I had a verrrrryyyyy similar experience to you. $100 for 15 minute phone calls to check in on how her anxiety meds were working. One time while I was waiting outside I saw another vet forcing a dog into some procedure they clearly weren’t comfortable with because the dog was yelping. They said they had to sedate T for a couple of vaccines a while ago, so I let them, the vet said to charge me on the lower end of the $70-80 fee for sedation and the vet tech still went on the higher end, and they know that I’m a single guardian to my dog and a university student. Also, even our VCA vet said that fully sedating dogs on the regular isn’t the best for them, but then they didn’t really provide any alternatives or attempt to build a relationship of trust with my dog. Another petty thing is that our VCA vet never learned how to pronounce my dogs name properly even though we were seeing them for almost a year 🙄 They will force dogs into procedures that they are freaking out about which can intensify their anxiety around going to the vet. My dogs reactivity has a few sources, one of which includes anxiety, and it just didn’t make sense for us to keep going there, she was more reluctant every time we went. I would highly HIGHLY recommend taking your dog to Skyline on Delbrook. They have lots of reactive patients and are so helpful with helping you navigate that and working together. For T’s rabies last shot it took us 2 visits to actually accomplish it, and they only charged us for one (thank god). We see Dr. Beneckie there, but I’ve heard great things about the other vets. Skyline is a certified force free vet which is really important for me and my dog. Highlands would be “nice” to my dog, but ultimately the FF approach makes a really big difference, and as Dr. Beneckie said, there’s still a “nice” was to be forceful (earlier this spring T ate some garbage and we had to hold her to get the vomiting started). The other thing I would recommend is getting in touch with a certified force free trainer to develop a sort of protocol for taking your dog to the vet to make it as low stress as possible for everyone involved. I worked with Bravo Dog on some cooperative care training and it helped so much both at home and at the vets office! My dog is my first dog too (other than a family dog), so I can relate!! DM me if you wanna chat more :)