My seemingly (fairly) healthy senior citizen dachshund started vomiting in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Then he seemed better, and I thought he'd just eaten something he shouldn't have. But later on Saturday morning he declined rapidly.

Because it was Saturday, my vet was not reachable. Her on-call doc referred me to Rehm. I rushed him out there, and was told there was no one ahead of me and the doctor would be right in. However, it took about 20 minutes for the desk to input the pet info into their computer. They didn't ask for much. It's hard to comprehend why that wasn't a 5-minute job or not necessary at all before seeing a doctor since this was clearly an emergency. Young vet with obviously limited knowledge and experience came in after about 30 minutes and immediately wanted to run several hundreds of dollars in tests, while simultaneously telling me my 15.5 year old dog was in critical condition.

I knew he was severely dehydrated and pleaded with her to please start a fluid IV to try to deal with that. Vet yammered and yammered, trying to sell me the hundreds of dollars in tests. It was obvious that she is an expert at playing on the emotions of we pet moms, who clearly love our dogs and want them to survive. I asked if it would be necessary to stabilize him first before anything related to any test would matter? Her answer was, "Yes, but she'd recommend blah blah blah blah blah." Almost an hour after arriving, they finally started him on an IV and intravenous antibiotics to try to stabilize him. And that only happened because he vomited again, on the examining table, and she said she couldn't hear a heartbeat. She rushed him to the back to resuscitate him. THEN told me they started the IV.

They absolutely would not allow me to stay with him or even see him. And she told me it would take about 6 hours before they would know if he was stable. Because I was never allowed to see him, I have no idea whether he was already dead and they lied to me to earn an easy few hundred dollars since they're all about the money there. Vet called 2 hours later to tell me he died. She was surprised when I wanted to come get him to bury him. I could tell by the smell that they didn't clean him before putting him in a box so I took him out and cleaned him up before packing him up to bury him. I could find no indication of an IV having been on/in him.

While my dog was old and might have had something serious wrong with him, I'll never know if he'd be happily walking in the park today if IV fluids had been started in a timely manner. If you can avoid Rehm, do yourself a favor: Stay away from them.

I have taken my pets to Rehm Animal Clinic for over 20 years. My Shorkie who has been to Rehm a minimum of once a month for the year 2010, was again having a problem. I was unable to take my dog today, so my son took him in. I have paid Rehm more than $2, 000 through April 2010, for pet care. I told my son to just have Rehm put the charges on our account and we would pay as we always have. He was told that if there was an outstanding balance on an account (160 from the last visit of some $400), we could 1) pay for today's visit, and 2) leave the 4 prescribed medications today, and hope my dog got better; and hope we could purchase the necessary medication at a later date, or be reported for stolen services. At the time my son informed me of this situation, I immediately requested my pet's medical records, and paid my bill IN FULL AS DEMANDED. Does anyone have a suggestion for a good veternarian, that will work with their clients that have always paid the bill over 2 or 3 months when the bill exceed 500 plus dollars and have been a client for more than 20 years. Makes one wonder where the Rehm family vacations? I guess when you have as many mouths to feed as the Rehm family does, you need to get all of your money in full, no matter the circumstances. Money comes first always. Is your pet really as ill as prescribed by the "vet" on the demand pay plan? Do you really need all those x-rays and blood tests?
Just wondering!