Banfield Pet Hospital horror stories

I’ve read in other forums how bad Banfield Pet Hospitals are. This year I had a first-hand experience with Banfield that brought it all home to me. All I can say is: if you love your pet, do NOT take it to one of these so-called pet hospitals. You’ll get less than competent care, or worse.

My story starts with our beloved 10-year old Shepherd-cross, Pal. In January, I took Pal into Banfield in Federal Way WA for his twice yearly checkup. We had been taking him there for his routine checkups and shots for several years. As usual, he got a glowing review from the vet, who shall remain nameless.

Less than a month afterwards, I was petting Pal, and found an enormous (the size of a baseball) lump under his left-front leg. How on earth could the vet have missed this? I took him back to Banfield, this time making sure that a vet actually saw him. The vet, after examining Pal, had an extremely worried look on her face, and suggested that we do a biopsy of the lump. I said okay.

A day later the diagnosis came back. Pal had cancer. The recommendation from Banfield was for a surgical consult to amputate the leg.

I took him first of all to another vet for a second opinion. This vet, too, wondered how Banfield missed a tumor this size during the yearly exam. She  did some xrays, and suggested too that I take Pal to a surgeon to see what our options were.

The surgeon’s findings were not encouraging. He said that the tumor had developed to the point where reducing it in size surgically would leave Pal with a very poor prognosis, and that even amputation of the limb would not guarantee survival at this point. We had just let it go to long.

Pal died on July 4, after a long battle with the cancer. We spent hundreds of dollars on surgical consults, additional vet visits (not Banfield!), medications for pain and for the infections that Pal was prone to in his declining state. Banfield missed an easy diagnosis, and it cost our pet his life.

If this was an isolated incident, I could probably write it off to bad luck. But a cursory search on the internet, reveals a pattern at Banfield that includes mistreating and misdiagnosing animals on a regular basis.

Once again, if you love your pet, consider finding a real vet. These storefront hospitals do not provide quality pet care.