Bluepearl Pet Hospital Kirkland

I have been coming to this location for 16 years, always amazing service.

Last week, we brought our dog Violette to this veterinary hospital in an emergency. She was dead on arrival. We also lost all of her puppies. What happened afterward made an already devastating experience considerably worse. We were kept there for more than an hour filling out paperwork, including paperwork asking us to make decisions about resuscitation and approximately $1,500 in potential life-saving measures. We were sitting there checking boxes about what we authorized them to do to save our dog while, she was already dead. I had also explicitly told the staff that I have allergies and react severely to fragrance. Despite that, we were kept in an environment with strong fragrances for more than an hour, and I was actively having a physical reaction while trying to deal with the fact that my dog and her puppies had just died. There appeared to be no meaningful attempt to accommodate what I had told them or to get us out of that environment quickly. And after all of this, they are still charging us for a consultation. I understand that veterinary hospitals are businesses and that professional services have costs. But there is a profound difference between charging for medical care provided to a living patient and charging a grieving family a consultation fee after an animal arrived deceased—particularly after putting that family through more than an hour of emergency-treatment paperwork and decisions that could no longer have changed the outcome. We weren’t asking for free veterinary care. There was no life-saving veterinary care to provide to Violette. She was already gone. At an absolute minimum, I expected compassion, clear communication, reasonable accommodation after disclosing my fragrance allergy, and reasonable judgment about what should and should not be billed under these circumstances. Instead, after losing Violette and every one of her puppies, being kept there for more than an hour while I was physically reacting to the fragrances in the facility, and being asked to make decisions about expensive resuscitation measures for a dog who was already dead, we are still being asked to pay a consultation charge. That is the experience I want other pet owners to know about before choosing where to take their animal during an emergency.

Quick & very good service

We consulted a surgeon for the removal of a large lipoma from our 10 year old dog. He spent time describing in detail the surgery, urgency and risks. He was terrific with our dog who is terrified of veterinarians. We will be very comfortable having him care for our dog when excision is needed.