Did you know this about animal hospitals?

Yes I knew; no it doesn’t upset me. If it does, as you mentioned, then by all means, pay the extra cost and take your critter to a 24 hour vet.

@snowberry You wouldn’t worry that something could happen while no one is there watching over them?

If there is a situation that is so severe that it requires 24 hour monitoring, i will take my pet to the emergency place. Yes, it’s expensive, and yes, most of us can’t pay unlimited $ for care, but these are the choices we make. The regular vets would have to charge a lot more for someone to be there 24/7

@anniereborn My daughter used to work at a veterinary hospital. She said that normally there is nobody on duty at night. But occasionally if the situation warranted it, they had a cot for someone on staff to sleep while they cared for an animal that needed it during off duty hours.

That may not be the case with every animal hospital, but I bet it happens a lot.

Nope, doesn’t upset me. If I wanted my pet to have 24 hr care, I would take it to a 24 hr. vet.

You get what you pay for.

Yeah, I figured by the name “Non 24-hour vet”
If they had someone there 24 hours, every night (not just special cases like @snowberry says), it wouldn’t be a non 24 hour vet anymore. It would become a 24 hour one

@anniereborn No, I did not know that.

The clue is in the name.

@ everyone. that is just the way I was trying to describe things. It’s not like a place called
“Smith’s non-24 hour animal hospital”. It would simply be called the same as any vet. It’s just not one that does emergency 24 hour care. It’s still a place that does all kinds of surgeries and medical procedures. And there is no one there to monitor them at all for like 12 hours.

Yeh, I suppose “you get what you pay for”. I was stupid to think it was common practice for a place to care.

@anniereborn I believe they keep the animals locked up, and unless they thought that the animal was in serious condition and needed to be watched, or that the animal’s condition was going to change overnight, they probably don’t need to keep 24/7 watch on them.

I also think they might recommend you take them to a 24/7 urgent care vet if it was an animal that needed to be watched a lot, or was in serious condition. I don’t think it has as much to do with money than it does the condition of the animals.

They aren’t left alone for 12 hours a day. The veterinarians I know of often have people until 8 o’clock at night. And some body usually arrives around six to feed animals, clean cages and do surgeries before office hours.

It’s not about not caring. It’s about being able to afford to pay the people who work for them. It’s a narrow profit margin. A veterinarian has a life. They have to have a place to live, and they have have the time and money to be able to meet their daily needs and to pay bills.

@snowberry I sincerely doubt that the places I’ve gone to have a narrow profit margin.
Also, for anyone’s perusal:
https://fidoseofreality.com/who-watches-your-dog-overnight-at-the-veterinarian/

Sounds to me like a case of overexpectations.
In regards to humans, we know the difference between being seen at a free clinic, and a hospital.
You do what you can afford, you hope for the best, but don’t expect more from other human beings than they can realistically provide.
Would you take a child to a daycare and expect them to care for your child a solid week day and night, just because you have some personal need?

@anniereborn This really doesn’t sound true.

A veterinarian normally puts a cone on an animal after surgery. It wouldn’t be enough for somebody to sit there on a chair in front of the dog’s cage watching it all night to make sure it doesn’t scratch its eye. If the animal didn’t have a cone he’d be able to scratch a wound so quick it’s crazy. A cone is the only way you can get an animal to leave a surgery site alone. I wish @syz would weigh in here.

@anniereborn, did you have a bad experience with this circumstance? Would you be willing to share?
I have had dogs and cats for over 40 years and I seem to have never had a problem with this. I have had animals stay at a non-emergency vet overnight when it’s been deemed appropriate, basically left from about 8 PM to 6 AM, with no ill effects.
My various vets have always recommended the emergency hospital for more serious cases.

I’m so sorry if you gave had a problem with this, we care so much about our furred ones, it’s hard to have them suffer.

@canidmajor Thankfully no, I have not. I am just very cautious when it comes to my babies.
And it was something I just didn’t realize was the case.

@snowberry I was stupid to think it was common practice for a place to care.

I’m sure if you offered to pay the hourly wage for someone to stay, they’d arrange it. Of course, in order to provide quality care for the pet, you’d need to pay for a technician, rather than a receptionist or a kennel tech. And, of course, since a tech can’t legally practice medicine except under direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian, you’d need to pay for a doctor to be there overnight, too. And they’d need to have the lights on and the monitoring equipment on, so there’s the cost of running the hospital. Or – here’s a thought! If you want 24 hour care, use a facility designed to function 24 hours a day.

As far as profit margin, I will now climb on my soapbox. A veterinarian spends 4 years in undergrad and then 4 years in vet school. The average vet student graduates with $174,000 in student loans (veterinary specialists stay in training for an additional 2–5 years and may graduate with over $400,000 in debt). The average starting vet salary is around $70,000. Hospitals use the exact same surgery tables, surgery instruments, anesthetic ventilators, surgical instruments, blood chemistry machines, drugs, etc, etc, etc – and they pay the same cost. But your veterinarian charges you a fraction of what human medicine costs. Consider a spay surgery – an ovariohysterectomy. You will typically pay anywhere from $250 to $500. Now compare that to a woman obtaining a hysterectomy – $11,739.00. So until you work in veterinary medicine and see the dedication, hard work, health risks, and tears that are involved, ease off on the judgmental statements about those who care for pets for the love of animals – we’re certainly not in it for the money.

Damn it. Missed my edit window. Sorry, @snowberry , that comment should’ve been directed at @anniereborn

Whew! Thanks @syz!

Would you please scan through @anniereborn‘s link and tell me if you can think of any reason why a veterinarian would not put a cone on an animal after surgery on its eye? And what sort of vet is this that would act this way?