Whats your opinion on vets??

My opinion is a confused one,as years back i had a British Short hair kitten and it had rare cat AIDS and the vets took so long to discover what it was. The cat became weak and eventully the vets realised what it was and they couldn't even give him painkillers... :( so we took him home to die.. But other times they have been useful, as with blood test as one of my dogs has slight abnormal kidney fuction. They were quickly able to diagnose what it was and he is now being treated. So hows your take on it?? Thanks.

It depends for us. If you find a good one they are worth their weight in gold and we have yet to find one. I think a lot of them are ok, and I really don't mind going in for my dogs shots and yearly checkups but lots of information they tell me I just let go in one ear and out the other.

If your kitten had a rare disease, it's normal for it to take a while to diagnose things like that. I have a rare health condition that took years for my doctors to diagnose because it's not something they deal with all the time. Vets are a great thing, they save lots of animals and improve their lives. I've not had a bad experience with one. They aren't magical, they don't always know right away what's wrong with your pet, just like your doctors don't always know right away what's wrong with you, if you've ever been seriously ill. In fact, the vet's job is complicated by the fact that pets don't talk. They can't tell the vet that their lower back hurts, or they feel nauseous, etc. I'm sure there are vets who aren't as good as others, but most are in the profession because they love animals and want to help them, and they do their best to do that.

Feline aids is not that rare and will show up in a simple blood test. Maybe you are going to a vet who deals mostly with dogs not cats. Find a vet that has a lot of experience with the type of animal you have.

FIV isn't rare. Sounds like your vet was doing other tests first. Also FIV positive animals can live happy lives on meds (very similar to HIV positive people). Your vet didn't know what he was doing and is probably more of a dog vet.

Well, it depends on the vet! That's like asking, "What do you think of doctors?" There are lots of doctors who save lives, but there are some who make careless mistakes, too.

Most vets specialize in a certain type of animal. I take my dogs and cats to one vet who has always been wonderful with them, but for my other animals, I bring them to an "exotics" vet. My dog & cat vet is very knowledgeable when it comes to cats and dogs, but he doesn't have the same experience with other species and will refer you to a different vet.

A good vet will refer you to someone else if the problem is outside their area of expertise or if they think a second opinion is warranted. My vet recommended that I take my old Sheltie to an allergist, and it was great to get the opinion of someone who had lots of experience in that field - it's just like how your general physician would refer you to a specialist.

That said, sometimes things are hard to detect, and sometimes vets do make mistakes. The labs can make mistakes, too. And sometimes animals have underlying conditions that cause things to go worse than they would otherwise - animals sometimes die even during routine procedures because, say, they're allergic to the anesthesia.

I had one cat have a fairly routine kidney surgery, but he died shortly after because of an underlying condition that weakened him too much to recover from the surgery. The vet didn't "mess up" with the surgery, and we had no reason to suspect that there was anything wrong with the cat until he started getting worse instead of better.

Yes, there are probably some bad vets out there, but it certainly isn't ALL vets.