Want to see a vet? Pet owners in Treasure Valley could be waiting a while
Janet Buschert’s 14-year-old cat, Fifi, had an abscess. So she tried to book an appointment with her vet — and was surprised to hear that she would need to wait over a week. She then tried two other vets, who had even longer wait times.
Instead, Buschert took Fifi to WestVet, an emergency animal hospital in Garden City. She arrived at 8 a.m. on a Saturday earlier this month and waited three and a half hours — outside in her car, due to COVID-19 precautions — for Fifi to be seen and given an antibiotic.
“They were faultlessly kind and trying to do the best they could with the situation,” Buschert said.
Across the Treasure Valley, cat and dog owners are finding it increasingly hard to schedule veterinarian appointments for their pets. Some clinics are not accepting new patients, and many are operating at full capacity with some appointment openings weeks out.
Local veterinarians say a number of factors have made it more difficult for pet owners to find clinics to squeeze them in and led existing customers to wait longer for appointments. Dr. Dan Hume, medical director at WestVet, said most veterinary facilities in the Treasure Valley were already operating near capacity before the coronavirus pandemic.
“And it’s no surprise that Boise’s exploding population growth is bringing a lot of new people into the area and those people are seeking care for their pets,” Hume said.
WestVet, the only 24-hour emergency hospital in Idaho, saw its caseload over the past 18 months increase by 50%, Hume said. Even with 50 veterinarians and more than 200 support staff, the increase has taken its toll. The labor shortage has also contributed to greater wait times, Hume added.
“A lot of our team members are moving on because, you know, they’ve been working at such a high level for the last 18 months and there doesn’t appear to be any slowdown coming,” Hume said.
Dr. Joshua Frost, owner of North Boise Veterinary Clinic, at 1307 W. Jefferson St., quit taking new pets after he reached 1,320 animals. He said he would have reached the limit even without the pandemic that began in March 2020.
“It’s hard to say no, but to be fair to my clients I have to be available if there’s some sort of urgent care need, and I can’t just book new people all the time,” he said.
Lynn Zeller, a former Boise resident who moved to Virginia in November, said she appreciated that Frost came to her house to euthanize her 17-year-old Dachshund in July 2020. It was the third dog she had lost in 14 months.
“I would not have made it through without North Boise Veterinary Clinic,” Zeller wrote.
COVID-19 pandemic brought fewer pet adoptions nationwide
While media outlets across the country reported a surge in pandemic pet adoptions, that hasn’t been borne out by statistics. Adoptions decreased from an estimated 2.8 million adoptions in 2019 at 4,000 shelters in the U.S. to 2.3 million in 2020, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. It was the fewest adoptions in the past five years, but veterinarians haven’t seen their caseload decrease.
The number of dogs taken in by shelters nationally dropped by 32%, while cat intakes decreased by 23%. The number adopted was nearly evenly split between dogs and cats.
“Fewer people were relinquishing their pets, and animal control was less active in picking up strays,” the AVMA said in an analysis issued late last month. “Finally, spay-neuter programs have been effective in keeping populations down.”
From March 2019 to February 2020, 3,378 cats and 2,853 dogs were adopted from the Idaho Humane Society in Boise. From March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began, to February 2021, cat adoptions rose to 3,387, while dog adoptions decreased to 2,367.
“We are pretty close for adoptions remaining steady, even with COVID,” Humane Society spokesperson Kristine Schellhaas said by email. “We greatly slowed intake in March 2020 because we were unsure of how COVID would affect our shelter.”
Early in the pandemic, one of the shelter’s two veterinarians moved to Colorado. It took several months to fill that position, adding to the difficulties the Humane Society faced.
“Given those circumstances and our adoption numbers, we have fared well with adoptions,” she said.
Veterinary clinic visits spike this year, AVMA says
The average veterinary clinic saw monthly appointments climb from 913 a month in 2019 to 950 in 2020, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. So far in 2021, they have climbed to 1,012 per month.
Data from VetSuccess, a software company that tracks veterinary metrics, said veterinarian revenue increases have come from existing clients, not new clients or new pets, the AVMA reported. Fueling the jump are three main areas: Pet owners are seeking more services. They’re also seeking higher-cost treatments. And prices have increased.
And while WestVet only cares for pets that are sick or face life-threatening illness, its caseload has climbed. Hume points to people who have moved to the area and haven’t found a regular veterinarian and pet owners who bought a new pet from a breeder.
“There’s been a surge in the number of people that are getting puppies and with that there’s more people getting into breeding dogs and selling them,” Hume said. “We are seeing an increase in the number of young pets with infectious diseases like parvovirus.”
Parvo is a highly infectious disease that attacks a dog’s stomach and small intestine. It is characterized by fever, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, weight loss and weakness, and typically strikes puppies between six weeks and six months of age.
Stress for pet owners increased because of the pandemic
Amy Mitchell, founder of Fuzzy Pawz Rescue, which since 2011 has worked “helping out pooches and kitties in a pickle,” has found it difficult to find veterinary care for its foster animals. It’s been more difficult to seek appointments in Boise for vaccinations, surgeries, neuters or dental appointments, she said. Shortages of anesthesia and other animal medications have also been a problem.
“Oftentimes, a simple neuter has been pushed out for months, severely impacting our ability to adopt animals out of our rescue,” Mitchell wrote.
The pandemic has made seeking veterinary care stressful, Meridian resident Izzy Rebekkah Mercado said.
“The struggle is real,” she wrote. “Our vet has been so busy that even a simple visit takes up to and over a week. It’s been a very difficult and exhausting time for us pet owners.”
