This is what I wrote in their post appointment survey…read more
When I went to my pets' initial appointments for vaccinations and check ups before PCS, I was told my 1 yo dog is healthy and my 5 yo cat might have a heart murmur. Vet told me the h/m could be due to stress in car, the drive to the vet is 1 1/2 hours. It should be noted my cat has flown before and he does just fine in airplanes. vet told me that I should get it checked out when we arrive in Germany.
FF to the actual health certificate appointment on a Wednesday afternoon (5 days before flying out to Germany on Monday) I was told once again that my dog is healthy and my cat has a heart murmur. My cat's temperature was running low that day. Because of this, we were denied a health certificate for my cat. The vet kept saying his extremities are cold & I kept trying to explain that he was sitting next to an AC in our car. I feel like no matter what I said, she wasn't listening to me or didn't care. The vet handed us only 2 resources: Dogs on Deployment (fostering agency which we found out we're ineligible for, because it's a PCS, not a deployment) and Home 2 Home (which is an adoption agency). This vet really just told me to give up my cat. In my mind, a 10 hour flight to stay with family is less stressful than spending the rest of his life with strangers.
We didn't give up though. My husband called 30+ civilian veterinarians to see if they would take a last minute appointment for a cardiology scan. One did, and it turns out the veterinarian at NAS Whidbey Island was completely wrong. There's no heart murmur. My cat has an enlarged heart. In both cases (according to other veterinarians and military families with the same experiences) my cat was well enough to fly. Many other families have been cleared when they had pets with these same conditions. I was told by civilian veterinarians that the main purpose of the health certificate anyway is to make sure my cat doesn't spread diseases to other animals in Germany.
So, the civilian vet who did the cardiology scan doesn't do health certificates. The NAS Whidbey Island vet closed at 4 that Wednesday. They told us to call them if we needed any help. We left there about 3pm. My husband had been trying to call them for the last 15 minutes they were open to clarify that if we got an additional scan, would they write the health certificate, but they never answered the phone even though they told us to call back if we needed help. We also tried calling on Thursday, which is posted as open, but no answer all day. We also attempted to try the vet clinic at Bangor Base as well as McCord... there was no availability.
I was able to get an NAS WI military spouse to physically go down to the vet clinic for me to see why they weren't answering the phone. She said there was a sign on the door saying they were closed, even though they should have been open. Again, they told us to call if we needed anything. They knew we were flying out on Monday. They also knew they were going to be closed but failed to tell us that. They legitimately gave us the worst news, then proceeded to kick us out in the cold. The way they went about all this implies "not my problem".
We were desperate to keep our family together. So we had to pay for a travel vet to come out to our house, assess our cat in a home we were in the process of moving out of and cleaning, and issue us a health certificate that would be overnighted to us in our hotel. So because of the veterinarian's incompetence on NAS Whidbey Island, I had to spend an additional $1,000 for my cat to fly with us. Again, with both those health conditions, my cat is healthy enough to fly.
Oh! And the health certificate that was written up for my dog at the NAS WI clinic had a block missing (the date in which she was seen). Basically, I paid for a service that they didn't provide and now they're not talking to me every time I try to call. Because of that, I had to move my flight, and extend my hotel stay and car rental. This is not okay!!! This problem STILL isn't solved, and NAS WI vet completely left us out in the cold.