While my experience with Tidewater may in fact not be representative of their usual service (as they claim), I think you should know the gamble you're taking by going here.
Over the course of almost... Read More
While my experience with Tidewater may in fact not be representative of their usual service (as they claim), I think you should know the gamble you're taking by going here.
Over the course of almost a year, I took my two dogs to Tidewater and had consistently poor experiences. The very first visit was great, although Dr. Daniel wasn't there, the person filling in for her was nice, took time to sit and talk with me about both dogs, and I had a great experience. Every visit since then seems to be more and more disappointing.
They never seemed to be able to schedule a regular appointment, only drop-off appointments. So for most of the year my dogs went there, I never even met Dr. Daniel. Around Christmas they did blood work on one of my dogs, and they said they would call in a day or two with results, but they never did call me. I had to ask them to get any results.
Once Dr. Daniel spoke on the phone with me about one dog's anxiety. She was reluctant to give medicine and proposed instead having him work with a trainer to improve his quality of life without the anxiety. She said she would provide a list of trainers when I picked him up. She never did.
Most recently I scheduled an appointment for one dog who was having eye problems. I was told it was scheduled for 9:40 on my day off. I go up there and find out they had mistakenly scheduled him for another drop off appointment instead, so once again, I couldn't meet with the vet. I left and called back to ask about taking my other dog in as well (because he was due for all of the same vaccines as his brother). At first they said no, and I reminded them I only needed to bring him in as well due to their scheduling error. My dogs are a bonded pair and it was unacceptable for them to spend all day apart because of the clinic's error. They finally agreed. They said they would call me to let me know how their checkups went and that I could pick them up later.
After 5pm, I still had no call, so I called them. All was well, and I was told they had the same vaccines done and that one had some blood work done. They never asked me if I wanted them to do the blood work, they just did it. I would have said yes, if they'd asked, but I was surprised they performed a procedure without permission. When I returned to pick them up the front desk person wasn't helpful. She just dropped their leashes and returned to her desk to help someone else. It was chaotic trying to wrangle both dogs into their harness/leash from home, and in fact she had to go fetch one of them that had run off into the back somewhere. She also had failed to print the paperwork I had asked for on the phone. Upon arriving home I realized they were not given all the same vaccines, and I saw no mention of blood work on the itemized receipt.
When they called to check up on them the next day I asked about these things. According to this person I spoke with they never actually did the blood work that I was told they did. So I asked them again to prepare the printed copies of all of the dog's chart so I could pick them up after work. When I went, the front desk person wasn't sure about the answers to my vaccine/blood work questions so she got Dr. Daniel to come speak with me in a room. Dr. Daniel first said they only did what each dog was due for according to their records. I asked her to show me where it said that because I knew they should be on the exact same schedule and therefore should get the exact same vaccines. She puzzled through it for a little while and finally admitted that she didn't know why they weren't given the same vaccines and she didn't know why someone told me they did blood work that they actually didn't do. She proposed I bring him back in on my next day off to get it corrected.
I went back, they corrected all of the errors, and I asked Dr. Daniel if she was charging me for this. She said half price. I said I don't think that's good enough but not good enough seems par for the course here. She then smiled and walked out of the room.
It took 5 trips and around $300 total to fix their errors.Read Less