Don Ward

Review of Dogwood Veterinary Emergency a...

Our Bull Mastiff, Caroline, 9 and a half years old...

Our Bull Mastiff, Caroline, 9 and a half years old suffered some sort of an event at home. She was fine when we left her and ran errands but when we returned a couple of hours later she was having difficulty with her hind leg. It was the same leg she had TPLO surgery on in 2014 done by Dogwood. We just figured she had gotten off "her sofa" and twisted something but would be better by the next day. It wasn't, the leg was swelling and she was having difficulty walking. We took her to our usual vet who did a series of xrays on that leg. Nothing obvious was found, he surmised too that she had just twisted something and had possible soft tissue damage. He gave us some pain meds and we brought Caroline home. The next day, her leg was swelling, she could hardly walk, it was looking real serious. As it was the Friday after the 4th of July & our usual vet was closed we took her to another vet nearby. That vet did blood work, found her white cells higher than usual and her platelet levels low. They referred us to Dogwood the next morning. We arrived at Dogwood where she was again evaluated. Caroline's leg was real swollen now and the swelling was also in her other hind leg. They were at first concerned about a nerve issue but ruled that out and spoke of a blood clot. Then they talked about infection, then they talked of cancer. They wanted to keep her to give her IVs of platelets and pain meds and antibiotics. Caroline stayed at Dogwood for 2 nights, the morning after the 2nd night it was apparent the Doctors at Dogwood had no idea what was going on, so we brought Caroline home. Caroline died the next morning. The doctors at Dogwood wouldn't listen to what we were trying to tell them, that there had been some event that began the problems, they talked 'AT' us, and not with us. They drugged Caroline so much she was lethargic and not at all alert. When we told them to cut back on the meds they argued with us about it. We had to become very firm with them. I sincerely doubt we will ever return to Dogwood Vet Hospital. We spent close to $5000 and for it never received a definite diagnosis for anything, only guesses. I cannot recommend Dogwood Vet Hospital.