A very small brag - our visit to the new vet

Abby's 6 month checkup and heartworm testing was due this month, and since we've just moved here at the beginning of April, we set out to find a vet that we liked and that would like Abby.

Most of the vet clinics here have some really odd hours. The vet closest to us is less than a mile from the house, but takes no patients after 3:30 in the afternoon, has no open appointments on Saturday (for months) and is closed on Sundays. And they're rude on the phone, to boot.

We found a vet closer to Gloucester and I think we'll be sticking with them. It's a very professional place - separate waiting areas for cats and dogs, lots of space, lots of different exam rooms, a pretty big practice. The staff are all really nice and we have the nicest vet: he's a military veteran and just very laid back and really good with animals.

Abby did great at the vet today.

She pottied outside, then spent the next half hour we had to wait laying underneath my chair, while other people and their dogs walked in and out of the waiting area, passing really close by. Some people let their dogs run right up to her, and all she did was lift her head. A couple of people brought along their screaming kids who were running around the waiting area. I was thinking, "There's a bite waiting to happen!" as one kid went up to all the dogs to pet them without asking. I guess the kid was scared of Abby (being a Shepherd and all) so he didn't bother us.

She did really great in the exam room and getting weighed, too. She heeled, settled right down, didn't give as much as a peep when I picked her up and plunked her on the table, and didn't react at all when the doctor took blood.

We had two people tell us in the waiting room that she's "very well behaved!" and the vet told us that we're the first people in a long time who actually put her up on the table and held her correctly so he didn't need to ask a vet tech to come in and do it. (He said most people now don't do that anymore / don't know how to do it.)

We had the test for heartworm / lymes / ehrlichia done and she's negative on all. I think we'll be going back to this vet.