Lifetime of jabs for £100-ish. Is it worth changing vets for?

Croatoan

We've all seen these offers and tbh taking one out would seem a no-brainer (if one believes yearly jabs are necessary). My vet doesn't offer this, while one down the road does, along with 6-month free check ups for life.
I'm not sure, do vets normally charge for 6 monthly check ups or are they all free?
Anyway, I'm very tempted to leave my current vet and change. I'm fairly happy with them, but the vets making the offer have also been recommended to me so I don't expect the service to be any different.
So, are these offers all they're made out to be or is there a catch?

rising_from_the_ashes

None of the vets round here do it unfortunately.... or I'd be seriously tempted.

If a 6 month check up is also included - even better (mine only ever have a check up at yearly booster time, unless there's a problem).

I also know that I paid around £90 for the 1st 2 jabs so £100 for life is .... fantastic (as long as there's no catch!)

snozberry

I know a couple of people who are registered with the chain type vets who offer this and they are ok with the service that they provide. My vet doesn't offer this service but I wouldn't leave his practice for all of the tea in China. He might be slightly more expensive but the level of care he provided when my cat was on deaths door was amazing. I tend to weigh up vets on their professionalism and how good a job they do.

dizziblonde

Our vet (a "chain" within the city) does a one for up to £10 a month (starts at something like £6 for a teeny breed) which has microchip, jabs, worming, flea and yearly check on it - goes up a little bit when you hit the OAP mutt category but then it adds in a yearly blood work-up as well... considering it mainly for easy budgetting purposes but wouldn't do unless I was otherwise happy with the service at our vets (which I am).

lozza1985

It all depends I suppose on how happy you are at your current vets, and how good others think this other vets is. I've changed vets a few times, I used to go to one that did a monthly payment package, but all they were interested in was the money, tried another vets, they were no good with animals either, didn't want to handle our eldest cat (who is soft as a brush and would never hurt anyone!), and it was a job getting past the receptionist for an appointment (much like the doctors!). So we changed again. This new vets is actually far cheaper - but - their service is faultless. They are brilliant with all our animals and everyone geuinely cares and wants to do the best by the animal, rather than their pockets. No matter what I can't see us changing vets now as they're brill - but, we wouldn't have found them if we hadn't tried them ourselves. Our vets will do a free check up when just going in for worming, flea treatment etc so we get our cats checked up pretty regular (I hate giving them the tablet myself and would rather pay them a little bit to do it, and get them checked up at the same time).

Perhaps it could be worth popping in for something routine, or just a general check up, and see how you find them, and use that to make your decision?

chris_n_tj

If i was happy with my Vet, (which I am happy to say our Vet is 1000% brilliant) For me even if another practice offered us free jabs I would have to say no thanks. x

Raksha

It sounds to me a bit like taking your car to a garage that does MOT's as well as normal 'garage' work - you run the risk of your car failing the MOT and the garage wanting £00's to correct it. The vet gives you a free vaccination (which may or may not be needed for your dogs health) and check up, finds a lump and suggests treatment - do you say no? Or do you say 'yes' because the vet says it must be looked at?

Just playing Devil's advocate

Sagz_2

Raksha wrote: »

It sounds to me a bit like taking your car to a garage that does MOT's as well as normal 'garage' work - you run the risk of your car failing the MOT and the garage wanting £00's to correct it. The vet gives you a free vaccination (which may or may not be needed for your dogs health) and check up, finds a lump and suggests treatment - do you say no? Or do you say 'yes' because the vet says it must be looked at?

Just playing Devil's advocate

I take my car to an MOT specialist, if they find it needs work I take it to a regular garage.

Is there anything to stop you taking advantage of cheaper Vaccs but still going to your regular Vet for everything else?

Croatoan

Raksha wrote: »

It sounds to me a bit like taking your car to a garage that does MOT's as well as normal 'garage' work - you run the risk of your car failing the MOT and the garage wanting £00's to correct it. The vet gives you a free vaccination (which may or may not be needed for your dogs health) and check up, finds a lump and suggests treatment - do you say no? Or do you say 'yes' because the vet says it must be looked at?

Just playing Devil's advocate

I really don't see the point you're making. If I trust the garage then I'm more than happy for them to do MOTs and normal garage work.
The inference I think you're trying to make is that vets who do lifetime jabs and free check ups are (or might be) somehow a bit dodgy, though I fail to see why.

EDIT - If a vet, any vet, tells me my pet needs something doing then, if it's affordable, I have it done. I do that simply because he's the expert and I'm not. Yes, I suppose he could be lying or he could be incompetent, but that goes for any vet even the one who everybody loves.

Maggz_2

I have two vest for our dog, a local one down the road for the main care, neutering, any problems etc. I then go to one 30mins away to get yearly boosters.

When we bought puppy breeder registered him for 'jabs for life' when they did his puppy vacs. I now return to same chain - vets4pets yearly to get boosters.

Local vets are happy to deal with main care, despite them not getting the yearly booster.

krlyr

There's no laws to say you can't register your pets at more than one vet so no harm in trying the new one and, if you don't like it, just having the vaccs done there and other treatment at your current vets (or returning to your current vet completely if you're really unhappy with the new one).
Some vets can get a bit petty about it apparently but if my vet refused to treat my pet because I'd taken my custom elsewhere on one or two occasions I wouldn't want to use them anymore anyway, it would say to me that their priority is their money not my pet's welfare.
The thing to be careful of is obviously any treatment done at one vet will need to be reported to the other. The last thing you want is to take your pet to vet A and have it put on X medication, then go to vet B when the pet doesn't recover/worsens, them to administer Y medication or Z treatment, then realise that the medications interact badly or the medication from vet A puts the pet at risk during treatment Z, such as medications that limit the body's ability to clot blood then putting the pet through an operation. As long as you're honest about it and both vets know what medication and treatment the pet has received, there's no harm in using two vets.

However, I try to support my vet and I know that although some things could be shopped around on, the profit they make is really funneled back into the surgery as they have fab staff, loads of equipment and are constantly improving. The fact that they made enough profit to get the equipment to do in-house blood testing, for example, could save my pet's life one day so I'm happy to spend that little bit more as I feel the service is worth it, but I had no problem shopping around at my last vet as it was a very minimalistic surgery (one consult room, you turned up and waited so no appointment system, ops were done at a different branch altogether, etc). so I never really felt like I benefited from the profit they were making as their local branch didn't have the room to expand and offer more services. OK, their other branch was fab from what I saw the one time I visited but it was too far to go to regularly. So it's personal choice, supporting your vet if you think they're worth the money, or getting the best deal by taking advantage of the competitive nature of businesses.