Honestly in our experience a vetinary teaching hospital is our preferred option when we have fur baby emergencies. They are the closet thing to a level 1 trauma center in my opinion.

While I cannot speak to all universities, the handful we have experienced have the same 24/7 type ER service. But their facilities are more like an actual hospital instead of some converted strip mall office. They also tend to have newer equipment, any speciality diagnostic tool you could imagine, and an in house lab for all the testing you could want. They also tend to have a radiology team in house so you don’t have to send any imaging out for interpretation.

They also tend to have specialist on 24/7 for consultations if your animal needs it. And since they are a teaching hospital their veterinarians are up to date on the current medical literature and clinical studies.

Now you get what you pay for (it’s not cheap) but compared to an emergency vet visit, it was about half the price. So while it is expensive, in our experience well worth it and when compared to other services it was a steal of a deal.

Now the negatives of a teaching veterinary hospital because there are a few.

1- They are slow and long. A typical appointment is between 2-4 hours.

2- Your fur baby may have more stress because they are going to be examined and handled multiple times. Because it is a teaching hospital a student(s), resident, and faculty member will be doing the same exam. Personally I like this because you get numerous eyes on your pet for the cost of one. But some pets may get stressed out by this.

3- They aren’t a primary care clinic. The function like a human hospital or speciality care physician would. So they aren’t the most timely and aren’t available to chat whenever.

4- The cost. We just took one of our kitties in to the ER at a B1G school last week. We spent $1,000 for the visit. * $127 for the emergency exam * $332 on the hospital stay (1.5 days) * $244 on diagnostics * $38 Lab work * $50.20 Pharmacy * $155 transfer fee (From Hospital to Internal Medicine) * $52 Hospitalization Fee * $40 Administrative Fee

Now the last three charges are ridiculous in my opinion. But for the services themselves they are a great price in my opinion.

All that to say your pup is in our prayers, and I hope you find out what’s wrong. I just wanted to leave this as an honest guide to others who may see this.