Petco Vaccination Clinic

I’ve never had a bad experience at Petco, and until now, never a bad experience using the vetco clinic. I usually go to the Lake Zurich location, which is 5 mins away from my home, and had made an appt at that location a week prior. On the morning of appt was informed I could no longer use that location and needed to rebook. I made an appt at Crystal Lake which is 25 mins away. I filled all the intake forms ahead of time. A few hours prior I get a text message asking what I need done, I again tell them. It’s like no one was reading the intake form. Once I arrived at the store, no one greeted me and I wandered around trying to find where to go. I asked the front desk and waited for two associates to finish their convo and they seemed annoyed at me. I found my way back to the clinic, told them my name and my pets name and again was asked what I was hear for! What is the point of filling out forms I’m wondering? The two clinic staff were friendly enough but again just seemed like they were confused. I then made my way to where the actual vaccination table was and I said hello and the vet and technician looked at me like they had no idea why I was there. There was no “hello there, welcome to vetco, this must be Nitro”, etc. I was asked yet again what I was there for - it’s starting to get comical at this point. One of the things I needed was a blood draw to test for heartworm and tick borne disease. The vet looked at me and said “well you need to hold your dog still” and not in a nice way. I sat on the floor holding him while the tech held him also and the vet tried multiple times to get blood to no avail. Twice she used a needle that wasn’t in proper working order as she said it just wasn’t sticking. Then two more times to stick my dog it didn’t get blood. My poor dog was so upset at this point and was stressed and panting. I finally said just to stop, it wasn’t worth it to do this to my dog. So the two of them just looked at me. No explanation, no “I’m sorry that didn’t work out” or “this sometimes happens, we can try again another day”. Nothing. So I had to ask what to do- why did this happen. The vet said nothing and made the tech do the explaining. Neither ever said sorry. Neither of them seemed like they even liked animals. I was so frustrated and sad for my dog who was super stressed. I asked if he could at least get his Lyme vaccine. The vet stood over him and said “I could if he’d hold still”. What?!?! What vet expects a dog to just hold still after he was stressed??? Aren’t they trained in animal behavior and how to calm them in these situations? The vet tech didn’t even help this time, she stood by while I held onto him. The icing on the cake was that a prescription was filled for two meds to didn’t even ask for. And then I drove home 25 mins away. What a disappointing experience.

posted: 10/02/2023

I was told not to buy freshwater fish from Petco,but I'm more then please with my fish ,and Liz and Kate have been so pleasant and helpful.

posted: 09/17/2023

Staff is kind, process to check in was easy, gave great explanations, and vet was very good with my new puppy.

posted: 08/31/2023

Took in remmy boy to get some shots. I was told to wait outside in my car for a phone call, waited an hour, then drove home to proceed to never get a phone call lol. That was twice they pulled a funny on me

posted: 04/10/2021

Great, fit me in without an appointment even though i got confused about the date.

posted: 11/21/2020