ComplaintsforNew Braunfels Veterinary Clinic

• Initial Complaint

  04/25/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  On April 14th, I took my dog Marley to New Braunfels Veterinary Clinic for a check up due to obesity. After multiple exams, I paid close to $500 for this visit. About a week later, my dog began severely coughing and spitting up. A few hours later, my other dog starting having the same symptoms. We NEVER take our dogs out to dog parks and they are not around any other dogs. It was determined after talking to another licensed vet that our dogs may have Kennel Cough (Infectious Tracheobronchitis). I went to New Braunfels Veterinary Clinic on Saturday, April 24th as our dogs were coughing and vomiting all over our house. After showing the video to the staff, they prescribed an antibiotic and steroid for both animals for $122.00. I expressed my frustration with the clerk and told her that I didn't think it was fair for them to charge me for a virus that my dog contracted from their facility. Her response was "Yeah, it's because of the steroids". I would like to fairly request my $122 to be returned to me in full. This has been an awful experience with both of our dogs. We will have to cover the cleaning of our carpets and recover from the sleepless nights as our precious animals recover. I wanted to warn all of the customers in the office waiting so that they wouldn't experience the awful issue that we did but I didn't.

  Business response

  04/26/2022

  **PLEASE SEE THE ATTACHED DOCUMENTS OF ALL THE ***** THAT WERE SEEN ON 4/14/22, WHICH IS THE SAME DAY THAT ******************** DOG "******" WAS SEEN**

  **************** called about health concerns for her dog "Marley" and we offered to see her but it needed to be as a "drop off" case, in which the pet is dropped off for one of our doctors to perform a full exam and any diagnostics that *** be necessary.  The reason we have cases dropped off is because the symptoms appear to present a more complicated case, and our appointment times are either already booked or do not allow for an extended amount of time for everything to be done in order to diagnose the patient properly.  As you can see by the documents of all pets that were seen that day (either in room or as drop off cases), none of them were for coughing.  Since 4/14/22 and all the way to 4/23/22 when **************** stated her other dog started coughing, we have seen hundreds of patients and NONE have called with any issues of coughing since we've seen them.  All cases have been reviewed by me to confirm that there have been no follow-up concerns by pet owners. If kennel cough were in our building, there would have been multiple dogs that would have been affected.

  Any potential coughing cases not related to congestive heart failure, allergy drainage, etc are taken very seriously.  We typically have pet owners send us a video of the patient that is coughing, and prescribe medication (without seeing the pet in clinic to reduce exposure risk) after one of our doctors is consulted.  We have not had a single case of kennel cough or bronchitis in our facility since early 2021, when there was a huge breakout of kennel cough that originated at either one of the local dog parks or one of the many grooming facilities in our town.  All 10 area veterinary clinics reported diagnosed kennel cough cases when we reached out to them in 2021.  Just today, we have received 2 phone calls from clients who have dogs that are coughing and both dogs were seen in the last 10 days by either local groomers or at a local dog boarding facility, and both have been vaccinated within the last 6 months for kennel cough.  However, we have not seen them as patients in at least 3 months, so they were not exposed at our facility.  

  ******************** dogs have never been vaccinated by us for kennel cough, so the risk her dogs coming in contact with an airborne virus are much higher vs a dog that has been vaccinated, similar to a human going into a hospital or medical clinic and potentially being exposed to airborne viruses such as Covid or the flu. The Bordetella vaccine is not 100% and doesn't cover all the different strains of the virus, but is highly recommended to help reduce the symptoms associated with kennel cough.  **************** states that her pets haven't been anywhere other than at home--we would advise that she also check with her neighbors to see if any of their dogs are coughing, have been to grooming parlors, dog parks or anywhere outside their environment that could have passed the airborne virus through the adjoining yards.

  We will be happy to refund the $95.10 of medication dispensed to ******************** 2 dogs (not including the $27.50 for the Simparica Trio heartworm pill) and will round up the total refund to her in the amount of $100.00.  We will mail her a check today.  We do ask that **************** read our side of the situation.  We would welcome notes from the other clinic that she said she had to take her pet to if she would like to share those so we can document the information.  Please let me know if there is any further information needed.  My email is *********************.

  Customer response

  04/26/2022

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Regards,
  
  *********************

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