Willowdale Animal Hospital Toronto

I wish I could offer more than 3 stars but at this point there’s some things that really need improvement.

Before I get into my review I just want to state that the first person I dealt with at the front, as well as the actual veterinarian and her assistants, were great. They explained everything and gave me and my wife options without being too pushy. The vet even offered us a sample to help with dental care to see if it would be effective.

However, we had an appointment and had to wait over 30 minutes to be seen by the vet. The first time I asked what was going on was about 20 minutes in. I was told it would be another 5 minutes or so as the vet is finishing up.

It was more than 10 minutes later that I came back out to speak with another lady at the front, stating that at this point I’m a bit upset because of long we’ve been waiting and that appointments don’t seem to make sense if you’re goi f to run the clinic in “walk in” mode. The lady replied quite abruptly with “well, this IS an emergency clinic, if you didn’t notice that already” as she pointed to the apparent sign on the outside of the building.

I asked her to do something as we’ve been waiting for an extensive period of time and now my cat was getting more anxious as a result. She replied again, this time with “well, it’s not my job to go get the vet”. I pointed out quickly that her attitude makes it seem like she doesn’t care and is completely the wrong attitude to have in this situation. She did apologize and offer to page the vet. After another 5 minutes or so of waiting the vet cane in to see us and apologized for the wait.

From that point forward things went relatively well. The vet explained things as she went along having a look at our cat who at this point was very anxious. She educated us on some potential health risks associated with common conditions and types of vaccines used and even offered food and other solutions to try to distract and calm our cat while he was being examined and given his vaccine.

The rest of the visit was unremarkable and we left relatively satisfied overall.

My message to the owner or manager would be that I understand the nature of the business and how it can be busy sometimes. But that should reflect staffing levels and the attitudes of the front line staff. When you have an appointment it’s important to try to keep it on time, as it won’t just affect your current client, but many clients thereafter, sometimes for the rest of the business day.

I would like to see improvements in time management, efficiency and customer service (specifically by front line staff). Given some improvement in these fields, I’d be happy to rate 4*. Significant improvements would yield a 5* rating.

Remember, your clients will never hesitate to tell you how you’ve been doing. Some people can over exaggerate, but if the google maps rating has anything to say about it, it’s obvious that some improvements are definitely required.

Thank you Dr. Mozes for your care and compassion up until my Boxer's last day. I've only been to this hospital once and had no relationship with this place and she still reached out to me to offer her condolences even though my cat passed elsewhere. My cat will always have a special place for you in his heart.

Dr. Karen Hung took care of our puppy Milo when we took him last Friday night to this hospital. She's very detailed and looked into possible reasons why Milo was vomiting & having diarrhea, gave us options on what to do, and was very caring towards him and very friendly. We would have changed vet if she's not that far from us. Thank you so much, Dr Hung for making Milo better!!

Took my Brother in law baby poodle and had a issue with walking my Brother in law arrived 2 min later. We went in and we waited for about an hour and then they examined her and in 5 min the vet said it needs surgery.
What!!!!! My Brother in law said for what? The vet said it has a injury that only surgery could correct it. No! He said lets go! Then the vet said don't you care? This is a guilt trip that has been put on us. I said we will go elsewhere. She then said if you want we can give it a steroid shot injection and hope it gets better the total would be $180 we said fine. The surgery was $1,300. Huge difference. So I do NOT like the tactics they use. I then found another place that was more honest and without the gouging.
GOUGING IS NOT COOL!!!!!!

V.Bolt