When being the worst makes you first.

For over 75 years, we have been our community's pet healthcare provider. Founded as a small general practice, we have grown to become a wellness, specialty, and emergency pet care center. Our emergency service is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. A doctor is always in.

While many veterinary practices had to close for times during the pandemic, during quarantine, we actually added more general service care hours to accommodate the growing pet community. Now as we begin to enjoy more moments of "business as usual" in many areas of our lives, we are well prepared to continue to serve our community. 

With that in mind, we want to remind you that our emergency room is here for your pet's care. Whether you are a client of our GP practice or a patient of a community veterinarian, our 24-hour emergency service is here to help you in your times of need- just like a human ER!

Therefore when choosing us for emergency care, these are some things we think you should know.

Upon arrival in our emergency room—whether during overnight or regular hours---the first stop is triage. In triage, a veterinary nurse typically prioritizes each patient's condition into one of three general categories:

Priority Level 1- Immediately life-threatening

Priority Level 2- Urgent, but not necessarily immediately life-threatening

Priority Level 3- Less urgent

Categorization is necessary to ensure that a pet with a life-threatening condition is not left waiting just because he or she arrived a few minutes later than a pet with a less severe problem. A veterinary triage nurse will record the pet's vital signs (pulse, respiratory rate, and capillary refill time) and get a brief history of a pet's medical history and medications. In some instances, the pet will be brought to the ICU to be triaged further. Their temperature, weight, and blood pressure can be accessed. This information will help us determine the pet's appropriate triage level and establish expected wait times. 

After triage, the pet will be checked in. This is not very exciting however, during check-in important information like the owner's best form of contact and pet's primary care veterinarian information is collected to ensure that the entire care team is well informed about the services provided in this emergency. 

If a pet's condition is life-threatening, then this check-in process may be completed while the pet is being treated. 

Once triaged and checked in, pet and owner can wait in the lobby or their car for the first available veterinarians. It is reasonable to expect this wait time could be extensive.

Pet owners should always communicate with the practice if their pet's triage level changes. During emergencies, being worst makes you first. So, the longer you wait the better may be a good message about your pet's health but it may not be as good for your patience. In these instances, a pet owner may consider scheduling an appointment for conditions that are triaged at a Priority Level 3.