Blue Ridge Animal Hospital Inc

This vet and his team saved my 17 year old Pomeranians life today. I just moved to the area and he was attacked by a dog. Without hesitation they saw him, and carefully stabilized him so he could undergo surgery for face sutures. He is doing great tonight, eating and happy — I have several more animals that will be transferred here and I’m so grateful for their compassion and willingness to help me! 💙 They deserve more than 5 stars!

Truly compassionate and kind! Great staff and vet. My dogs were special cases and they were so gentle and helpful.

Businesses and employees make mistakes, I get that. I’m sorry I have to write this but my experience here was traumatic enough that I have been losing sleep. My bird still holds his foot closely in pain, and so this is a serious warning to bird owners to not trust your birds at this practice like I foolishly did. I bought my 16 year old parrot in for a routine blood panel. I figured I’d get his beak and nails trimmed while he was there, since it’s usually easier when a professional does it. First of all, this vet is not an accredited avian vet. I wouldn’t have even known, since he never introduced himself and the lobby is mysteriously closed. I just happened to ask if he was the bird doc. I didn’t realize you could advertise as an avian vet without accreditation, but honestly I didn’t think what we’d come in for was complicated. I now realize how big of an oversight that was on my part. I will always check now. While toweling my parrot and attempting to view into his mouth, etc, the vet repeatedly tapped on his beak like a spanking for not staying still. This was the moment I realized something wasn’t quite right. The vet was unable to take vitals due to the patient being too squirmy, and so chalked them up as “seems fine”. He was unable to draw blood using a needle from either the jugular or the wing due to “so many feathers”, and so cut my birds toenail deep into the quick when I wasn’t looking. We gave my pet a moment to rest and he was collapsing in my hands from stress. The vet then took him and proceeded to slowly squeeze the blood out, drop by drop, into two vials, while complaining that birds can stop blood flow when they are stressed. It took several painful minutes. I should definitely have just left after that, but since he was already messing with his feet, and I still kind of trusted them as professionals, I thought it wouldn’t be so much harder to finish the nail trim because almost anyone can do that. My friends, I will never forgive myself for what happened next. The vet tech holding him I think is very inexperienced. After they did a pretty poor job of trimming, I couldn’t take the sounds of suffering anymore. He was handed to me and I saw the strangest thing. His eyes were no longer shiny and bright. The light reflected off them strangely. At first I thought he was dead. But he was still breathing, and so then I realized that both of his eyeballs were poked inward. Like pushed in bubble wrap. This sickening image is haunting me every time I try to sleep. I screamed “his eyes!” and showed them. The vet grabbed him quickly and rubbed his eyes and somehow they regained shape. He said it was due to the pressure, and said “he’s fine now, isn’t he?” several times in an exasperated tone, but I don’t know if he is. The vet tech tried to tell me later that it was his feathers, but we all saw it. I feel like I’ll never stop seeing it. I was in shock as I paid the $400 bill. The next day I got an email with the blood test results. All was fine except some issues with cell counts that I don’t claim to understand. It was recommended we come back in to take more blood. I replied asking if any of his inflammation could be explained by the tremendous amount of stress he was under during the procedure. I never heard back. This event will haunt me. I regret putting my trust in these people. They tortured and almost killed my pet right in front of me and never even followed up to check on him. Truly a surreal experience that I will never forget. Please, my fellow bird owners, don’t make my mistake.

Took us in after both our dogs were attacked by Hornets. We were on vacation and they helped us out. They were pleasant, efficient and informative. Thanks again Blue Ridge Animal Hospital. Trucker and Jolene thank you too!

I am so grateful for the care they give. They don’t pressure you into additional services, they know and love your pets, and it would be hard to find a vet with more expertise than Dr Wagener.