VCA Animal Hospitals

Our puppy, Kodah, at 10 weeks old, was rushed to our personal vet for extreme diarrhea & no appetite for 24 hours, and then transferred to VCA Hospital on Hotel Circle in San Diego.

He was dehydrated, a bit anemic & his blood work wasn't looking good - but not deadly.

After staying overnight one night, Dr. Lan said he should be coming home that morning (July 2nd).. that he had eaten and looked better. They still did not know what was making him so sick - Dr. Lan said fecal test results would take days to come back, that he would need to stay there until the tests came back, and so she just started treating him for his symptoms instead of finding the issue due to our budget - we couldn't afford 3 nights at $1400/night.

Less than an hour later, we receive a phone call from Dr. Lan staying his blood pressure is suddenly not stable. Dr. Lan recommended we treat him with low blood pressure meds for at least 4 days at an average of $3, 000/night. She stated the only other option was to euthanize (for free).
I was emotional and highly upset at this point of the conversation and when she heard me crying, Dr. Lan said "I not only empathize with you as a veterinarian, but also as a dog owner myself."

I then called the lady we rescued him from the weekend prior. After explaining our situation with Kodah, she recommended mentioning to the vet to force feed him chicken liver and running a giardia test.

After contacting Dr. Lan and mentioning what our rescuer had said, she was extremely against it, said his tummy wouldn't be able to handle breaking down the liver and we didn't want to make him more uncomfortable or sick. That in her professional opinion, hospitalizing him with the blood pressure treatment for a minimum of 3 to 4 days or euthanizing were our only options and even if we chose to hospitalize him, she gave him a 50% chance of surviving. She also said he would probably need medication to regulate it for the rest of his life if he did survive.
She said, "I have treated many other puppies in Kodah's position - even better off than him - and even with extreme measures, a lot of those puppies didn't make it".

We then contacted our rescuer again. At this point - given her veterinary assistant and rescuing background, she highly encouraged us to pull him out of the hospital and put him in her care so she can take him to her vet to at least get a second opinion.

Dr. Lan then was very adamant about us not taking Kodah out of the hospital. She said "I'm concerned he won't survive even the car ride."

We contacted our rescuer again and she then called Dr. Lan herself demanding to release her rescue animal and our pet.
Dr. Lan said she was concerned about releasing Kodah because she couldn't get a hold of the vet we were transferring him to. She also expressed her continuous high concerned he wouldn't survive transportation & that the treatment he would receive in a "3rd world country" wouldn't be enough for what he needs.

We rushed him to our rescuers house (25 min car ride). Within minutes, she force fed Kodah a few bites of chicken liver and his energy spiked. She then took him to her vet friend in TJ, did tests and confirmed he was sick with giardia.
When they removed his IV bandage, his paw was wrapped so tightly the vet said "he would've lost his paw if that stayed on for more than one more day because it was cutting off his circulation."

His blood pressure went back to NORMAL once the bandage was removed & he was walking around playing. He had a limp on that back leg (that lasted for almost 2 weeks!)

When we transferred him from our personal vet to the VCA hospital, he already had an IV bandage on his front paw. I have photos showing they removed it and rewrapped him with a new IV on his back leg. Our personal vet specifically said that they were leaving the IV bandage on so he didn't need a new one once he got to VCA.

Our rescuer and her vet friend diagnosed and treated him for a few days - he was ready to come home after one day but she insisted on taking care of him. She fed him chicken liver with rice and rotated with goats milk by bottle every 2 hours with pedialyte to hydrate.) a treatment so simple & worked like a charm.

We are beyond grateful to our rescuer for saving his life.
We picked him up a couple days later (July 5th late evening).
He was - & still is - healthy!
All he needed was a weeks worth of antibiotics and good quality food to help him gain weight he fell behind on.

So, if we did follow Dr. Lan's recommendation of hospitalizing our 10 week old puppy, and went with her plan of treatment, not only would our puppy have died from being given the wrong blood pressure medication, but he also would've had to of had his paw removed from the lack of circulation caused by VCA staff! Which, also, would've increased our bill even more.
Even if we simply trusted Dr. Lan's opinion more & not had a second opinion, Kodah would not be alive. Or - if the blood pressure medication didn't kill him in the hospital, then he would have a very poor quality of life with lifelong medication and a missing paw.

We later (July 22nd) got a fecal test by our personal vet for Kodah to make sure the medication worked and it only took 24 hours to get the results from their lab - so I'm not sure why it would take a hospital 3 days (as I mentioned above).

This hospital treated our puppy & us like an ATM rather than patients. We will NEVER recommend this hospital after this experience, or the "doctor" that told us to put down our 10 week old puppy when all he needed was force fed a little food and antibiotics to treat Giardia.

It's a true shame Dr. Lan has a license that people trust after what we experienced. Not to mention all the poor pet owners of the puppies that were in a similar situation as Kodah that did not make it under her care. Makes me wonder how many of them would've actually survived.

I am ready to file a formal complaint to PETA & The DCA about VCA Animal Hospital on Hotel Circle and Dr. Lan, to bring our experience to light so pet owners don't have to experience what we went through or have to say goodbye to their pets too soon.

We were stuck with a $1, 700 bill from the VCA for them to make our puppies condition WORSE. At the very most, they kept him hydrated during his diarrhea and we're thankful for that - but absolutely Nothing else.

At the very least we would like our bill to be fully reimbursed - although we feel extra compensation for stress and trauma to not only our puppy but us as well, we just want the situation to be brought to light and Dr. Lan & staff to know how they could've handled the situation differently - to hopefully save more animals than kill them.

I have attached screenshots of our text conversations with staff & Dr. Lan during his hospitalization, our invoice from the VCA, as well as a video of him at our rescuers house July 3rd Doing very very well just 24 hours after we took him out of VCA, a photo of him coming him July 5th eating on his own & perfectly healthy, & lastly a photo and video of him playing fetch this last week - still perfectly healthy at 16 weeks.