Vet trying to screw us?
 

Okay What do you guys think?

I noticed Bailey had been throwing up every once in a while in the last few days and last night my boyfriend woke up and saw her throwing up again so today we decided to take her to the vet (whom we really like and has been great with our little bailey) Well our usual vet wasnt availble until later and we really wanted to get her in earlyer so we agreed to see the resident doctor instead.
He looked at her and checked her temp yadda yadda yadda and then said he would be back with an estimate. While we were waiting, our usual vet came in to see her (she really likes our little one) and she gives her a quick look over as we chit chat with her and tell her shes been throwing up. She tells us that shes sure shes fine and the doctor will probably just give her something to get the acid out of her stomach and maybe some special food and then we would be on our way. She leaves the room and the resident doc came in to give us the estimate. He starts telling us its going to be $540.00 because he wants to do exrays of her stomach yadda yadda yadda. We werent expecting it to be that much and naturally we were both shocked. My boyfriend left it up to me and feeling pressured by the vet I left Bailey there and my boyfriend and I went to get my checkbook from home. We felt like maybe we were getting taken advantage of, after all dogs throw up all the time and most people dont even bother taking their dog to the vet . We are just really cautious with her because she is super tiny 1.9lbs. Well once my boyfriend and I get in the car we decide to call the office and talk to our regular vet and ask her if she thought all this was neccesary. After all, she looked at bailey and told us that she just thought he would prescirbe something to get the acid out of her tummy and some food. So my boyfriend calls her and she basically tells him "exrays are an important diagnostic tool" so basically she is now backing him up on this. Even though this isnt what she would have suggest had we seen her. I ended up sending my boyfriend back in to get bailey and he tells the vet tec that we are just going to keep an eye on her for a few days and we will bring her back if anything goes wrong. Then the vet tec whispers to my boyfriend "im sure shes going to be fine"

Im not sure were going to go back there anymore. We feel like they were trying to screw us over, we arent sure if we should just go back to our original doctor that we like and ONLY see her, or if we should just change vets all together. We feel like when we called our vet to ask her if we should do what the other doctor suggested we probably put her in a bad situation because HE is the resident doctor so he is her boss. She has to support his decisions. Well what do you all think? Where they trying to screw us over?

i don't know. the xrays does seem pretty high. your baby is sick so i would get her into see a dr asap. maybe seeing your normal dr will make you feel better.
good luck to you

She dosnt have a temp. and she is just as hyper and playful as normal. Just a little throw up. And we looked at the throw up and found some hair. It looks like she might have had a hairball? I dunno... So you really think we should take her somewhere else and get her rechecked?

i don't think dogs really eat enough of their hair to get hairballs...

oh and also, we did just adopt a resue rottweiler so we dont know if she could just be stressed because of that. When I asked the vet if her throwing up could just be from stress with the new dog he said "that is a stretch" and that that dosnt happen. But I do remember hearing somewhere that dogs DO throw up when they are stressed...

i wish I could help you... my poor pup has been throwing up too :(

what kind of food are you using?

a happy, hyper dog who is throwing up can sometimes mean a foreign body aka an obstruction somewhere in teh stomach or intestinal tract. That is probably why the vet wanted to do x-rays. While i do agree that the price for just x-rays is high. was there anything else on the estimate? did he want to put her on IV fluids as well?

I would at least give it another day to see if it clears up. Be sure to watch her fluid intake since she is so tiny. But mine occasionaly throw up for a day or two and then get over it.

I agree with you, I think he was trying to scam you. It seems there is more and more of that now days.

Nope, the price was for 8 exrays. And I dont even know why they would need 8. She is SOO tiny!

pro plan
its what the vet recomends....

8????? what the crap are they gonna do with 8 x-rays???? They need max 3 x-rays of the abdomen to see if there is a foreign body. Maybe he wanted to do a barium series but still that's ridiculous.

Ya that's a bit of over kill

One from each side ought to do it.

i would tell her about it all and you think thats too much xrays are used for blockages the special food maybe science diet i/d they will prob give her a shot and some meds

8 xrays ?? What are they xraying? I know that our vet has several vets in the practice and I only like one, so I ask for that vet and make my schedule around him. It does sound strange that she said one thing and then backed her resident. I would talk to the main vet and tell her your fears. It is so hard to find a good vet practice that is good for little Yorkies. Good luck with your little one. A little throw up is nothing though, if she keeps it up though it could be something to worry about. Is she drinking water? Is she eating? Keep a close eye on her for a few days and keep us updated. My male drinks out of our salt water pool and throws up if we don't stop him or put up the gate even if we are in the pool to keep him away. Yes, he does have fresh water 20 feet away on the porch, he just drinks from the pool to drive me crazy!!!

Ok, thats what we thought too... If the vet we normaly see had originally said she was worried and thought he was going to ask for xrays thats one thing, but she didnt, she figured bailey was fine, and then like you said backed the resident doctor after the fact. I think we are going to take everyones advice and keep a VERY close eye on her the next few days. If something persists then we will probably go see our original doc.

Hi , when karleigh was sick thowing up, my vet did 2 xrays to be safe, and he only charged me 150.00 and that included her med and office call, so that price of 540.00 sounds really high to me, i hope your baby is ok and feels better real soon, oh and she only had pancretitis ( spelling? was put on an antibiotic and is fine, just have to becareful with her diet.

We have been taken by a vet before...if you think something is off you could always go and get a second opinion. I think they want to make sure something isn't stuck in there that could cause big problems..that many xrays seems WAY too high. If I was to call my reg vet right now they would say to give boiled rice and hamburger. Perhaps they are extra careful because she is so small? You DONT want her to get dehydrated...pinch the back of her neck lightly..if it stays up in the pinch mark she is dehydrated - you want it to snap back. I would give lots of fluids! The price they gave was WAY too high ..if it was me I would call around for a second opinion!! Vets do stick together if they are in the same office...

It seems you always have to weigh what a vet says. I believe you are best to use your own intuition. My little girl broke her leg just before Christmas and I had to travel with her (by plane) to get it fixed. After 6 weeks, I had to take her back to have it re-x-rayed. The vet called in a panic and said I had to bring her right back cause he thought he "saw" something on the x-ray. i told him I couldn't bring her back for 6 weeks. Well, when I finally brought her in and they re-x-rayed it, there was nothing.. so he figures it must have been a shadow. Oh and $95.00 please for the xray. so my advise, use your own intuition! :)

Ya he mentioned that the xrays were to look for an intestinal obstruction. I just hope that by waiting and watching her we arent doing any damage to her. I did read a little about intestinal obstructions and found that if she had one she probably wouldnt have been pooping normaly (which she has been) Ill keep everyone posted and let ya know what happens. But I guess my only other question is, should we find a new vet to go to because Our usual vet backed up the resident vet even though she knew that the price (and 8 xrays) were ridiculous?

your right, as long as she's pooping and eating normally then you can probably rule out obstruction. keep a close eye on her.

Doctors are Doctors..no matter what species they treat...they are going to back each other even if one thinks the other is overeacting. 540.00 seems high to me also. I don't understand why he didn't just tell you to watch her for the night and if she got worse to bring her in for x-rays...and 8 sounds like alot for a tiny little thing like that. Do you think she may have eaten something that didn't agree with her?
If I were you I would try her on a better food than pro plan...Someone here just posted a site you can go to check out different brands of high quality food. I feed my girls Canidae and have NEVER had a problem...Sadie is 3yrs and Lillie is 1yr. Canidae is for all stage so it is just as good for puppies as it is for adults.

Good Luck and I hope all turns out ok for your little furbaby

She is small and still very young. Maybe she needs to be fed more often to keep her stomach from getting so empty. Is the vomit yellowish, which would mean an empty stomach?

yes, her vomit is kinda yellow but she always has food and water available. Sometimes she wont eat unless I personally take some food and put it in my hand, then she will eat out of my hand. Same thing with drinking, sometimes she wont drink unless I give her the water in a bottle cap.

I would go to another Vet. You need to trust your Doctor.

If its yellow its bile. If my Timmy goes on an empty stomach for more than 7 hours he throws up bile. Everynight I make sure he eats something before he goes to be. ..... Even if its just a treat. This past weekend he threw up bile and that was because he was on a empty stomach. I leave their food out but if I'm not on him he's worried about playing instead of eating.

My Rowdy definitely WILL throw up when he gets stressed. AND it will be yellow bile because when he is stressed he eats very little. AND one of his main stressors is when there is a visiting dog or cat in our house. When they throw up bile, and if they have eaten in the last few hours, the food is being digested because it is out of the stomach.

If they throw up food a few hours after they have eaten, then they most likely have a bug or some reason that the stomach is not digesting the food.

Rowdy has a sensitive stomach and he throws up at least once per month. Sometimes it is only once, sometimes it is for a couple of days. If he is active, playing, and doing his usual daily routine, then I don't worry about him - it's just part of him - and I just watch him closely. But if he acts lethargic, won't play, or has the dry heaves - keeps throwing up when nothing is in his tummy, then I take him to the vet right away.

You will learn your pup and learn when he is sick or not (sorry, Bailey may be a girl - I can't remember!)

My Rufo (german shepherd and mastiff mix) used to throw up if he was stressed. He continued active, playful, hungry... as ever, but he threw up.

xrays
 

my Dasi had a chest xray and and abdominal xray. both came to $75. Plus vet visit $44 and meds $50. I think your vet it very high priced. My total was $175 and she gave me special food also.Dasi is doing well now. And i thought my xrays were expensive!:aimeeyork

That sounds like an awful lot. Sounds like they have a "practice" going. THAT is where the trouble starts. You find a vet you like but they are not always the one you get when you visit ... and you spend 15 minutes going over the dog's history because this vet has never seen them before.

We go through that a lot. Unless it's an emergency situation, I always try to see if our doc is working and can see us. The times that we haven't have not been all that far off of your experience. And we invariably would get the evil eye because we "homecook." (Yeah, after that wheat gluten crap try tellin' me there is something wrong with what I'm doing NOW.:D ) Our vet knows we do and has always encouraged us to.

You really do need to have someone who you can trust. So, if you are not comfortable where you are, do some digging. Ask others in your area who their vet is. Do online searching by name and see what comes up.

Good luck. I hope it's nothing serious with your baby (probably isn't) and that everything is OK soon.

My Codie throws up yellow bile sometimes. He also licks/cleans himself, as well as his 2 sisters. Plus, he EATS my hair lolol So sometimes he throws up hair.

I think 8 x-rays is a little extreme. I would just monitor your little one at home and be sure she is drinking water. You can also give her some nutrical to make sure her blowo sugar level doesn't drop. I'm sure she will be ok. You said she doesn't have a fever (which usually means infection) and she's playful and active. I think she'll be ok. She probably just has a tummy ache.

Give her GET WELL kisses from me and my crew.