Austin Veterinary Emergency & Specialty is running a scam and victimizing families in Austin by not properly caring for people's furry family members, and in some cases even going so far as making sure the animal has to be euthanized, forcing families into paying thousands of dollars at this facility and losing their best friend. 

Here's how the scam works:

1. You bring your pet into the facility and after checking in your pet is taken away from you and taken behind closed doors were you’re not allowed to access him/her. The front desk lady tells you “Either get comfortable or you can go home and we’ll call you, the wait could be up to 12 or more hours for your pet to be examined by the doctor.” 
2. After calling to get medical history, the doctor then presents the patient to the owner (or “diagnoses”) as having a life threating injury/ailment, requiring immediate surgery/treatment, costing ridiculous amounts of money. 
3. If owner of pet voices any concerns about the price, the doctor or other staff member tells them if they can't afford thousands of dollars on a procedure then they should surrender their beloved pet to the pound, where the animal will not be readopted out with its original family- gas lighting the pet’s owner as feeling as if they aren't already doing everything, they can help their pet, to the best of their ability! 
4. Next the staff backs you into a corner, making you feel like you have no other option other than to pay their ridiculous fees and high rates, otherwise your best friend will die, otherwise they will make sure your pet dies, so that:  
    a) can't be exposed for completely misdiagnosing your pet and taking their ailment ad symptoms to the extreme, in some situations before running any tests at all and  
   b)  you can't and don’t spend your money anywhere else! 

Here are a few other factors that prove this statement:

• The things the staff says to people concerning their patients are exactly the same, to the point of sounding scripted and rehearsed! 
• The entire time your pet is there they do not care about your pet, if they are actually okay, or your emotions or concerns! The only thing the care about is you signing papers and paying them more money!
•  They suggest euthanasia at inappropriate times, before they have even given the patient any sort of treatment! In my specific case, it was suggested as soon as I mentioned moving my pet to a more affordable facility! 
• All of their good reviews appear to be scripted and fake. 
• They have nearly 50 one-star reviews in the past year-on Google, alone- expressing serious concerns and urging others to not ever take their pet to this facility!

These cold-hearted people only care that they are not found out and that they get every last penny can out of you, and- oh, that you sign form after form assuring your payment to them! they are very overpriced, do not show any compassion or concern for pets or their loving owners in any way shape or form. 

My first experience at this facility, I brought my dog in because he wasn’t eating and felt like he had a knot in his stomach. Upon coming in, they told me he needed X-rays but would for sure need a surgery, costing thousands of dollars. After I told them I was unable to afford such a procedure they told me I should surrender my dog to the pound, and it was likely that he would not be readopted out to me. They made me feel like a terrible pet owner. I left and called other doctors and facilities, which thought it was odd that they had suggested doing a surgery without even seeing or doing any x-rays on the animal. They also said it was unlikely that a 4 year old dog ate a random object and it was more likely colic than it was to be a bowel obstruction from the dog eating a foreign object. After lots of walks, tummy massages, and prenatal drops with probiotics for the digestive tract, Outlaw was fine and regained all his weight back and seemed healthy. 

I lost my best friend who helped my battle depression amongst other day-to-day struggles, all because these doctors refused to give him treatment, and once they finally did- it was too late! They made sure he wasn't leaving their facility so no other doctors could say they misdiagnosed him and forced me to euthanize my dog by not giving him any sort of treatment until it was too late. Here is the review I left regarding my second experience at this facility:

EXCUSE ME for writing a novel of a review, but I feel that anyone considering taking their pet to this facility should read my entire experience with them and I strongly urge you to reconsider coming here at all and highly suggest look for ANYWHERE else to take your pet.If you are looking to go to this vet for ANY reason, I would highly suggest finding another place to go to, even if it means driving out of town. I have never been treated with such complete disrespect or disregard for human or animal life and have never (until this experience) witnessed people working with animals with absolutely no compassion - as I have in this office.
My first visit to this office was absolutely awful. My 4 year old dog came in with a “bowel obstruction”. I am 25 years old and don’t have thousands of dollars sitting in a bank account for emergencies. They made me feel so guilty for not being able to afford to pay $2,000+ for a surgery. They told me if my dog didn’t have surgery within 24 hours he would be dead and told me I should “surrender him to the pound”. I took him home and made some phone calls and another doctor told me that a 4 year old dog seems unlikely to have ate a foreign object and said that cutting into him should NOT be the first course of action taken. I gave the dog baby probiotic drops for their digestive track and took him on lots of walks and massaged his tummy and he ended up passing whateve pr it was making his tummy hurt.
Fast forward to last night. First of all- after diagnosing my dog with distemper, over the phone the multiple workers that I spoke with all tried to back me into a corner,saying I either had to pay $2-4 thousand dollars or the dog dies, to which I responded “so it’s either pay $2000 or suck a dick right?” Which they didn’t like so they were going to make me come pick up the dog as soon as the rain let up, considering I was paying by check and I couldn’t give it to them immediately and they were considering it a “risk” having my dog at their facility. They refused to give my dog any actual treatment for HOURS because I was physically unable to bring them a check because it was raining too hard. After convincing them to give him treatment for hours they finally agreed to take my word that I would pay them and bring them the check I was paying with as soon as I could get there. They ended up calling me shortly after saying my dog was dying and needed to be put down (which they had been talking about putting him down from the beginning when I spoke about wanting to change his care to somewhere cheaper). Before I came up there I told them I was bringing two people with me mmmmmm me, which they told me would be fine. As soon as I get there they come out with a clip board to sign off on him being put down, I asked to see my dog multiple times before signing the paper before I was let back to see my dog. Once back there they immediately begin asking me if “I have any medical problems?” Or if I “have any mental issues?” Or am “taking any medicine?” All to which I responded no. I closed my eyes and laid in the floor next to my dog to say my goodbyes, crying. Shortly after they asked me the same questions again and asking if I was “sure I didn’t have any medical issues?” Alto which I responded NO! Soon after, the fire department comes in and begins asking me questions to make sure I’m coherent!!! The fire department then tells the vets office that I’m perfectly coherent and there’s nothing wrong with me and that I’m clearly just upset about my dog! (Which if that wasn’t more than obvious to them, then they clearly have no compassion for others-what so ever!) they told the fire department that I had fallen asleep and they weren’t able to wake me up, which was complete lie, I was never asleep not once and they never made an effort to wake me up, but regardless of if I did or didn’t, I had dropped my dog off at 8pm and had been answering their calls all night long, well up into the early morning! I have 3 other dogs at my home and had been sanitizing all night long because what my dog I had dropped off with them had was contagious. Clearly- I am physically and emotionally drained from staying up all night long cleaning up and obviously upset because my dog is dying! It was totally inappropriate to call the fire department to come up for no reason when I was clearly fine l and they just did all of that to distract from the fact that they waited until it was too late to give me dog any treatment. DO NOT TAKE YOUR PET HERE ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS YOU SIGNING PAPERWORK AND MONEY! THEY DONT CARE ABOUT ANIMALS AND THE DONT HAVE ANY BASIC HUMAN COMPASSION WHAT SO EVER!!

This facility and the others run by the same group, need to be shut down as soon as possible! Our family members should not be used as a pawn for them to wring people's pockets dry, especially when a lot of the deaths could have been prevented had the pet been properly diagnosed or cared for.