This follows my visit to the following establishment:
曼哈頓動物醫院Manhattan Vet. Hospital
台北市市民大道四段77號TEL: 2781-5203 #77 Civil Boulevard Section 4
My dog underwent minor surgery (outpatient!). Basically, I had a good impression of the establishment and the vet. They have a dog and a cat walking around freely during office hours. They (the pets) seemed happy and not in fear of the doctor or the employees. The cat, at one point, jumped up on a table and relieved himself (number one) on a stand holding brochures. The doctor calmly went over and cleaned up the mess. The surgery went well with my dog and was told today the the removed cyst was absent cancer cells. I’m happy once again.
My only complaint was that I had to see my dog as he changed to a very lethargic copy of his old self after given the mild general anesthetic for surgery. It took a few hours for him to return to normal after the surgery as well. But I think this is more my problem than the doctor’s/establishment’s. It was actually probably better for me to help my dog along this process than to have him in a cage through it all.
This is a report on my recent vet experiences that I would like to post as an appreciation and to help anyone it might.
Last year we discovered our little dog had a stone that was causing bleeding in his urine after getting an X-ray done. The vet we went to (somewhere on Songjiang Rd) also noted that he was developing heart problems, gave him a shot of vitamins and not much more. He was a nice guy and seemed professional but we were not convinced he knew what he was doing.
A neighbor recommended a vet that has been mentioned here before:
Dr. Hong
Cardiospecialist Veterinary Hospital
No. 34-1 Heping East road Section 2
Telephone 23633016
e-mail cardiospecial@writeme.com
We took him to Dr. Hong and were really impressed with his professionalism and care. He is very thorough as was noted and we did pay a lot for all the tests but we felt it was worth it. We got a detailed report on our dog’s heart condition and lots of patient explanations on treatment and all in excellent English. He put our dog on heart medication and recommended monitoring the stone, as surgery would be somewhat risky. We have been taking him back there ever since.
Last month the bleeding returned to our dog’s urine and we immediately took him to Dr. Hong. He patiently laid out our options for surgery as at that time we knew we had no other real choice. Due to the risk of the heart condition we opted for surgery at the surgical center instead of in Dr. Hong’s office, which he offered as a less expensive but not as safe an alternative. He said if it were his dog he would take it to the surgical center and that’s all I needed to hear.
The surgery was done at:
Asia-Pacific Animal Surgical Center
38 Xin-Hai Rd. Sec. 1
02-33653377
02-23687238
The surgeon was Dr. Yea and the anesthesiologist was Dr. Chou, Dr. Hong assisted. Dr. Yea is also American educated, speaks very fluent English and is very patient with explanations. The day of surgery was quite nerve wracking for us and all the staff was quite professional and caring to our dog and us. We had the option of watching the surgery on closed-circuit TV in the waiting room if we wanted (which we were too nervous to watch.) The operation thankfully went very well and our dog is now better than ever. Dr. Yea called us each night at 10:00 p.m. for three nights after the surgery to check on our dog’s condition. I found this remarkable and highly professional.
They sent the stone to the U.S. for analysis and we just returned from a consultation with Dr. Yea and Dr. Chou on the nature of the stone and how to treat it through diet. We return in six months for another X-ray and check-up.
I can’t stress how professional, thorough and caring Dr. Hong, Dr. Yea and Dr. Chou are, as well as the rest of the staff at both offices. I would say they must be the best in Taiwan and I’m really grateful to them for their help. We may have paid a good deal for it but it was well worth it to us. I highly recommend all of them for animal care.
I agree with Dark Horse. I have been taking my cat there for over a year now. He was just there yesterday. They are very professional and caring about animals…even if they call my baby overweight. :stinkyface:
Can anybody recommend a good vet in Hualien? I’m getting my cat ready to send home to my mom in SA and he needs blood tests etc., but getting him to Taipei from Hualien is a bit of a mission.
My girlfriend and I had to rescue a rabbit that was malnutritioned and was on the verge of death. It lives the rooftop across from ours and is ‘owned’ by the man on the 4th floor. I searched on forumosa about vets in taipei and we took the rabbit to the Manhatten Animal Clinic on Civic Blvd. However they couldn’t treat the rabbit as it is considered an exotic pet. The Manhatten vet told us to go to The Congo Animal Hostipal. I thought I would post the info here in case anyone else needs to find an exotic pet vet, for anything rather than a cat or dog. The vet was very friendly and spoke english and was trained in New York. He was very professional.
We are keeping the rabbit in our apartment for 2 days on doctor’s orders to watch it’s progress. We have rabbit pellets for it and fresh vegetables. All it was eating before was dried up brown lettuce that was soaked in the rain for days. The vet wrote out a note in chinese for us to put on the door of the rooftop so that the owner knows we have it and that the rabbit was very unhealthy. We are going to keep feeding the rabbit after we take it back to the roof, as we can throw food over very easily. We hope that the owner learns on his own from our note that he needs to take care of the animal himself properly. The neglet that this animal has suffered is really a shame.
Good for you, watanabee! Thanks for the useful info. Mod, please move this into the sticky!
Unfortunately, the owner might not care about the rabbit anymore. The rabbit would be much happier living with you than with the neglectful owner. Jackass.
We discussed keeping it, however, we are leaving Taiwan in July for 2 months and them leaving for good in December. I could find another responsible owner for the rabbit if the owner doesn’t care if I take it. One more point though. There is another rabbit on the roof with the one that lives with the one now in my home. I wouldn’t want to split them up so someone would have to be willing to take two rabbits. The other’s health seems to be o.k as I think it’s the dominent one and was eating most of the vegetables that we were previously throwing to the two of them. We are going to keep feeding it pellets and vegetables everyday, and keep an eye on it as well.
The poor rabbit didn’t make it through the night. It was severely malnurished and we did everything we could to get it’s strength back. The vet said that it’s body was in shock when we brought it in. At least we know that on it’s last day it was surrounded by people who were caring for it and giving it lots of attention and food instead of laying in a puddle on some roof in the city.
The owner doesn’t want the other rabbit and so it is going to come and live at our place. We will feed it and play with it and our landlord who lives downstairs and is a very kind person will care for it when we are gone in the summer and when we leave in December.
I have to give full credit to my girlfriend who’s idea it was to check on the bunny in the first place. She has a heart of gold and even if the bunny was quite unaware yesterday I’m sure he felt her kindness.
I have to have my cats spayed, but after reading Sandman’s post I’m absolutely terrified to do it. I always go to the Guting vet with my guinea pigs, and my male had no difficulty after being neutered there. The only mishap was once when he took off a bit of the pig’s toe when cutting the nails.
They always seemed so clean and nice, and they’re within walking distance of my house, making it much less stressful for the cats to travel there (they have been there twice for check-ups). Anybody else had bad experiences there?
Good luck with getting info about that, to all the posters rigt above.
I just want to reaffirm what a great vet Dr Yang is at Yang Ming Vet Hospital on Tienmu East Rd, Tienmu.
He’s forever helping us out with our rescues, at greatly discounted prices, and he will never turn an animal away. That was good enough to be praiseworthy for me, but two more recent events have just underlined the fact that he really is a great guy.
Two weeks ago, we went to pick up a puppy that had been in his care for a week, and also get two others checked out. The amount he charged us was ridiculously cheap (he only does this for us - sorry!), but then he reached into his takings and gave us a hefty donation! We tried to decline, but he’d have none of it.
Then, on Saturday evening I got a call about a dog that had just been hit by a car, with a suspected broken leg. I got the dog to Dr. Yang (Yang Ming Vet Hospital) at 9.30 pm, and he x-rayed it immediately. It turned out the hip was badly broken, as was the tail bone. It would be better for the animal if it was operated on right away, and that’s exactly what he did. It was a two-hour op, so he finished around midnight. And that was after a long and busy Saturday.
On a side note, Dr. Yang is known as an outstanding surgeon. Bear that in mind if you have an animal in need of an operation. A month ago he repaired the nose of a dog that had it’s nose split in half by the wire noose of a dogcatcher’s stick. No other vet’s that we tried would attempt the operation. The dog now looks great and is fully recovered and looking for a good home.
So, there you go. Dr. Yang at Yang Ming Vet Hospital in Tienmu - an outstanding surgeon and great humanitarian. :bravo:
Okay, it seems to me that Taipei is full of wonderful choices, we Taichungers seem to be suffering from a seriouse lack of info on our vets here. I am guessing we will have to start figuring this out for ourselves. I have been to a number of vets in Fong Yuan with very pathetic results. I ended up at Pro vet, they take far to much credit for the recovery of my dogs and couldn’t adequatly answer my challange as to why they decided to treat my dogs skin condition before they even got rid of his worms. They also failed to give me a good reason as to why they didn’t recommend the shampoo and anti-fungal spray for my other dogs fungus infection while she was recieving oral medication and injections. In fact I am pretty sure that they treat the majority of skin infections with the exact same medication. My recommendation to anyone in the Taichung area is to avoid Pro-vet unless your other choices are as crappy as mine. They are pretty nice doctors and their English is okay, but I think they hide a lot of options from you. I had one vet in Fong Yuan try to tell me that my dog had heart, lung, digestive and blood problems and that she needed to stay with him for 8 days, I went to another vet and was told my dog was fine except for a bit of a digestive problem that came from eating crap on the street. I recommend that you ask for an explanation into any treatment given to your dog if it is your first time at a vets. Also don’t trust first diagnosis unless they can show you proof. Some skin conditions are hard to diagnose and are often done so impatiently.
Damn, maybe I’ll have to wait with the spaying until I win the lotto.
This is the price I got from the Guting vet…
For 1 cat…
operation…2500
antibiotics…1050
thing to put around neck…200
chip…300
gov. registration…500
That’s 4550 per cat! At least, apparently if you do the chip and spaying together the government will pay 1500 into your account as an incentive bonus. However, he says he has to check if that applies to foreigners too.
Then the next week I have to go back for the shots, but as it’s a second visit you then have to pay again for the visit plus the shots.
Is that the normal price?
If I include the rabies shots and cost of visits and whatnot it will be over NT$10 000! Now I know why so many people end up abandoning their animals!
That is way too expensive. Usually a cat costs about NT$3,000 or less, even at Cardiovet.
Shop around!
EDIT: you will only need antibiotics if there’s an infection, and they’re usually NT$300 anyway. And you only need the collar if she bites at the wound. The registration is a good idea, though, as that’s what allows you to claim the rebate (though I though the rebate was just for dogs - happy to be wrong!)
A great choice for those close to Taoyuan City or Gueshan:
欣欣寵物醫院
桃園縣龜山鄉萬壽路二段918號
03-350-0683
This animal hospital offers a full range of pet services-most importantly the two doctors (husband and wife) consistently provide excellent care for our cat. After the cat’s move from the US to Taiwan, she ran into a bunch of health issues (rashes, allergic reactions, etc.) and they dealt with each problem professionally and efficiently.They’ve certainly gained enough of my trust to keep taking our spoiled rotten cat there when the need arises. Plus, their in-house British bulldog and Garfield cat will keep you pleasantly occupied while your pet is having its oil changed!
~ about 10 minutes by car or scooter from downtown Taoyuan
~ services not available in English (or haven’t been to me)
