VCA West Coast Specialty and Emergency Animal Hospital

Brought my 10 month kitten in at around 11pm at night for possible lily ingestion/poisoning. Called ahead and the front desk staff was so kind, warm, and helpful on the phone. When I arrived, she was waiting near the lobby doors to receive my cat. Made me feel like they valued her life as much as I did. The doctor was also helpful and warm. They advised of treatment options and gave me several revised quotes if things were a little outside of my budget. Emergency vet appointments are almost always going to be stressful, confusing, and more expensive than you’d like—but that’s the nature of human and animal healthcare. This facility strives to minimize all of those things to the best of their abilities. My cat is now doing so well, and I rest easy knowing if there is an emergency, this place is only 10 minutes away from me.

The staff is friendly and courteous.  The reason for the poor review is their inability to provide transparency in wait times.  After checking in, I sat and waited.  Close to three hours later the vet had come to me, which was the only other contact I had with the staff since the check in.  The vet handed me a list of other pet hospitals which was nicely formatted with various color coding for easier reading, which indicates to me this might be a standard practice here.  She proceeded to tell me that they had no idea when they would be able to see my dog.  This is about 10-15 minutes after taking in the dog of the people who arrived minutes before me.  At this point, I and one other person were still in the waiting room with an animal. Others were waiting for the pets that were already in the back. I got the update that there were 15 emergencies they were handling including dying animals.  The interesting part, I was sitting there for 3 hours and didn't see too many animals get moved to the back.  Therefore, why wait until now to tell me.  I asked why didn't anyone inform me when I checked in, but I got what felt like a well rehearsed talk about the nature of emergencies.  She even equated to emergency experiences I would go through.  I didn't want to argue, but I have never been in an emergency situation that didn't have estimations of wait time.  Sure, it could change, but there would be transparency.  She suggested I could call ahead, in which I asked, if I called 3 hours ago, would they have told me about this?  Her response was "no".  I think she started with the emergency talk again.  As I didn't want to debate this with her, I didn't ask, why call then?  If I called three hours ago, I would still be here and waited the three hours before being handed a list of other hospitals.  It seems the emergency talk is the fall back and they will not give any estimations.  On my way out, I stopped by the desk to get a sense of when most concurrent number of vets would be working and it turns out, they seem to have limited number.  From what I could gather, it seems there is one and then an overlap at the end of one shift and the beginning of the next shift.  In addition, I was told upon arrival of the next vet, they do something like a 90 minute round.  In a way, that makes sense.  If they are running with one vet, that vet will need to give the other overview of each patient/animal.  I'm guessing that might be part of the reason they finally came out and handed me the list of other hospitals. Given the staff was friendly, and courteous, I'm giving it 2 stars.

They say the things you want to hear over the phone to give you hope that you are bringing your pet to the right place. When you get there, it's another story. We had taken our puppy there for a 2nd opinion, and all we got was information to take him somewhere else, he got no physical exam and we got a $190 bill. It saddens me to see how you guys are milking people for money, not helping them. Please people,do your research . Read the reviews and do what is best for your love one. By bringing them here, chances are you will get an no solution, still will be searching for answers, and a hefty bill.

The clinic looks professional and very high end, however i dont think they understand the word emergency properly. My wife and myself brought our dog in at 4 am due to nausia etc. and they immediately submitted her to a parvo test, which came back positive. However, upon giving us the bad news they said that they cant see us until 8:30 in the morning by estimate. Parvo can develop very abruptly and hours can prevent a life or death situation. The “reasoning” for this wait was the shift change and prior patients. We opted to come back 4 and a half hours later to this clinic to submit our dog for treatment. Upon returning we were left in the blank 1.5 hours after “cheking in” only to be told that the wait is due to more urgent cases and that out case is nor urgent because the dog is “lively enough”. I think the que here works based on who is closer to the death bed. The catch of the whole story is that we took our dog to Pacific CARE Pet Emergency and Specialty to be admitted sooner which they did on the spot only to re run the tests TWICE and say that the one given to us by VCA was a false positive. I understand that every individuals case is urgent for them but this place seems to either be lacking the staff or integrity to adjust incoming pets based on how much work needs to be done. If i could give negative stars i would because one star is too gracious.

I had a great experience at VCA. My 7 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel ate something that was toxic to him during his walk. He woke up the next morning completely not himself. We thought he had some neurological issue and rushed him at 4:30 am to VCA West Coast emergency. They ended up admitting him to the hospital to help him flush out the toxins. Dr. Kruger was the kindest, sweetest and very patient with all my questions. She even gave me a call at the end of the day to give me an update and answered more questions. Our experience all the way from the receptionist, to the vet tech, vet assistant and Dr. Kruger was top notch. They showed a lot of compassion to this first time dog mom who showed up incredibly emotional. They even refunded me for half of the hospital bill because our puppy was feeling better sooner than expected. I would take my puppy back here in a heartbeat should another emergency come up.