His office was so cooperative and very kind and very efficient.

We had a referral from our reguar vet on Saturday for a consult for 5 month old puppy who was limping. We received an appointment for that Monday and on Tuesday she was operated on for a shoulder problem. She spent two nights at the hospital (monday and tuesday) and we picked her up on Wednesday. We returned yesterday for her suture removal.
She needs 6 weeks of total rest with no running, jumping or playing. It has been hard since she is a spunkly little spitfire of a puppy. She is doing well but we have 4 more weeks of rest before we will know if it is a success. She is still taking anti inflamatory medicine and seems to be walking better but it is still too early to tell.
We are very happy with the staff and hope for a complete recovery. It was expensive but it will be worth it if she does not limp for the rest of her life.

I was very impressed and pleased with the care my pet received from Dr. Michele Cohen. She was very knowledgeable around options for treatment and offered me alternatives based on what she thought was best for my cat. Her kindness and compassion, along with that of her colleagues, certainly made a very difficult experience much more tolerable. When the time had come that we could do no more for him she was very understanding and helped me through the most difficult phase of saying good-bye. She was so understanding that I took my other cat to her a year later when he also was diagnosed with cancer. I highly recommend Garden State Vet and Dr. Cohen. The cost is high, as it is with any specialist, but if you can afford to spend the money there is no better veterinary oncologist in NJ. Thank you Dr. Cohen for all you did for Tazz and Buster.

They are very good, very competent and I always take my dogs there. They handle things that normal vets here can't handle and of course, I do recommend them.

Sept 2010 my dog was bitten in the ear by a neighbors dog. We took her to our reg vet who treated her.
Around 2 weeks later she was very sick and started vomiting blood and bleeding from her gums .

Our reg vet diagnosed her with auto immune which was triggered by the dog bite. They said to go to Garden St vet.

They were the best and treated her quickly and brought her from the brink of death. Before they did anything to her
They explained in detail apx cost and her odds.The cost was very high but worth every penny. They are not there to
make money in my opinion. If my dog would have died after all the cost I would still feel the same.

It has been over a year and she still gets treated at Garden St for her illness and she is very happy and
healthy.

This place is wonderful. The owner Dr. Thomas Scavilli could not be more of a loving, caring, doctor who has time for every one. It's not just a regular vet. You do need a referral unless it's an emergency. They have taken great care of my dog who has epilepsy, and there are specialists for any other kind of problem your pet might have. The whole Tri-State area knows about them since they are so good. It is a warm environment and they are just fantastic! Not only is he popular amongst his clients, but he is great with his colleagues and communicating with other veterinarians in the area. He is not fast to rush into surgery and operations unless it's absolutely necessary.

All in All, I would highly reccommend Dr. Scavelli and this GSVS Hospital. Should you have other questions, please ask and I will answer. Thank you for listening.

Sami also had to go back for a few after-care checkups, that were including in the quoted fee, and she was treated with such loving care. You certainly can tell that Dr. Scavelli and his staff truely love dogs and all animals.

Their prices are a little high because it is a hospital, but it is very close to my home.