Oaks Veterinary Clinic

My animals have been patients at Oaks Vet for over 30 years. I love their care, understanding, and tolerance of my views and mostly how they treat my animals. They listen!

We called at 7:45am because my rabbit was having a seizure-like activity. Dr. Ford was able to see Lola at 8:30am. Lola was not a current patient at Oaks and I had already called 2 emergency vet clinics and 1 other vet clinic and the other clinics unfortunately did not have veterinarians that had experience with rabbits. Needless to say I was so grateful they were able to see Lola. She is now at home resting. We would have spent thousands on our rabbit but our visit cost us less than $100. Totally worth it. Thank you for providing exotic animal care to the Des Moines area. It means the world to me and my husband. Photos of Lola below because she's my world.

They have a very caring staff. I sometimes get frustrated with how busy they are (all veterinarians are busy these days), but they go above and beyond. They answer all my prattling questions and really seem to care about my dogs as much as I do. It is a smaller clinic but I think it’s the best one in Des Moines because of the thoughtful and well qualified staff. I’d recommend calling them earlier to set up appointments and things because they are so busy. BUT they’re the best; that’s why they’re busy.

Approximately after two weeks of being there the atmosphere and attitudes of people changed towards me. I was told from another employee that this was “normal” and how it always is and to “just wait because it gets worse”. I chose to let it go and continue my career path with this employer only to find out it actually does get worse. I was only employed here for about 5 months before officially putting in a two weeks notice. Before I put notice in I reached out to the office manager in hopes of understanding why I was being treated so poorly and what could be fixed to make it better but I was completely ignored. Other employees tried to reach out as well to figure out why because they were witnessing how I was being treated and thought it was horrible. When I tried to speak to the owner about their patients I was ignored and left standing there while they walked away. I was constantly being shoulder checked by the owner when trying to walk through doors and hallways. If I was doing something for a customer at the front desk or cleaning items at the sink and didn’t move out of their way right away the owner would press into my sides and sigh until i moved. I would get yelled at for small mistakes during the learning process of how this employer did things due to almost no training due to the rvt not willing to train correctly and no communication. I was called “hey you or you” and never by my name. My hand was swatted at by another assistant in front of a customer because I did not move my hand from the mouse I was using while looking up rebates for prevention. I was working very hard for the doctor I worked under (not the owner) and the other assistant/assistants would arrive to work 30-45 minutes late everyday, go somewhere in the clinic away from everyone to be on their phone for several minutes, take “extended lunch periods”, make the same small mistakes as me, and sleep at the front desk but I was still being targeted by this employer. I would be blamed for employees mistakes that I didn’t do or have anything to do with. I unfortunately had to call in a couple days due to my mental health being tested while being employed here which I have never had to do before in any of my places of employment. If you’re looking for a clean well organized clinic with structure this is also not the place for that. I have never encountered so much disrespect and hostility. The owner sees no fault in their actions towards employees and thinks this treatment is acceptable. I was told I am not the first person to experience this and others have left mid shift because of the same situations. I fully regret working and taking a pay cut for this employer and wish I had declined the offer.

best clinic i’ve ever been to. i’ve been taking my pets to oaks for well over 10 years. they never fail to keep my babies healthy, offering a variety of medications that work like a charm. when it comes to affordable and high quality service, you cant get any better than oaks.