An absolute God-send. We have four labs, and we've brought them to Dr. Rutledge for various reasons (shots, exams, injuries, etc.) and every time he absolutely amazes us with his knowledge, his caring, and his cost-consciousness. Because, in reality, cost is a factor when caring for an animal. And he always chooses the treatment that is the best for the dog and the best for our wallet. Perfect example: last night, we discovered my dog had a deep puncture wound on her inner thigh from jumping onto a upturned twig. It was 9pm and Dr. R was closed so we took her to the Emergency Vet, they performed a basic debridement, gave her a shot of antibiotics and pain meds then attempted to sell me over $700 in surgical procedures and blood workups to address the wound. Said 'no thanks' and took her to Dr. R. this morning, he says, ""It's deep but surgery to clean it isn't necessary and since we can get the same results much more simply and cheaply, so I'll give you a cleaning solution, do it 2x per day until Friday and I'll check her then."" Total cost: $86 (including antibiotics). Any other vet would have tried to sell me unnecessary surgeries to jack up the bill even though a cheaper treatment is just as effective. This is typical, when my other Lab got a deep gash on her ear, he stitched it up, wrapped it up, gave me antibiotics all for under $100 ($70 of which was for the pills which he has no control over)... and then had me come back every 2 days for over a week so he could check and re-wrap it with clean bandages, and then removed the stitches... all free of charge! I wish I could give him 10-stars, because he's worth it.
more