We have been bringing our 4 cats to Cooke Veterinary Medical Center for a couple of years. Although I have felt that their prices are extremely high, I liked Dr. Cooke and thought that my pets were g... Read More
We have been bringing our 4 cats to Cooke Veterinary Medical Center for a couple of years. Although I have felt that their prices are extremely high, I liked Dr. Cooke and thought that my pets were getting the best possible care there. That is, until this past weekend. We were told that one of our cats, who is 15 years old, seriously needed a dental cleaning. They presented every possible scenario that could result from not getting it done (pain, infection, with resulting organ failure, etc., etc.) but they really don't discuss the risks of putting an older animal under. Bloodwork was done in advance, and everything was found to be normal. (Incidentally, Dr. Cooke was not the vet who did the procedure.) During the cleaning, two teeth needed to be extracted. This procedure, including the bloodwork, feline leukemia/heartworm test (required by the clinic), medication, extractions, etc. cost in excess of $700.00. Afterwards, we got a call saying that our cat could not be picked up because she had not come out of the anasthesia. We finally got her, but had to bring her to an Emergency Veterinary Clinic, because she was totally unresponsive. The vet there told us that she had apparently suffered some sort of neurological ""event"" while under anasthesia. After she spent the entire weekend there, fortunately we were able to bring her home. She is ok, but not quite herself, and we can only hope she'll continue to improve. To make matters worse, the vet from Cooke never even called us to see how our cat is doing. The total bill for this fiasco came to over $1,200.00. I am just thankful that our cat lived. She was perfectly healthy and very active, with no apparent illnesses before the dental procedure. I don't know if the vet at Cooke did anything to cause this reaction, but I now feel that paying the most possible money for veterinary care is not the answer. Read Less