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October 2024 by Amber Martinez
DO NOT TAKE YOUR PETS HERE!!! PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU!!
We took our dog to the urgent care two weeks ago today because he was not eating
but vomiting. They did an ultrasound and an x-ray, denied there was anything serious going on, but decided to prescribe him some meds to coat his stomach, an appetite stimulant, a dewormer, and an antibiotic.That was $600. As we were waiting for the meds in the front room, our dog vomited blood. They said, "Oh no, there might be a problem, he might have a blockage, but go ahead and take him home and bring him back tomorrow for some blood work." Apparently, their lab closed at 2 am and it was 1:30 am. They also wanted $800 to keep him over night but in that moment, we believed he just had a bug like suggested. Throughout that night at home, our dog was listless and sick. Honestly, we should have refused to leave until they found something because when we took him back there the next day, they did another x-ray and indeed found an obstruction. They said they needed to do surgery and we felt okay about that. It is a common procedure because obstructions happen in pets often. We are also aware that every procedure comes with a risk. We paid $5,000. He had his surgery and made it out okay. He was doing alright, even ate a bowl of food, later he started to regurgitate it. That's when they found fluid from the surgical site (it was leaking). They wanted to do a second surgery and the second surgeon asked for an additional 4k to 6k before they would operate. However, the first surgeon told us that the very first appointment and first procedure was under medical review and the hospital would cover the second surgery. After he came out of that second surgery, he was a bit more fragile, he needed a feeding tube, but apparently he was being his noisy self that night, he loved to yap (he was a yorkie/dashaund mix) keeping the staff entertained. He hadn't made much noise for days, so we thought that was a good indicator that he was improving. Two days after the second surgery, as he was still in recovery, he wasn't showing interest in eating, and had labored breathing, they tested him again for any new issues. Turns out, the second surgery wasn't done properly AGAIN (surprise!) because the site was STILL leaking. This caused more inflammation, more fluid and he was crying out in pain. They told us a third surgery would be his best bet for survival. After the third surgery last Wednesday, his blood count and liver enzymes were slightly improved, but he still wasn't eating and his breathing was labored, they said he was quite sick. The following day was a bit of the same thing. At 3 am last Friday morning, they called and said they were going to turn his oxygen up to see if that would help, but 15 minutes later they called us back to come in and say goodbye because he wasn't improving and it would be hard to revive him. Our dog was put down.
Let me state that they assured us a few times that everything from the second surgery to his final moments would be taken care of by the hospital. Now, we have a bill for $23,700 and our 7 year old beloved dog is dead.
They are terrible at communication, they seemingly only care about money, they throw each other under the bus, and take no responsibility whatsoever about their malpractice.
Today, when calling about the bill we received, we were hung up on four times. We admit that we were emotional but we just wanted answers. Every single person we talked to was rude, incompetent, condescending and dismissive.
This could have all been avoided if the person who was there the first night we took our dog in gave him the proper care in the first place. He was a healthy dog other than the small piece of fabric he ingested.
Note: You have to pay the crematorium money to receive your pet's remains. The hospital doesn't tell you that.
We are angry, we are devastated and we are disgusted
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September 2024 by Elizabeth Nickle
I regret to express my disappointment with the experiences I've had with the nutrition and internal medicine department at CSU. Despite significant time and financial investment, my dog's health concerns remained unresolved.
While seeking care from CSU, I encountered dismissive responses and challenges in communication and responsiveness. In contrast, my local veterinary hospital demonstrated proactive problem-solving and effective collaboration, ultimately identifying an issue missed by CSU.
Given these experiences, I'm committed to seeking care from providers who prioritize effective communication and collaboration, and who genuinely listen to their clients. It's essential to foster an environment where clients feel valued and understood, rather than dismissed or disregarded like CSUs nutrition department. I believe in the importance of mutual respect and open dialogue in the pursuit of optimal pet care..
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September 2024 by Larissa Chaparro
Best place ever to take your doggie to, I literally love how these two ladies treated my 5 year old oso ❤️They’re the best vets out there!!!
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September 2024 by Shannon Pipes
I’m very disappointed with our experience with the emergency clinic at CSU VTH. We brought our dog in because she was showing signs of a vestibular event and I was very concerned she was having a stroke. When I got to CSU they helped me get her out of the car at the door and then told me they’d meet me in the waiting room after I parked my car. An hour later the student that took my dog from me came to talk to me, no updates on how she was doing before then, I had no clue if she was okay or what was happening. After she came to talk with me, I waited another 2 hours before the vet examined her and came to talk with us. We were presented with info on what was going on with four possible causes: middle ear infection, idiopathic vestibular disease, a stroke or brain cancer. At that point the emergency vet went over the lowest treatment option and the highest treatment option which she pushed and pushed us to consider, there was no middle option presented. Both my husband and I felt strongly about doing some tests in the list but avoiding the MRI that they pushed and pushed us to do because our dog has had issues in the past with general anesthesia and she’s almost 12. We finally agreed on testing her for an ear infection, doing a neuro consult and blood work and left her there while we they ran the tests. We got a call two hours later and were told she has two ear infections, one bacterial and one yeast, and again the vet pushed an MRI to check for an inner ear infection and do a scan of her brain which I said I needed to discuss with my husband before we made any decisions and we were on our way back. When we got back to VTH we waited another hour before the vet came out and we asked her to explain the rationale of putting our dog under general anesthesia if we could try to treat the ear infection first and see what happens. The vet was clearly upset with our decision and continued to argue that her age alone indicates cancer and that putting her on prednisone will make it much harder to detect the type of brain cancer (assuming she actually has it) because the steroid wipes out most cancer cells except for the very worst ones. However, she also explained that if she has brain cancer, she only has a couple to six months to live. We again said we’d like to start with the less aggressive route and she went and got our dog for us. We took her home with a lot of medication to start the next day. The next morning when we got up she was already improving without any medication on board yet which we thought was a great sign. She has continued to improve for the past week and was completely symptom free within two days. The emergency vet called me four days later with an update on tests which were normal and asked me how our dog was doing. I explained that she was already better before she got any medication, had continued to improve and no longer has any symptoms. The vet then responded well clearly prednisone is a miracle drug and this is still a sign of a neurological issue. While talking with her she sounded disappointed that our dog was improving and still pushed that she likely has brain cancer. I have never had a situation with a vet where I was being pushed so hard to do the most aggressive treatment when the symptom presentation didn’t warrant it. It felt like we were dealing with a used car salesman instead of a vet with our dog’s best interest at heart. It seems that she either missed the point of the veterinarian’s oath when began practicing or has since forgotten it. It’s a shame because we go to CSU community practice with our pets and have always had great service but their emergency care needs substantial improvements to meet the same level of care as community practice!
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September 2024 by Gregory Barnhart
It’s been a year since we brought our oldest furkid here after being injured. She has always been healthy which was very much in her favor during all of this. We get to celebrate her 12th birthday next week because of CSU.
The staff is extremely kind, very helpful, knowledgeable and they have the latest and greatest in veterinary medicine.
Considering everything that had to be done, I also found their bill to be very reasonable and after this experience, I don’t want to take any of our dogs anywhere else.
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September 2024 by Mr Me
Thank you for everything you all have done for me, and all other families in the area you have helped out so much. I havent ran across one person on staff who wasnt overwhelmingly supportive and loving towards my pups and I. I understand why people get upset in the situations that occur when bringing their loved ones into the hospital but I don't like seeing such a bad rating on such an amazing place with the highest quality staff ive encountered in a hospital setting, especially an emergency department.
I really wanted to send my love to everyone on Drake and give a big thank you for all your help in my pups and my life on a few occasions but especially the staff on 4-02-24 for their help with Dess. The Doc, Ranger, was extremely professional yet pleasantly nice like everyone else working and it was the hardest night of my life, without yalls help i couldnt have made it... 10thousand stars
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September 2024 by Aimee N
The care that the internal medicine Doctors showed my dog was amazing. Dr Webb and Dr Ludwig are just all around good people and want to help. For the first time in a long time I felt my Sharpei dog was in good hands he was going to be okay. My dog unfortunately has an auto inflammatory disease and for weeks he was declining and not coming out of the most recent flare up, with high fevers, joint swelling, lethargy and I wasn’t getting anywhere with the vets at home and they told me he wasn’t going to make it. I took a chance and drove 6 hours to CSU hoping they could help, I was desperate to. It turns out they are actually trying to study this disease for Sharpei’s further to try and understand the triggers. My dog Bayne was the first to be studied and researched and I thought this was so cool. I would recommend any animal to be taken there but especially any Sharpei parents that are struggling with all the health issues I bet they can help you! Thanks again for helping us ?
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September 2024 by Kathleen Quinn
My dog has received wonderful service in dermatology and oncology. The staff goes above and beyond!
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September 2024 by Sierra Hober
Dr. Sperry, the vet students, and the front desk staff were all so kind and empathetic to me and my dog Lola as we discussed and made difficult decisions. I can't thank them enough for their thoughtfulness and care.
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September 2024 by Cameron Kawato
Sam did a great job managing us when my dog had an ear injury during the night from another animal.
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September 2024 by Keith
Incredible competent, caring staff.
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August 2024 by Beth Gordon
Dr. Brian Nelson operated on my horse that was injured by a farrier- a backwards nail to the coffin bone. He debrided the infection, and had the horse sound in a few weeks. I was very satisfied and impressed with the treatment, which saved my horse’s life. Great place! I have a lot of confidence in the large animal hospital here.
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August 2024 by Brittni Connell
Our primary vet diagnosed our dog with a soft tissue sarcoma on her hind leg and recommended surgery for removal. Because of the complicated location, she referred us to the skilled surgeons at CSU. Made total sense to us as we're well aware of the outstanding reputation CSU vet hospital has. Unfortunately, we had a very disappointing experience. The vet assigned to our case was very kind but, by his own admission, a recent grad and not a surgeon, so he was unable to answer a lot of the questions we had about removing her tumor. He was knowledgeable about soft tissue sarcomas, but he didn't tell us anything we didn't already learn from our primary vet when she was diagnosed. Since all the surgeons were in surgery that day, we'd have to wait for someone to call us to go over our options. The most he could offer during our visit was some blood work and a potentially unnecessary x-ray. We were there for over three hours, spent $500, and left with no plan to treat our dog. No one called. I followed up myself and the surgeon who returned my call didn't say anything to build my confidence in moving forward with treatment at CSU. I couldn't even be certain that she was the surgeon that saw my dog while they had her in the back during our consult appointment. The call ended with her saying someone from scheduling would call to set a time for her surgery. No one has. That was four weeks ago.
We got a second consultation at another clinic and I'm so glad we did. Our dog has already had surgery and she’s healing up great.
I appreciate the value of the CSU teaching hospital and I'll always be proud to be a CSU Ram, but I just can't recommend this place. When you're dealing with something as serious and worrying as a cancer diagnosis, you want to feel confident in the care you're receiving. Unfortunately, this wasn't it.
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August 2024 by Ana Beiser
The Orthopedic Medicine and Mobility team is absolutely AMAZING. We took our 9 month old puppy, Maggie, there (August 2023) due to sever hip dysplasia. My dog’s primary vet referred us since they offered total hip replacement surgeries. We worked closely with Dr.Talsma through out this process and she is wonderful. All of this information about hip dysplasia was a lot to process in the beginning but she was there/is there to answer all of my questions in depth.
We also had Maggie do the underwater treadmill to help build muscle. The Rehabilitation Coordinator, Sasha Foster is also amazing, after her treadmill therapy was completed, Dr.Foster made an at home PT plan for my dog. She walked me through the plan and made sure all of my questions were answered. As of right now we no longer need to worry about a total hip replacement for hopefully, a long time.
At our last check in we met with Dr.Ingram he also is wonderful to work with. Everyone on the team just wanted to see Maggie thrive! They are all so caring and genuinely care about the animals they work with. I never felt rushed, they always gave me a lot of time at the appointments to ask questions. They are available to answer questions in between appointments. They are all VERY knowledgeable and kind.
We are so lucky we live in the area so we can continue to work with CSU’s Orthopedic Medicine and Mobility Team!!!
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July 2024 by Kale Thompson
I had a really disapointing experience with their exoctic department. I did not feel like the veterinarian I saw knew what she was talking about. I later looked her up and she is an avian exoctic (not reptile or amphibian). I was dismissed with a lot of the theories I had regarding my pet and was severely overcharged. Spent around $600 at CSU when I was able to go to a different veterinarian for $219 (for nearly identical treatment and meds). I know it is not all about money but, for not receiving great care for my pet and being charged so much, I cannot recommend CSU.
