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SUMMARY: This vet appears to know his stuff, but he is overdramatic in his delivery, defensive when asked questions and withholds information as he sees fit. In particular he misled me about a controversial vaccine and chose a more expensive test than was needed. Not the vet for me.
DETAIL: I came here with two young kittens. Before they even were out of the carrier, this vet told me they were some of the sickest cats he's ever seen and I needed to prepare for their long, emotional, and expensive journey to recovery. I knew the kittens had an upper respiratory infection, but I was surprised to hear how concerned he was about them - they had been playing, eating and sleeping like normal cats despite their runny noses!
His tone was so serious and dramatic that I asked if he thought they would die in the next few weeks. (It sounded that serious to me!) He told me, "There's no way for me to answer that question." This just confused me more... are they severely ill or not?!
He was very dismissive of their former vet (the vet the breeder had used) and all the information the breeder/vet had given me. Several times he tried to convince me to legally pursue the breeder under New Jersey law for giving me sick animals. (I finally had to shut him down on this point and tell him I would take care of that without his advice and it was none of his business - he was being really pushy about it!)
At the end of the appointment, after all the hoopla about how sick the cats were and how misinformed the vet/breeder were, he ended up just prescribing them the same medicine they were already on for another 10 days! So much for him knowing better than everyone else. I decided to get a second opinion from another vet, and I'm glad I did. Ultimately, Paws & Claws did prescribe my kittens the right medicine and the vet correct in his guesses about why they were sick and what other problems they might have - but his tableside manner was not very sensitive and I feel MUCH more comfortable discussing my pets' health with the new vet that I have.
There were three things in particular that I found totally unacceptable about this vet's behavior, however:
1. FIP VACCINE: The FIP vaccine for cats is very controversial, and for good reason. My breeder had warned me to not get this vaccine without doing a lot of research. During the vet appointment, I couldn't remember the exact vaccine that the breeder had warned me about, so I asked the vet if there were any particularly controversial vaccines that I should research before moving forward with them. He rolled his eyes and said "every breeder has something they don't want you to do, they don't know anything though." A simple Google search for "controversial cat vaccine" will show you there's only ONE that everyone disagrees about. Why would a vet withhold information like this from a new cat owner?
2. KITTEN'S AGE: My kittens are both from a small breed, so they were ~4 lbs at 5.5 months. A typical cat gains lb/month, so ~5-6 pounds at 5.5 months. The vet was SHOCKED at the weight of my kittens, in utter disbelief they were not 5 lbs, and told me the breeder had most likely lied to me about their age. When I explained that they were a small breed and maybe that accounted for their weight, he dismissed me by saying he had been a vet for many years and worked with many kittens. Of course, the NEW vet that I use just took one look at their teeth and said, "Yup, you're right! Small cats, huh?"
3. RINGWORM TEST: To diagnose my kittens with ringworm, this vet used a culture test, which costs over $200. However, there is a much simpler, cheaper test that uses a blacklight to check for ringworm. IF no ringworm shows up under the blacklight, then it would make sense to order a culture test. However, the blacklight is basically a free option for checking for ringworm WITHOUT needing the culture test. It reflects poorly on this vet that he went straight to the expensive culture test instead of the cheap and easy blacklight.