Choosing a vet
Finding a vet who is experienced in treating small furries can be difficult. Most vets see cats, dogs, rabbits and the like every day but relatively few of the smaller pets like hamsters and gerbils and often even fewer mice! This doesn’t mean however that taking your mouse to the vet is a waste of time, far from it, just that it might not be a simple as popping along to your nearest surgery or to the one you visit with your other pets.
So how do you choose a vet when you have a poorly mouse? Well word of mouth or personal recommendation is a good way (you can read reviews on vets used by members of the forum in the product reviews section) but assuming none of the recommended vets are anywhere near you then what? In this case I think a good place to start is to find out which vets in your area are RCVS accredited as a small animal general practice. The RCVS is the Royal college of Veterinary Surgeons and you can read more about them here. To be accredited by the RCVS a practice must meet the criteria and standards appropriate for its type as explained in detail in this article. To find a small animal friendly vet in your area see the UK Vets page in the useful links section of the site.
Even having done this you may still need to phone and/or attend several different practices to find one you are happy with. So what should we be looking out for? Well experience is the ideal but as explained above vets with experience of treating mice can be few and far between so I wouldn’t rule them out based just on this. If the surgery sees hamsters, gerbils and rats for example they will at least be used to treating small furries even if they haven’t treated mice. Perhaps more important then is the staffs general attitude towards your mice, personally if my pets didn’t get treated with the same respect, concern and care as a dog or cat would get then I wouldn’t be likely to use them again and if they didn’t seem confident handling them it would probably put me off too. Also a vet who is happy to listen to suggestions, answer questions etc is pretty critical to my mind as quite often you will be going already with some idea of the problem and maybe even the treatment required. Overall though if you don’t feel that the vet had your mouses best interests at heart then it is probably best to try somewhere else!
Further Reading:
Choosing a Veterinary Practice from the Royal College of Veterinary surgeons website
Choosing A Vet from the Fancy-rats website
