Animal Hospital of Chetek

20/04/2023

10/04/2023

Yesterday afternoon we met with Officer Emily to receive a small dog she got out of a bad situation. Yesterday we caught up as we loaded donations she helped to collect into our car. She giggled when she saw a 150 pound June Bug in our front seat, and laughed as we talked about saddling her up to save on gas. Her face lit up when we brought June Bug out for some lovin, and we talked about the rescue dogs she loved to help.

A photo that was taken yesterday afternoon, and meant to be shared with a message of love and gratitude, now means so much more to us.

Emily was truly a gift to our community. She shined her brightest when serving. Her commitment to the safety of us all, her love of mentoring children, her encouragement, her amazing laugh and goofy humor, her huge giving heart and her friendship will be sorely missed by us all.

Today we find it hard to find the light. Disbelief, anger, sadness. But we know the strength of our community, and have seen it before. When we gather close in love, the hate has no room.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13)

We continue to pray for Emily and Hunter, their family, their friends, and their fellow officers. ❤️

09/04/2023

27/02/2023

Thanks for sharing this Here to the Rescue...last week was a rough one for you and us. It's nice to hear about the ones that go well.

16/01/2023

We have positions open at all three of our hospitals, full time, part time, or even temporary to help with maternity coverage. Check out our website https://animalhospitalofchetek.com/employment-opportunities.pml for details.

21/12/2022

Due to impending weather we plan on closing our Rice Lake and Chetek hospitals at 330 pm. We will open on Thursday at 930 am and then close again at 330 pm on Thursday.

Hopefully we will be open normal hours on Friday, but this will be weather dependent. Saturday we will be closed for Christmas Eve.

21/12/2022

This cat is near somerset resort in chetek. If anyone is missing him/her please let us know...

08/12/2022

Help these guys get the grant

WEEKLY REMINDER TO PLEASE VOTE!!!! 😻😻
💜T💜H💜A💜N💜K💜 💜Y💜O💜U💜

https://mygivingcircle.org/here-to-the-rescue

14/11/2022

Is anyone missing this cat? He was found hiding under a porch. He had a bell collar, a flea collar and he is microchipped, but the chip is not registered to anyone.

He is very friendly. And is currently in a good Samaritans home.

23/07/2022

ALTOONA LOCATION: Join us for an open house Saturday August 13th from 10 am to 1 pm. Tour our new hospital, meet our doctors and staff, enjoy some food and win some prizes. Some of the rescues and shelters we work with will also be present. Including Little Red Barn Dog Rescue and Here to the Rescue feline rescue who will be offering a free microchip clinic for dogs and cats as well.

Healthy Pet Altoona: 1515 Mayer Road, Altoona, Wi Located right next the to the Bohn Shed and Canine Dorms.

19/03/2022

The founder of our hospital. An amazing person.

As we celebrate the groundbreaking women who have made significant contributions to the veterinary profession and helped save the lives of animals and people during , today we remember Dr. René Carlson.

Dr. Carlson served two terms as AVMA vice president (2004-2006) before her election as the third woman to serve as president of the AVMA in 2011. She served as president of the World Veterinary Association from 2014-2017.

30/01/2022

Hi all,
We have some major announcements to make. There will be a lot of information here, so I’ll try to be concise.

1. We are officially changing the name of the hospitals to Healthy Pet Animal Hospitals.
Healthy Pet Chetek (Formerly the Animal Hospital of Chetek)
Healthy Pet Rice Lake (Formerly the Animal Hospital North)
AND…
Healthy Pet Altoona (Formerly not in existence)

2. Healthy Pet Altoona will be open March 1st.
1515 Mayer Road, Altoona. We’re right next to the Bohn Shed and K9Dorms.
715-514-2323 (This phone will not be operational until February 21st)

3. We will Start Scheduling appointments for Altoona the last week of February. We are planning an open house as well, but the date has yet to be determined.

4. If you are a client that has been traveling from the Eau Claire area, and would like to start being seen in Altoona, all you need to do is call to schedule an appointment. We use a cloud-based server, meaning all 3 locations will have your records. Any Healthy Pet Program you signed up for, will be honored at all 3 locations.

5. There has been NO CHANGE in ownership. The name change is to unify the three hospitals. And honestly, no one has ever really liked Animal Hospital North being on the south end of Rice Lake.

6. All Hospitals will be open AND have a doctor on staff (barring illness) 5 days a week. Chetek will remain open every Saturday. Altoona will be open Every other Saturday. Unfortunately, Rice Lake will not have Saturday hours available yet.

7. NEW DOCTORS!!

Dr. Jill Armstrong will be working in both Chetek and Rice Lake starting on February 14th. Dr. Armstrong comes to us after owning the Northwestern Wisconsin Veterinary Services in Amery. She has years of small animal veterinary experience and will be a great fit with us.

Dr. Cori O’Brien will be our primary veterinarian in Altoona Starting March 1st. Dr. O’Brien has spent the last two years working in shelter/rescue medicine. She is excited to get back to working with families and seeing patients grow up. Of Course, she will still get plenty of rescue and shelter work here, as we will still be seeing dogs with Coco’s Heart Dog Rescue, The Little Red Barn Dog Rescue, Here to the Rescue, and Bob’s House for Dogs (just to name a few).

8. We are still hiring for Veterinary Technician and Experienced Veterinary assistants at all three Locations. Full and Part time positions available. 16-20/hr (depending on experience and skill level), 401k, full medical coverage, paid CE, 8 weeks paid maternity (after working 1000 hours), 5 PTO days to start.

That’s about everything. We look forward to seeing all of you soon and thank you all for supporting us.

24/01/2022

We're growing and we're hiring. Both the Animal Hospital of Chetek and the Animal Hospital North are in need of a certified veterinary technician or an experienced veterinary assistant. Technician students who will be graduating soon are welcome to apply. Full and part time positions available. 16-20/hr dependent on experience and skill level. 100% healthcare coverage. 401K. Paid time off. 8 weeks Paid Maternity leave and much more. If interested please send a resume' and cover letter to [email protected] please put "position" in the subject line.

25/11/2021

Hi all,
I need to share some news and changes that we have been forced to make. None of which will make anyone happy.

Dr. Schuster has left our practice for a position out west. She may return in the summer, but for the time being we are down to two doctors.

This means that I will be rotating my Mondays between Rice Lake and Chetek, the hospital I am not at will not have a veterinarian, but will be open to pick up medications and perform nail trims, etc.

To mitigate the lost doctor time, we have shortened our lunch breaks to add a few more appointments during the day. Despite doing this, there is still going to be far more demand for services then we can keep up with.

In the last few months FIVE veterinarians have left or retired from Barron County. Their patients still require care, and we (all remaining veterinarians in the county), are doing what we can to accommodate them. Unfortunately, this means that critical cases are prioritized over minor problems like limping and kennel cough.

I am working tirelessly to bring in new veterinarians, but the task has proved daunting as no one has applied, no matter what benefits have been offered. The feedback I am getting is that no one is willing to be on call.

Because of this I am no longer requiring my veterinarians to be on call. I still will be, but obviously I cannot work 6 days a week, and then be on call every night of the year.

So effective immediately I will be on call from 5:30pm-9:00pm and weekends/Holidays from 8am-9:00pm. There will be times when I simply will not be available (my kid has a birthday party, I have a doctor’s appointment, etc).

Fortunately, the Eau Claire area has an emergency hospital, Allied Emergency Veterinary Services 715-529-5900 (please keep this number on hand). If you need immediate service, this is the number to call.

If you have a less critical question, and can tolerate being on-hold, then call 715-419-6285 to speak with our afterhours triage service.

After 9:00pm the triage service is still available and can help answer some questions, but they will not contact me. If they feel your case is critical, they will recommend you contact Allied Emergency Services in Eau Claire 715-529-5900.

Finally, I once again must stress, abusive language and rude behavior towards my staff will never be tolerated. Yelling, screaming and cursing will not get your pet help any faster, but it will lead to us no longer seeing them.
Kamran Khan, DVM

19/07/2021

Hi all,

I wanted to share some important information with everyone. 12 million people adopted pets during COVID, and the effect is being felt nationwide. In larger cities, even as close as St. Paul, there is up to a 3 month wait on routine surgeries, and up to a 3 hour wait at emergency hospitals.

We too have been overwhelmed with appointments lately, and as such have not been able to get everyone in, even some sick patients in a timely manner. We are trying to figure out some ways to see more patients, but my staff is already overworked, so expanding hours is not an option.

One of things we have implemented in order to make sure we are seeing every patient we can is having new clients pre-pay for their exam. It is not ideal, but new-clients miss a high percentage of appointments. When some one does not show up for an appointment, it means a sick et may have been turned away when we otherwise could have seen them.

We have expanded this prepayment system to emergencies and to clients who have a history of missing appointments. Again, we know this is wildly unpopular, but this is something we have to do because other pets suffer when we do not.

Case in point, someone calls because their dog was hit by a car, they live an hour away, but their normal vet is not answering the phone. We tell them to come right away. While we are waiting another client calls because their dog was hit with porcupine quills. We tell the porcupine quilled dog that they have to go to Eau Claire, thus upsetting the client, and the pet has to suffer a little longer. The hit by a car dog never shows up, we call them and they tell us their vet called them back, so they went there...but it's too late for us to help the quilled dog. Situation like this occur almost daily. Which is why we have to have people prepay, when appointments are missed, we are not worried about our finances, we are upset because we were forced to turn away a pet we could have otherwise helped.

I realize the lack of availability has angered some people, but you are not helping your pet by becoming angry with our staff...I already went through that in a previous post, so I will not go into details on new hurtful messages.

Finally on emergencies, we are still seeing emergencies, but our on-hold times are now up to 30 minutes. There is no feasible way around this, especially on weekends. Many surrounding hospitals have dropped their after-hours call. Which means our emergency lines are going off non-stop (calls are coming from as far away as Baldwin, and Hayward). We're trying to help as many people as we can, but leaving angry voicemails about on-hold times (yes we get a few of these) will only result in us also dropping afterhours emergency services.

99% of our clients have been very understanding of the new situation we find ourselves in. And we are very thankful and grateful to have such a wonderful client base. In a few years there will be more veterinarians, and a lot of these problems will be corrected, for now, we will continue to do our best to help as many pets as we can.

Kamran Khan, DVM

18/03/2021

Today I want to share a message, a story, and a link. The message is simple, please be kind and please be patient with my staff, and any other veterinary staff you may interact with. All veterinarians are busy, we try and accommodate everyone, but that is simply not always possible. Cursing out our staff will never make the situation better.

Today at the North location, we had rough afternoon. After telling one person her beloved dog had an aggressive cancer, I had to walk into the next room and perform a euthanasia on an 11 month old kitten. These appointments both took longer than planned (because it is frankly impossible to plan on how any individual will react to these situations).

Because of this one family with a puppy, which we were all very much looking forward to seeing, had to wait about 20 minute past their scheduled appointment. They called and asked what the delay was, I had just left the euthanasia and was allowing the family to mourn, and I personally answered their call and explained to them a pet just lost its life and that there would be a longer delay, or we could reschedule. The family was not happy, but said they would reschedule. They called back about 5 minutes later and cursed out the assistant that had just helped me diagnose cancer in one pet, and euthanize a kitten...As if we can control when life or death situations occur. They cursed her out despite knowing that a kitten had just died.

This kind of behavior will never be tolerated. The family was fired and are no longer welcome at our hospitals, but I share this story (without posting names), not to shame the family, but to drive home some very important points.

1. We do not get to chose when emergencies happen, they just happen, and when your pet needs extra attention, your pet will receive extra attention.
2. If you are upset with us, take it out on me or better yet, vote with your wallet and simply have your records transferred, cursing at us and belittling us will never make your or your pets situation better.

Finally, I wanted to share a link to a story about the high rate of su***de in the veterinary industry. That su***de rate is high because of days like today, and incidents like the one mentioned above. No one needs to worry about me, I'm about as self confident a person as you will ever meet, but please be kind to my staff, and every other veterinarian/vet tech/ vet assistant or receptionist you encounter.

-Kamran Khan, DVM
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/07/757822004/veterinarians-are-killing-themselves-an-online-group-is-there-to-listen-and-help

Veterinarians have su***de rates of more than double that of the general population. One group is building an online community to give advice and help out when stress adds up.

29/01/2021

Moppit and Judge have been found and are safe at home. Thank you to everyone who helped facilitate that.

29/01/2021

Moppit and Judge went missing in Chetek near the sunset view golf course in Chetek. If anyone has seen either or these two dogs please contact us immediately.

25/12/2020

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

24/12/2020

CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

23/12/2020

CHRISTMAS CHARLIE!!!

CHRISTMAS CHARLIE!!!

22/12/2020

CHRISTMAS!!!

CHRISTMAS!!!

21/12/2020

CHRISTMAS!

CHRISTMAS!

19/12/2020

CHRISTMAS 6 DAYS

CHRISTMAS 6 DAYS

02/12/2020

The Salvation Army of Barron County

Thank you Animal Hospital of Chetek for sponsoring our Virtual Kettle Today! Your sponsorship helps us help others in Barron County. If you would like to donate to our Virtual Kettle today, you can do so at: http://bit.ly/BarronRedKettle

08/11/2020

Sign Up

Hi all, in an effort to make ordering your pets food easier, we have started using Purina Vet Direct. Over the counter and Prescription diets are delivered directly to your door. We will still stock diets, but this is one more way to make sure your pets never run out of the food they need.

If interested, just follow the link below. Use promo code TAKE30 to receive up to 20 dollars off your first auto ship.

https://www.proplanvetdirect.com/customer/account/create/?to=clinic&clinic-id=K0LNC

The home delivery program recommended by your Veterinarian. Free Shipping, 30% off auto shipments, To get started creating your account enter your clinic ID provided by your clinic.

05/10/2020

Hi all, we recently purchased a new shed from Menards, but are far too busy with patients to put it together. We are looking for a handyperson to install a base and assemble the shed. Please send a message if this is a job you are interested in.

29/09/2020

Due to an unprecedented amount of afterhours calls (including some belligerent calls) we have had to make some changes to our Afterhours emergency service. While our Doctors are still available to see your pets, the calls will now be answered by a team of veterinary technicians we have contracted with. The technicians will guide you through our emergency policies and help you determine if your pet needs to be seen. Your call may then be forwarded to the on-call veterinarian if needed. The cost of this service is substantial, to help cover this cost, our non-client emergency fees will be increasing, our established clients will not see an increase in cost. This service will start Tuesday September 29th at 5:30pm, we hope it goes smoothly, but please be patient as we find the best balance for your pets and our staff.

22/09/2020

Little Red Barn Dog Rescue

We've had a few people reach out for a copy of our Wish List, so we thought it may be easier to share on Facebook 🥰
Thank you EVERYONE for all of your continued support, it means the world to us and our residents! 🥰❤️🐾