Emergency and After Hours

Emergency Policies

Emergencies are times when you need someone you can count on. That is why Mendocino Animal Hospital has worked hard to insure that you have access to emergency services both during our regular hospital hours and after hours. We want to be there for you. We understand that emergencies are never planned or convenient. During regular hours we do our best to accommodate emergency patients around our already busy schedules.

• Should you have a daytime emergency, we ask that you call ahead to alert our staff. While we are waiting for you to arrive, we must prepare special equipment to be able to respond to your pet's needs in the fastest most efficient way possible.
• Because we are adjusting our entire case load to work on your pet, be prepared to wait at the clinic for awhile, possibly hours, while we work on your pet. Alternately you may be able to drop your pet off at the hospital to be worked on at the earliest possible time.
• All emergency pets are evaluated by staff members immediately when they enter the clinic, and they will be worked on in order of priority, the sickest patients being seen first.

After Regular Hours

After regular office hours, Mendocino Animal Hospital, in cooperation with several other local veterinarians, rotates the emergency call among the participating hospitals. Sometimes our own doctors are “on call.” Sometimes the veterinarian responding to your urgent needs will be from another hospital in Ukiah or in Willits. This system provides coverage for emergencies 24/7, 365 days a year. If you have an after hours emergency, you should call our regular phone number (707-462-8833) to reach our answering service, which will then route your call to the on call veterinarian.

Sometimes pets present us with emergency situations that deserve extra intensive care, for example, something serious enough to merit round the clock observation or an involved surgery requiring a lot of extra staff. In these cases, we will refer you to a 24 hour veterinary facility in Santa Rosa, such as Pet Care or Animal Care Center. In some cases, your pet may need to see a local veterinarian first to be medically stabilized before the trip south. Other times, we may feel it is the pet’s best interest to drive directly to one of the Santa Rosa hospitals.

At the present time, there are no veterinary facilities in Mendocino County that have 24 hour staffing and care. If for some reason you have difficulty locating the local veterinarian on call — sometimes cell phone reception can be poor in parts of the county or a doctor’s pager can malfunction — we urge you to call the Santa Rosa hospitals directly for advice.

Costs

We all know how costly a trip to the human hospital emergency room can be. Pet emergencies also cost more than routine veterinary visits. After all, the doctor and veterinary staff are being called in from their homes, sometimes quite late at night, to help your pet. Our emergency fees are designed to cover the overtime wages incurred. You should know, however, that all other services — radiographs, IV catheters, etc. — are charged at our regular fees.

Emergencies are often stressful and emotional. During these anxious events, we do our best to help you make good financial as well as medical decisions for your pet. We do not allow billing for our emergency services but we do take major credit cards, and can provide financing through Care Credit for qualifying people.

We hope you never have to use our emergency services, but we want you to know that we are ready for you when you need us.