Fishtown Animal Hospital

Very kind and attentive staff. Our little baby Oatmeal was taken care of and shown lots of love!

posted: 10/19/2023

I really can’t overestimate how influential the team at Fishtown Animal Hospital have been for me and my cat, Bubba. About 3 years ago I brought in my family cat, who I had “adopted” from my parents and who had been recently diagnosed with diabetes, after moving to Philly. I didn’t have any experience with chronic illnesses in pets and hardly any experience with pets period. I simply knew I needed a vet who I could trust and who would truly be my partner in caring for him — and for me too, given that I felt overwhelmed by the care I knew he would need likely for the rest of his life. Bubba has seen both Dr Newth and Dr Cohn in the time he’s been going to Fishtown Animal Hospital, over dozens of visits at this point. They have done so much for us: they taught me how to give him his insulin shots, showed me how to run a glucose curve at home to help me save money on vet bills, recommended wonderful cat sitters for cats with special needs, coordinated his care with 2 different ER vets, talked me through difficult moments at nearly all hours of the day. Even after moving to South Philly, we still make the trip up to see them because I genuinely can’t imagine trusting anyone else. The front desk staff and vet techs are equally compassionate, thoughtful, and generous with their time and care. Because Bubba is such a frequent visitor, I have had the pleasure of getting to know their staff — all of whom are lovely humans and nothing but patient with my many questions and concerns sent via phone calls, voicemails, and emails :) Hands down, they are the reason my perfect little monster cat has enjoyed a full life despite his diabetes (and the complications that often come with it) and they have helped me tremendously in caring for a pet with complicated health issues. I can’t recommend them enough.

posted: 12/28/2022

My cats have been having GI upset/diarrhea issues that all started when we brought a new furbaby home. With a total of three cats all exhibiting same symptoms to various degrees of severity, FAH conducted numerous fecal tests. All with negative results. My cats were diagnosed with gastroenterocolitis and within the span of two months were prescribed different antibiotics from metronidazole to Tylan powder. FAH vet advised that if Tylan treatment failed, the next step in diagnosis would be an ultrasound for all three cats. And only after two months of back and forth, GI issues, diarrhea, vomiting, anorexia, emergency visits, different antibiotics, sleepless nights watching my cats deteriorate, and finally switching to a different veterinary clinic and retesting their stool using the right test, i.e. PCR, diagnosis was reached - tritrichomonas. At first, I couldn’t understand why FAH failed to detect this parasite in all those stool samples collected from different cats at different times, and then I saw my cats’ health records that were just recently released to me. I only observed O&P and ELISA tests conducted, and at no time PCR test was done or even suggested as an option. According to Antech Diagnostics, the lab FAH has been using for their testing, compared to traditional O&P, PCR test is significantly more sensitive in detecting parasites, and the use of PCR test more than doubled the number of pets identified with parasitic infections. Not to mention that there’s a number of parasites that simply cannot be detected with O&P and ELISA tests. Furthermore, a more comprehensive RealPCR panel is recommended in complicated diarrhea cases, as stated by IDEXX, another laboratory used by FAH in 2021-2022. It boggles my mind that a veterinary professional would fail to request the lab to conduct PCR test to rule out all parasites. I directed the question to FAH, and eventually talked to Dr. Cohn who aside from being condescending and blaming me for FAH’s failure to diagnose my cats, mentioned that the reason why PCR test was never suggested as an option was because it was a more expensive test. For the record, PCR test costs $70, and a suggested ultrasound $600.

posted: 03/01/2024

The staff is always super friendly during visits, and extremely helpful even to answer questions or talk through concerns over the phone inbetween, especially Jaime. Love how caring Dr Newth is and surprised out of all of her patients she does remember little details discussed at previous appointments!! Pricing is super fair for how much they care here!! Love it here!

posted: 05/03/2023

Switched to this vet when I moved to the neighborhood and couldn’t recommend them enough! They are so sweet and warm towards our pets and us on the phone, via email and in person. Really nice team!

posted: 08/07/2022