We have a 9.5 month old black Labrador who my husband and I enrolled in the Banfield Wellness program in Dallas, TX we she was 2 months old. Besides multiple times that they have tried to make us pay for unnecessary treatment – we recently had a very bad experience. I called a week before her most recent ‘comprehensive exam’ to inform the nurse that my husband and I would like to be present during the exam, because she becomes very nervous in the exam room and tried running out the last time we took her in for an exam. The nurse very blatantly told us, no – that would not be possible. We could only drop her off. Under no regard would we be allowed to accompany her in the room. Unfortunately we knew she needed the exam – so we went ahead with the drop off. At 9am we dropped her off and requested a 2pm pick up. At 1:45pm I called Banfield because they had yet to call us about a pick up or how the blood work went. They said she was still being worked on and they would call us when she was ready. About 5 minutes later I received a call, informing me that my puppy had tried to jump off the exam table and caught her nail in something and basically split her nail along each side. They told me that would sedate her and trim her nail to remove the damaged part and we could pick her up later that afternoon. When we picked her up the Veterinarian, came out and gave us a summary of what happened and the treatment. She told us that our puppy, Hannah, got ‘too excited’ and slipped through the person hold her and tried jumping off the table and caught her nail. She then told us that to treat her nail they had to cut the nail all the way back and that her blood pressure was not stable during the sedation because the loss of blood was significant. Not only did she lose blood but they also had her nail cut back to the nerve, which is extremely painful for dogs. The way the issue was addressed was uncalled for – from not being allowed in the room initially, to not being called immediately after it occurred, to why there were not two technicians present to hold her down (she is a 70lbs puppy). The pain my dog has to go through that could have been avoided. My husband and I are trying to figure out what legal rights we have and what the proper way to address this issue would be – it occurred on 12/6/08. I will be contacting the location to find out if they file any type of report and if they have a recording of what happened. If you can help please contact us; [email protected].
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