Complaint Review: Cares Center For Animal Referrals - Langhorne Pennsylvania

We brought our 110lb Doberman in CARES, Langhorne, at about 8pm Wednesday night after he ate large amount of dog supplements. He was walking by himself, fully alert and even barked. My wife was in panic but still thought that it was just a matter of cleaning /pumping his stomach and not so big deal. The doctor who admitted the dog told that it would be best for him to spend a night in the clinic because he was dehidrated. My wife asked if she can take him home and administer fluids under the skin. The doctor said it could be done but better to do an IV. She never said that the dog's condition was critical or that it could be a lethal dose of poison.

And problem is not what she did or said, THE Problem was that she literally did nothing to help him in these extremely critical first hours. No water to drink, no emptying the stomach, no charcoal, nothing to support liver.We spent 3 days in this clinic and saw 5 doctors treating our dog (and the 6th one on the phone), all relatively young girls who has no experience to handle real emergencies. Facing nonstandard case they failed miserably to recognize real danger. They can't and are not willing to make decisions and don't even try. Saving animal life is not a high priority here. Unfortunately it was also confirmed, after all ended, by the clinic owner during our meeting with him. He told us that they never seen such case(!!!!) and just follow some stupid protocol given to them by Animal Poison Center.

They just there  to cover their asses by those protocols. But life not always follows protocols and that is why they spent years in their schools to get ability to make real life decisions. They apparently missed all those lessons.Because he was barking they walked him in another "quiet" room. The dog was still walking in the morning but feeling visibly worse. We saw him from 7:30 to about 9:15am.

Then we went to work. No phone calls were made to us, although we repeatedly asked them if the dog feels worse, please, call us immediately.

When I called at around 11:30am on Thursday doctor Rappaport  said that the dog feels much worse. His liver numbers sky rocketted, he has nose bleeding and that he is running some blood work on the dog. More  then 12(!!!) hours after we brought the Dog in and of course all those hours  poison penetrated his system. They did nothing to try to detoxicate his system nor they even attempted to flush his stomach. The remote danger of flushing is nothing compare to what happened later. Doctors MUST be  able to make such decisions.  And of course all tests at that time were already too high and only way we were offered was insanely expensive 9K+  treatment. Well, sure, why not to wait until dog reaches this condition and then offer to pay huge money. This is kind of doctors in this clinic. Even  then we still put our trust and hope with them and went ahead with the treatment.

(as we even had other choice?) It did not help. Our boy died in 3 days  (and total almost 12 000 dollars). This clinic really showed us their philosophy: why really try to do something if you get paid ahead? really. They  did not start to do anything on Thursday until they got the money.I don't want to insist that otherwise everything would be ok, but they did not even care to give him a chance to survive.

Now looking at printout of his treatment these days, we see (and doctors we consulted with confirmed that)  that he was given only medications for nausea, vomitting and some pain killers. Nothing to support his liver or try to get rid of toxins. My wife asked them to give him medicine that she knows helps with liver function (ursodial and Sam-e), the reaction was confusion, apparently they did not have such medication. They said that they give him same medication with different name. Then in fact it wasn't the same medication.

The one they gave (Ondansetron) was for nausea. Why not to order the right medication promptly? Why bother.   The most terrific fact I saw is that they denied him water despite him showing all signs of extreme thirst and trying to reach bowl with water when we insisted to give him a little later next day. They said it was because he was throwing up and there is a remote possiblity that he could inhale it back to his lungs and contract pneumonia.

 I wouldn't go as far as to call to close this "clinic" as other reviewers on several sites suggest neither I urge you not to go there for some simple treatment: if you want to pay 2-3 times than in regular clicnic it's up to you. But I again want to sterss that incompetence and just plain negligence of personel there is outrages. Like in our case , poisoned dog? Well, just give him IV and then see what happen. It's just a dog. For them - yes. Not for us. And that what I felt all the time during 3 days of "treatment". We won't get our beloved boy back, but in the name of other animals who might need real help, consider your choices.