Bringing your dog to the vet

Didn't want to hijack Lily's vaccination thread. The story Barbara Nixon told about the dog coming into the vet with distemper reminded me of something that might be worth passing on.

When we take any of our dogs to the vet, their feet never touch the floor or anything else in the office. They are either brought in inside of one of our crates with wheels or we carry them the whole time. The only time they are on anything is the examination table or other things like that that we know the vets disinfect after each animal. And we try to avoid bringing any of the dogs to the vet when we have a pregnant girl or puppies on the ground.

Sometimes I think we are a bit anal, but then we just don't want to take a chance of having one of our dogs pick up something at the vet.

Not anal at all...... anything and everything goes into a vets office, we were supposed to be getting a black and tan girl as our second dog, our breeder took two girls to the vets for their last check up and they caught something there - infection, leading on to lung problems and other things (not very nice at the time as we were all worried).

Karen took the puppies in a cage, not once putting them on the floor and then made sure the vet had wiped down the table. Karen never to us what happened but we don't think they made it as they were so young...... she offered us Woody (all the other dogs got moved straight to another house), Woody is a great dog and we were so luckly to have him.

OMGoodness! Thanks for starting a new thread on this topic, Bruce.

I haven't really thought about the risks, and haven't taken the proper precautions - until now! Wow, am I ever lucky they haven't caught anything so far. I plan to be very careful from now on.

That's a good reminder Bruce, thanks! Though I can't carry Wrigley (92lbs), Mia never leaves my arms when we go to the vet.

A good vet will enquire why you want an appointment and direct potentially infectious dogs/cats to later appointments, when other animals are clear.

The puppies may not have caught something fromthe vet's surgery. The lady from whom I got Teddy Izzy and Joly, lost a whole tri litter atsvereal weeks old, one by one. They hadn't been to the vets, but her other dogs had beeen to the nearby park, so probably dogs or hun=mans carried in the infection.

Since then , she has only allowed mum dog in while she has a litter and doesn't lat anyone but immmediate family near them until they are quite mature.

I think this is such an important topic to discuss. There is nothing worse than taking your dog to the vet for a regular check-up (or anything for that matter) then have a secondary issue to deal with due to them coming into contact with something at the vet's they shouldn't.

When Cupcake had her ear infection last month I took her in for the follow-up appointment. While I was checking out I had Cupcake in her purse, tucked under my arm, and this HUGE great dane broke away from his owner and ran over to Cupcake and licked her (she was drenched since this dog's tongue was as long as she is). I was so pissed! I grilled the owner on why her dog was at the vet's to begin with and if he had any health issues (which I then followed up with the vet on, yes I'm anal) and thankfully he was just in for a well check-up. I had stupidly thought keeping her in her purse, under my arm (I'm 5'9'' so it's not like I'm hobbit sized or anything) would be sufficient to keep her away from other dogs; guess I was wrong.

Ah well, lesson learned!

I am 5'2" -- so I am a hobbit sized human. I bring my dogs to the vet in a wheeled cart that holds a full sized crate. I try to get appointments for the first thing in the morning. The vets disinfect the floors each night and I especially try to do this for the mums to be. Sandy

i was always worried about bringing zack into the vet's office, even if they disinfect, i would think it would be like a hospital, where resistent pathogens are a fact of life. In the beginning i used to hold him or bring him in a carrier or crate. but over time, i got lax about it because the vets themselves don't seem concerned about it, not to mention the other pet owners. Most people have their dogs on the floor, and the vets and their staff don't indicate any caution or problem with this. In fact, when Zack got neutered, i was unnerved when they brought him out to me on a leash on the floor, he wasn't walking too well. I had expected they would put him in my arms. i had his crate with me.

I've had Zack to four different vets now, three of them several times, and all of them treated dogs being there on the floor and on the furniture casually. it makes me question why they even bother to disinfect the exam tables between patients.

So in reading this thread, i was wondering why this isn't something vets are cautious about. Most vets i know seem to truly care about animals and not want them to be sick. i guess. I had Zack to a new vet just for a check up and titers on Wednesday and when it was time to go, i was told he had to go out a back door, not the door we came in. I didn't ask why but i thiniki i will call today and ask. He was believed to be healthy. I wonder if they had another dog in the front who was contagious with something.

i guess the same is true in human doctors offices, people sit around the waiting rooms, handle the magazines, use the pen to sign in, and pediatricians offices have toys and books for kids to play with while waiting. I guess most patients don't have a problem as a result but it surely can happen that something contagious could be caught. Hospitals are considered dangerous places for just that reason.

I just called the vet office where i was on Wednesday and inquired about being asked to leave by the side door. She said they had two dogs in the waiting room in the front at that time, a rotty and a basenji, and she said one of them had fear aggression, and she said Zack was such a sweet friendly little guy, they wanted to be safe and have him go out a different way. she said normally they don't do that.

When Brady was only like 4 months old he had kennel cough, and the place that i went to never had me go right to a room, i waited in the font with all the other dogs...that's make me a little uneasy. i sure hope i wasn't responsable for getting any other doggies sick.

When Geordie had kennel cough, they always seemed to give us the last appointment of the day, so we were taking him in at 7-8pm mostly.