When my last cat, Scampie, went to The Bridge, it was after a terrible 2 weeks of seeing a healthy fun-loving cat fade away to a thin listless bony thing.
One of the memories that sticks in my mind the most, is the way we were treated by the vet’s staff. We’d been in there pretty much every three days or more, and the staff didn’t seem to recognise us, or Scampie, except for when they did, and she was known as the scratchy cat.
Scampie loved her sunbeams!
Scampie had kidney failure, so the staff (when they looked at her sheet, or recognised us) would have been aware that she might not have had long to go, and maybe might have been a bit more personable to us, but they didn’t and it always made the trip to the vet’s all the more traumatic for us.
In fairness, when Scampie reached the end of the road, the boss Atlanta vet that came to our house to send her to the bridge couldn’t have been lovlier, so at least the ending was as she deserved.
The early days
One of my earliest memories of a vet is when Scampie was young. I took her in to have an injection, and straight away the vet grabbed her by the scruff and stuck the needle into her neck. Scampie yelped, turned on him, and gave him a good scratch and a bite. (serves him right!)
The First Vet
A month after Scampie went to The Bridge, Freya moved in with us, and we went looking for a new vet. We discovered one vets when we received a leaflet about a half-price vaccination, so saw no reason not to take them up with the idea. We hadn’t heard of that vet either, so it was clearly good and effective marketing!
When we arrived, there were two receptionists, both engrossed in their conversation, and we felt a little awkward. Carrying Freya, I proudly put her cage on the counter in front of me, and she looked up, and said something like “can I help you, could you put the cage on the floor, it might fall off there.” So no mention of how beautiful Freya was, or any niceties to make me feel welcome…
Fair enough, I WAS fishing for compliments, 
but I guess she was a dog person.
I can’t remember anything else about that visit so clearly, the vet didn’t impress me enough to make me remember anything about the treatment.
Following my unhappiness with the old vet, this wasn’t an improvement, so we decided to go elsewherethe next time we needed a vet.
The Second Vet
A while later, Freya had a gloopy eye, and we tried out another Vet that we were aware of. When we walked in, they were busy, but not too busy to smile when we walked up to the counter. I can tell you, THAT was such a huge relief, as in all honesty, all we wanted to do was find a friendly Vets!
In fairness, all the vets themselves were nice enough, but at the first vet, it was their receptionists that let them down.
So here’s the lowdown on how to run a good vetinary surgery.
- Receptionists are VERY IMPORTANT
- Receptionists should greet the pet owner as they walk in – bear in mind they may be very upset or stressed, as their dearly loved pet might be very ill!
- Receptionists should coo or say some other nicety about the animal in order to put the owner at ease, and to further de-stress or relax them.
- When the Vet sees the animal, they should talk to the owner, and stroke the animal to relax the animal and hopefully calm it down a little. My vet allows the animal to walk around and explore the surgery for a few minutes.
- Dont forget – the owner may be feeling very nervous, because their fur-baby may or may not be very ill – They’re not to know either way until the vet makes a decision.
- Vets should be awarwe that everyone jokes about how they always give the animal a (chargeable) shot of antibiotics, just to be sure. (even when the animal’s only gone in to have its nails clipped!)
Little titchy Teego’s so cute, even the vet has a sneaky cuddle out the back!
