Balboa Pet Hospital

This is an excellent vet hospital with fantastic service from the moment you walk in the door. There is a stray cat in my neighborhood that someone abandoned. He shows up hit or miss, so impossible to make an advanced appointment. He had dropped a severe amount of weight and I felt so sad for him. I had previously explained the situation to Kate, the receptionist. When the cat finally showed up, the hospital was fantastic and squeezed me in and helped this wonderful cat. The entire staff, from reception triage to veterinarians, brings their A game. Highly knowledgeable Dr’s and staff with wonderful follow through. The hospital was incredibly busy but took the time to slow down, focus, treat this cat and answer all my questions. The following day, the veterinarian call to go over all details of lab work and scans. I thought the coats were reasonable, especially given the immediate service. I have had pets my entire life. This is the best veterinary clinic I’ve ever experienced.

We've been a client/customer of Balboa Pet Hospital for over 15+ years, first with Dash our cat, and now Sylvester who is 13 years old this month. I will say to bolster our love and appreciation for BPH, we moved from San Francisco where we were about 9 blocks away, to Richmond, CA where we are little under an hour and two bridges away. Yet, we will continue to use BPH as our vet for the foreseeable future. I could go on, but you've heard me sing their praises before. Thanks BPH!

I had been bringing my cat here for care and initially appreciated their care until I brought my dog here. Long story short, I felt like my emotions were taken advantage of to obligate us to receive more and more expensive care that was arguably unnecessary. I’ll lay out the details below because I would have appreciated them before I brought my dog here. I inherited a senior golden retriever from my father in law after he unexpectedly passed away and decided to bring him here. After our first appointment they let us go with a green light only to run out after I left the clinic to tell me they found a mass and we needed to come back inside immediately to discuss a game plan. The way it was handled scared me so much and I felt obligated to go along with the discussed plan regardless of the cost. I wasn’t against the follow up plan, he was a 13 year old golden retriever after all and I did want to make sure there wasn’t cancer rampant in his torso. It was only after his ultrasound that I learned the initial mass was the size of a sesame seed and was not causing any discomfort. However at the time he had a large mass on his foot that they assured me wasn’t causing him discomfort. After the ultrasound they found a tiny mass in his bladder but told me it was so small that while they wanted to do surgery, they probably wouldn’t even be able to see it. At this point I felt like my emotions were being played with so I went to Ocean Ave Vet Hospital for a second opinion. They were of the opinion that the mass on his paw was causing him pain, and after a removal it was clear that it had been, but that the other masses were not of immediate concern. I switched care to Ocean Ave and have been very happy with them. Additionally, when I asked Ocean Ave to fill a prescription (adequan) for pain management for my dog, they said they do not prescribe that specific drug as there is minimal peer reviewed evidence to support it. They provided me with PubMed articles and an alternative, proven effective, drug that was much cheaper too. Overall it felt like I was being taken advantage of at Balboa and felt that the communication was generally much more open & judgement-free at Ocean Ave.

I highly recommend Balboa Pet Hospital! They were able to assess what was wrong with my dog and provide a path for his recovery on the first visit. For the last 13 years of my dog's life we went to a different vet and they weren't able to help him with his current ailments. Thank you Balboa Pet Hospital!

They were very generous and squeezed me in on a busy day. Doctors has knowledge of my breed (Belgian malinois) and took their time handling my pup which I really appreciated. After care so far has been great and my pup is on his way to healing. Thank you guys!