Frequently Asked Questions of a House Call Vet

In many ways, being a house call veterinarian is a fairly straightforward profession. Even if you’ve never worked with one, it’s pretty obvious what we do: a house call vet comes to your house to cure your sick pets.

However, some of the finer details of our work is a bit tougher to pin down. Frequently, the Creature Comforts team is asked questions like:

• What sort of services do we provide?
• Do we keep medication with us, or prescribe it?
• What are the benefits of choosing a house call veterinarian?

Today, we wanted to take the opportunity to demystify some of the questions you may have. In this month’s blog post, we’re answering two frequently asked questions we commonly receive.

Do We Provide In-Home Surgeries?

No, we do not provide in-home surgeries. Let’s talk about why.

There’s a perception that animals tend to be more resilient than we are as humans. If you’ve ever seen the many things your dog or cat puts in their mouth, then you can probably imagine where this perception came from.

However, animals are often times just as vulnerable to infections and disease as we are. As a result, it’s critical that they have surgery performed in sterile environments similar to our own hospitals. Otherwise, they run a high risk of infection that could be life-threatening.

Additionally, complications can arise during surgery that call for immediate treatment. In a medical setting, many of these complications can be resolved with simple on-site treatment. However, the wide variety of complications that could crop up require a wide variety of equipment and medication that just can’t be brought into the home. As a result, otherwise simple complications to resolve can become highly dangerous for your pet when surgery is performed in-home.

All in all, in-home surgeries are not only irresponsible, but also considered negligent and even unethical.

Why Do You Only Treat Mammals?

Similar to how pediatricians mainly treat children, a house call vet will likely specialize in certain classes of animals (such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds). As you might expect, veterinarians specialize like this because the biology of different animals can vary wildly.

For this reason, some house call veterinarians even further specialize, such as in large animals (like cows and horses).

The questions we answered above are only a couple of what we receive regularly. If you have a question about Creature Comfort, then feel free to contact us by clicking here.