Banfield Pet Hospital

I had been going to the Banfield 5 minutes away from my home until I was referred to Dr. May at this Vista office because the Marron Road vets were too afraid to clean the teeth of my cat with a heart murmur and my cat with FELV… Dr. May is very compassionate and competent. I have no problem driving the extra 15 – 20 minutes in 78 traffic! I unfortunately have had to euthanize one cat and yet again Dr. May showed his compassion. Affie, one of the techs, is awesome as well! Thank you Banfield for all you do!

I love the staff at this location! I have taken my doggie there numerous times for everything from a check up to urgent care and I’ve always received the best service! Everyone there truly cares for the pets that are brought in and I trust them completely to take care of my furkid.

All doctors here are wonderful. The support staff is always friendly and courteous as well. We recently lost our Golden Retriever to old age at almost 14 years old. He was about 9 in this photo. In his later years, he had issues that this team always helped us with. When we choose another dog to add to our family soon, we will definitely be bringing him/​her to this team. Thanks guys
Kana Tobin

Dr. Daniela was the reason we got our puppy wellness plan and why im giving 3 stars .she was amazing.sweet.and didn’t try to push you to buy things or get things. Turns out she is only a sub :(. We went back and the regular doctor… who didn’t even introduce herself until halfway through it was rude. A tall Asian lady. I wanted to wait to get my dog any heartworm medicine… to do research. and she said «if you’re gonna be concerned with it then you should be concerned about it (heartworm) now. :O.oh and with not the nicest look on her face. some of the nurses are really nice but there was a new girl there that said she saw my PUPPY try to lick her pee and made a face and said it was gross. we will be trying to make our appointments with Dr Daniela since the other banfield she goes too is nearby (escondido?)

Sweet team of veterinarians. My dog is actually quite excited to walk in and see his vet. They love him and treat him like they’re glad to see us each and every time. Thank you!

I am forever grateful to this location of banfield and their wonderful team. Thank you for saving Chewoki, and helping to keep me informed of her recovery. Had it not been for your team I would’ve lost my best friend and fur child. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Chewoki I’m sure is grateful she is back to her spunky self and I am following the vets advise to watch her for the next 24 hours and administer her medicine. ¹⁰⁄₁₀ would recommend this location.

It appears my review from January 2014 was deleted? I’ll be taking my dog to the vet this week because she continues to limp on the knee the vet at Banfield «dislocated.» Thanks, Banfield.
My post from January 2014:
I took my small dog in to obtain a health certificate so we could fly to another state. There are several reasons why I will never return to this place:
This is the biggest reason: before visiting the clinic, my beagle was healthy. We were only there for the health certificate which also included a routine rabies shot. Upon consultation with the vet, she started to feel my dogs knees. She pointed out that I needed to be careful with dogs of this kind because they can develop arthritis early. She then proceeded to «pop out» and «pop in» my dog’s kneecaps to show me an example of how fragile they are. First, are you kidding me?! Two days after the appointment, my dog is having trouble walking, because of the same knee. I called today to 1) inform them of the issue, and 2) to let them know I wasn’t happy. The receptionist said the vet would call me back that same day. Still haven’t heard a word after 7 hours.
In addition, we arrived at 8:50am for our 9:00am appointment. The appointment was never put on the books. We waited until 9:40am to see a vet. We were out if there by 10:45 – but it wasn’t without experiencing miscommunication between the nurse and doctor about my dog’s needs.
I also thought they were a little pushy on vaccines and other services needed for my dog. I want what’s best for my dog – but I became a little suspicious that they were in it to add every little charge to our bill.
Not impressed – and pretty mad about my dog’s current condition.

Absolutely love this place. When we got our puppy i took him the three different vets for different things but i refuse to go anywhere else after going here. I have seen both doctors and think it is wonderful to see either. Our poor pup had 5 different things wrong with him so this ended up being quit a trip. The staff and doctors though made everything stress free and simple for me to understand. They are the only ones I have seen who put my pet first a profit last. They were not worried about scamming us out of any money and taking advantage of us in the poor situation we were in. They explained every test and procedure option and the reality behind doing everyone. They left the options up to us with what we felt was best. Love love love this place and they have us for life.

Worst place ever to take your pet. The vet, Dr. Saul Morin, took a look at our dog and judged it like that. They charge for every little thing. I could’ve take him to my dead grandmother and gotten better/​accurate results.

Have taken my dog here since she was a puppy and am satisfied with the service provided. My boxer has allergies and we frequently have to treat her secondary reactions. Dr. Donnelly does his best to help keep my out of pocket expenses manageable since we have already spent a fortune on allergy shots that were not effective for my pet.
Personnel turnover does seem to be an issue but overall it hasn’t affected my pets treatment.

Wish I could leave no stars. Honestly, do not take your pet here the service is atrocious. I was a customer for 7 years under the wellness plan, since my dog was a puppy and I signed up my other dog as a puppy one year later. The past 2 – 3 years the cost for my monthly plans has been going up every year for service that has just gotten worse and worse! My dogs used to get excited to go to this place, but the past year or so they have been terrified and shake and cry when they realize where I am taking them. No surprise since they have you drop your dog off early in the morning and they don’t have you pick them up til about closing time, they don’t even allow the dogs food or water all day and do not walk them for liability purposes, what a joke! I liked the security of being able to take my pet in for a free visit whenever a problem arose, but the service here is just completely unprofessional and they couldn’t care less about your pet, they are all about the money. I had to take my dogs to another vet (and pay them when I pay Banfield every month) for them to tell me that my dogs had enamel loss and some loose teeth that will now have to be completely removed. This could have been prevented by Banfield doing their job during the comprehensive exam. I specifically asked them to come up with an estimate for dental work based on the condition of the teeth, and they told me that they needed a cleaning, but not to worry about doing it immediately because they «had seen worse» cases and the dog’s teeth were not in bad shape. Turns out BOTH of my dogs have loose teeth and gum loss, which means that those loose teeth will have to be pulled, my dogs will now be missing teeth. This was the last straw for me, as it will now cost me over a thousand dollars at a different vet for me to fix these teeth issues, and some of my dog’s teeth will not be saved. As soon as I found out about the loose teeth, I called Banfield (on a Tuesday) to make an appointment to see what they would say about the teeth but was told I couldn’t be seen until Friday evening near closing. I felt that this was somewhat of an emergency as my dogs now have to lose teeth and are probably in pain. I immediately called the corporate line and opted not to renew my plan which thankfully was up for renewal this month. I was told that I could bring in my girl dog until the 7^th (today) for coverage under her plan and that my male had one more payment coming out this month and would have another month of coverage. I arrived with my girl this morning and waited for half an hour after my appointment time came and went while the one girl Jocelyn, whose neck was covered in hickeys (how unprofessional) helped other customers when I was finally informed that my girl’s plan coverage had expired the day before. They also told me that even though I had another payment coming out this month for my male, I would not receive another month of coverage for his plan. Why would they charge me another month when he wouldn’t be getting any coverage??? Why wasn’t I told her plan wouldn’t be valid the day before when I made the appointment? The response was that they should have told me and it was their mistake, but my dog could not be seen anymore (under the plan coverage) and this was after I had been told on the phone by corporate that this was the last day she was covered and it was okay to take her in. I asked to speak with the manager, who made us wait another 15 minutes or so before she (Tierre?) came out with a horrible attitude, was completely unapologetic that I had been misinformed and was quickly trying to prove me wrong about every issue I had. I told her that I wasn’t interested in my dog getting care anymore, that I just wanted her to know how horrible the service had been so she didn’t need to waste her time trying to prove me wrong. I also discovered that some of the benefits that my plans covered had not even been utilized during the exams I dropped my dogs off for the whole day to get, and she wanted to argue about this when I had already read the reports on the work that had been done. The blood work and some other benefits were not getting done, and now after all these years of paying for these plans I won’t get those benefits. I wouldn’t even want to take my dogs back there, the people are not caring towards your pets and are ridiculously unprofessional. I did get them to remove the last month’s payment for one dog, as I will not be receiving any services, but this was a verbal promise, and I won’t be surprised if that payment comes out anyways. I have other complaints that I was willing to overlook, but overall this place is just a scam. I will never come here again.

I have taken my dog here for about five years. Dr. Donnelly is great! I haven’t had any problems and take my dog in every month for an allergy shot. It just seems they have alot of turnover in staff.

honestly, these people were really rude. i have nothing against Petsmart but this hospital staff is rude and really unorganized. the nurse that attended me dropped the needle that was in my dog 4 TIMES! my dog was injected 3 times more than necessary because the stupid nurse was a klutz. i was holding on to my dog very firmly and my dog was not even moving yet the nurse still managed to drop the needle. honestly she shouldn’t be qualified to be a vet’s nurse.

I’m not quite sure what to think about Banfield. I went here based on a referral from my old boss. My dog (a 10 lb shih tzu) had a large boil thing on his inner thigh which we think he got from staying with the in-​laws at their ranch home (think: foxtails). We went to another Vet (Shadowridge Vet Hospital) who wouldn’t touch him because they didn’t have his vaccinations on record, but basically wanted to put him under, lance the boil, and charge us $ 400 for it. My husband took him to that appointment and didn’t like the hospital (too many barking unhappy dogs) so he spent $ 80 and got antibiotis. We tried them out for a week and they worked at first but the boil came back. This is when we came to get a second opinion at Banfield.
It was nice to have a «first visit free» coupon, so that that saved us $ 46. The vet didn’t know exactly what was wrong but wanted to essentially do the same thing the other vet wanted, for ~$ 400 as well. As another option, she said we could have her do a fine needle aspiration to try and suck out as much fluid as possible and then she could look at it under the scope. $ 130 later, we walked away with antibiotics (which turned out to be the same ones that we got from the previous vet) and ear wash. We let her keep our dog for a couple of hours to do the aspiration and came back for him. It looked like she aspirated a small amount because the boil was no smaller, even though she said she would try to take out most of it. She then told us that after looking at smears of the fluid under the scope, she couldn’t tell for sure if there was an infection, and that she wanted to send it out to a histologist to rule out cancer (she said she saw «suspicious» cells). The dog doesn’t have cancer, but I gave in and spent the extra $ 55 (I should’ve taken the smears to work and had the pathologists look at them there).
A few days later, I get a call back from her saying it’s not cancer (duh) and the next step is to do a foreign body probe to remove whatever’s in there; the quote was for $ 349. They also wanted to do a recheck (aka $ 33). I declined the recheck, and instead brought him in a week later for the foreign body probe. This time, the quote was for $ 400-​$ 500. I asked the Vet tech to ask the Vet why it was $ 50 to $ 150 more than last week, and she said she would put it in the notes. (Also, she said she needed to «berbally» say it out loud so she would remember to add it to the notes. I said, «what?» and she again used the word berbally. It’s supposed to be verbally… but that’s a different story). At the end of the day, I picked up my dog and the price went back down to $ 371 (not including antibiotcs… but including: an antibiotic shot (good for about 24 – 48 hrs), a pain injection, foreign body probe, flush, anesthesia, and other miscellaneous charges.) There was a foxtail in him. They said they needed to send out the fluid they collected for more culturing to determine the correct antibiotics to use. A week later the wound has almost completely healed and looks great; I get a call; he has three different types of bacteria growing (staph, enterobacter, and something else) which the male doctor said were pretty resistant, so they needed to give him a special antibiotic. The pills they have in stock were for larger sized dogs, so they needed to cut the pills into fours. For four pills it was $ 50.
In the end, we’ve spent well over $ 700 on this foxtail infection. Oh, and you guessed it, they want to do another recheck in a week.
It’s always hard for me to tell if Vets are in the business of helping animals or making money… and after visiting Banfield, it’s still unclear.
If you do decide to visit Banfield, request Dr. Donnelly; while I didn’t get to see him and see how he treated animals, he’s definitely more personable and has better speaking skills… it’s not awkward to speak with him. And look for that «first visit free» coupon too.

I had the worst vet experience here ever! My little dog was having some pain in her back legs and I took her here cause that’s where she got all her puppy shots. The Dr wanted to keep her there all day, put her under so she could DIS-​LOCATE her legs and do the x-​ray. Are you f*ing kidding me??? Oh and the bill? $ 700. I said no thanks and went to another vet that did the x-​ray with her legs in their proper place. Now she’s fine and she never had to under-​go such a painful procedure. The Dr was completely heartless and just wanted to make money. I will NEVER go here again.

If I could give zero starts I would.
They charged me about $ 1500 for services and medications for my dog, come to find out after getting 3 different opinions, there was absolutely nothing wrong with my dog. They deny any wrong doing, so I tried to file a claim with their corporate office, and they are just as unhelpful, after 4 months of calls, no one called me back.
Don’t buy a wellness plan, don’t take your pets here– go elsewhere– they are a factory just in it to make money and nothing else.

Banfield is okay, but they over vaccinate. While some vaccines are necessary, over vaccinating can be dangerous to your pet. The vaccinate for diseases that are not known of in this area and they also tell you the vaccines are needed more frequently than they actually are.

I called on Thursday noon to make an appointment for my dog to have her teeth cleaned and an exam for my other dog. I arrive at the scheduled appt time and there is not record of my apt. They will see me as a walk-​in if I wait! I don’t think so! If this is any sign of the care they provide, watch out!

We started taking our Baby’s to Pet Smart Vets years ago in Encinitas. Then they changed their name to Banfield it is the best place to take you Pets. We have been going to Banfield in Vista for 12 years now. The pet nurses and Doctors go over everything with you, and treat your pets as if it was their own pet Doctor Notts is very caring and spends time with you. She just makes you feel you got the best care ever. And there is more than one Doctor there and lots of Pet nurses too My favorite Pet Nurse would be Kate Doss she has married now just don’t know her married name she has Dogs too… And loves them just like we love our Dogs And banfield Vista is just the best place ever! I would not go any where else THEY HAVE DOGGIE INSURANCE AND KITTY TOO.