Santa Cruz Veterinary Hospital — Attraction in Capitola

Please take extreme caution when considering bringing your animal into care at this clinic. As an owner of 4 animals, my wife and I found ourselves at the mercy of the horrible care of Santa Cruz Veterinary Hospital when we switched from Companion and the difference of the attention and care we received quickly became a glaring problem for our animals care.

Anyone who owns an animal, let alone multiple can expect they will certainly pay a pretty penny at times. Their dental procedures are 2 cents a pretty penny to say the least. But this hospital denied for months that my precious Maltese (Stuart Little) had lost oxygen briefly during a dental surgery which ultimately caused him to have seizure like symptoms, still to this day. When I finally confronted in person after having a full blood panel done to get to the bottom of it, they FINALLY admitted what happened during anesthesia.

On top of that, empty promises of conversations with cardiologists, or communication from any doctor for that matter, which can take days depending on if your doctor decides to show up to work??? They will often promise a follow up “tomorrow” but trust me, YOU will have to follow up with THEM!

As insult to injury, we had received THREE different opinions about our senior dog Lola’s tumor and her candidacy for surgery to remove it. One of those opinions being much more personal when we were disgusted by the advice we received “why didn’t you do something sooner?” For reference, their exam fee is THREE TIMES the price of any other local clinic. Starting to see the math here?

We were so disgusted to the point in which we went to Valley Humane Society, a nonprofit organization in Pleasanton (1-hr distance) because we felt that an organization that is founded on compassion was much more suitable for a trustable opinion on our dog, rather than a quick cash grab for an expensive procedure which could ultimately leave our dog in worse condition than before, as experienced with our other dog’s dental surgery a year prior.

After the sad and sudden passing of our beloved due to said cancer, we called SCVH to cancel our upcoming appointment, and we received no return call to confirm this and when we reached out (as I mentioned is typical if you’re a patient there) the receptionist was dismissive, rude and even hung up on my wife who was absolutely appalled by the conversation and response from a clinic that is supposed to respect both the animals in their care and their owners. This is by far the most stale, cold, and bitter service I’ve experienced ANYWHERE.

My final straw was this week when we had our dog Xena rushed into an xray due to complications with heart and breathing. They sedated her so much that when she returned home she was incontinent and barely able to move for over 24 hrs and completely traumatized by her experience there. They also cut her toe nails down to the quicks without ever asking us. To anyone reading this looking for a vet option in Santa Cruz County, please heed my warning - you are better suited driving a little further for respectable, compassionate and caring treatment. Trust me. Just do your research before going here based on...

The doctor is great and compassionate. However, the service at the front desk has a lot of room for improvement. I tried to order the ear gel of the prescribed medicines from an online compounding pharmacy. I placed the order on Wed., followed up with the clinic and the pharmacy every single business day (multiple calls and email exchanges) to make sure the authorization request was faxed over and was received by the clinic. After the pharmacy resent the fax several times , by Fri. finally the pharmacy and I both verified that the request was received and would be presented to the doctor. I was told it would be authorized by Sat. A weekend later, on Mon., no authorization was forthcoming. I called the clinic and was told (again) they never received the request! It was not until the end of Mon. that finally the authorization was sent to the pharmacy. The compounding took one day. And the medicines won't be shipped until Wed. So from Wed. to Wed, it's incredibly unnecessarily frustrating that I had to spend so much time just to make sure that the request was received by the clinic. While sitting and agonizing, I'm running out of the medicine that my pet has to take twice a day consistently. How could something so simple be made so complicated?? Why is that I have to spend a whole week chasing the always-missing authorization request? And now I have to shell out an extra $20 on expedited shipping to make sure my kitty doesn't skip a dose. This is...

I was here supporting my friend as when we woke up in the morning at that morning her cat which is 16 years old was having and incredibly hard time breathing and was gurgling up foam basically she thought her cat was about to die and she's had this cat for the whole 16 years of its life and she was not ready for this so she was a really flipped out by this so we got into this clinic and everybody who was helping people in line already and the people in line sauce come in and start ears news emergency and the customers got rid of the way and the workers helped us right away she they really put my friend at ease which was not easy task at that moment as she was so scared I mean she's had this cat her whole life and so you know well I don't know about any of the pricing details or anything like that I do know they were just so quick so courteous so delicate when it came to handling the situation they were quick with the procedures to bring the kitty back to life and stabilize they explained what was going on with his kitties help where you thoroughly once they did test to find out what it was and the cats still stable now and still doing amazing this place is wonderful..

I DO WISH THEY'RE OPEN 24 HOURS THOUGH BECAUSE I WAS WORRIED ABOUT WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF IT HAD GONE DOWN DURING THE HOURS WHEN THIS PLACE WAS CLOSED YOU KNOW WHAT WE HAVE DONE I HAVE NO IDEA?! OTHER THAN...