Animal Hospitals

I do not recommend anyone to take any animal to VCA Alpine Animal Hospital in Issaquah, in any situation. I felt that they held my dog hostage to try and coerce us into getting an expensive procedure that was not necessary. They held him hostage for two hours, would not let us see him, and would not treat him unless we agreed to a forced overnight stay.
After two hours we left with our dog, still untreated, and saw a different vet the very next day who verified that he did not need overnight hospitalization and quickly resolved our dogs medical needs.
I definitely felt they were trying to use the emotional aspect to milk us out of money while leaving my dog locked up, untreated and suffering. Upon reading Yelp reviews, and researching this hospital online, it appears that this is their standard operating procedure.

Sadly, after being a client for 40 years at this hospital, the last month was a nightmare. My 15 year old bichon took very ill, 2 weeks after the Vet I had been seeing abruptly left, despite knowing they were already short one Vet. That left one full time Vet to carry the entire load in Wellness & I was told I had to use ER because I had no Vet. I had to make a meet and greet appointment with the only Vet on staff in order to have her see my very ill dog and they couldn’t give me an appointment for almost a month. I told them, Kristy, would not be alive in a month and again, they told me if she got worse, to use their ER. Kristy continued to decline and all her tests showed kidney failure, yet when I ran it by the only Vet on staff, I was told, it was not Kidney failure and the tests showed nothing physically wrong with her, so they assumed she had a brain tumor, which was ridiculous. I made Kristy an appointment with another private Vet and asked for a record transfer from them. A week later, the new Vet sill didn’t have her recent ER and test records and it delayed her treatment a few more days while they repeatedly contacted BRAH to transfer her records. When they finally got her records along with the tests they did, Kristy did indeed have kidney failure and she had to be euthanized by this new caring Vet, one day before her appointment would have taken place at BRAH. It’s sad to see a veterinary hospital decline to this state, after going there 40 years. The original owners, worked very hard to build up the reputation and now a big corporation takes over and destroys their reputation within a few short years. They no longer care about pets and the owners and only care about making as much money as they can. I am so glad that my Kristy did not have to end up back at BRAH, ER for her final moments with me, and instead spent her last moments with another caring Vet, that truly cares about his patients and not how much money he can make.

Every time, I have had to use BRAH, ER, I have had to spend 4 or 5 hours and they take your dog, as you arrive and you can’t get her back, until they say she is ready. I have heard numerous complaints about their ER and now the Wellness hospital is not doing any better.