The Frederick Banfield is basically the local branch of the National Banfield Corporation, which has Veterinary clinics all over the country. It's basically the Wall-Mart of Animal Hospitals and that shows in the way that they treat the animals there. I have shown dogs for several years, worked at a couple of different private practice animal hospitals, and I've never seen such terrible Veterinary care. I took my dogs to Banfield about 4 times before looking elsewhere for a Vet. The first couple of times were for routine puppy vaccinations and exams. Both of those times when we arrived for our appointments we had to wait about 30 minutes before being taken to the exam rooms, and then once in the exam rooms we had to wait another 40 or so minutes to see the Vet. The Vets (we saw 2 different ones during our time there) spent less then 5 minutes actually examining our puppies, and then they gave them the vaccinations and that was it. It was not by any means a thorough examination. The exam rooms were also consistently dirty with pet hair all over the place and I don't think that they sprayed down the exam tables with disinfectant between patients, which is standard practice at other Vets I've been to. The final straw for us was when we brought one of our dogs in after she had eaten a rawhide bone. She was vomiting and not passing her bowels and we were concerned there was a blockage. Our dog also was getting an ear infection and we wanted to get some antibiotic for her as we had been cleaning her ears daily without success. When we arrived at the Vet, after the usual 45 minutes plus of waiting time, the Vet walked in the room asked us what the problem was. We explained the symptoms and she immediately turned to her computer monitor and spent 15 minutes punching on the keys and mumbling to herself. My husband and I were looking at each other in confusion, surprised by her odd behavior. Finally she turned to us, angled her monitor so we could see it, and said "That'll be $940.00 for the x-rays, sedation for the x-rays, some medication to calm her stomach and for the ear exam and the ear antibiotics". We were stunned. Having worked at an animal hospital I know it's NOT standard to sedate a dog for xrays unless the dog is very aggressive or has a broken bone etc, which I told the Vet. I also thought it was ridiculous that she wanted to charge us $100 for an ear exam when any vet would have normally just taken a look at the dogs ears for free. I said to her "Can you at least LOOK at our dog first and see if you even think she has a blockage?". The Vet looked kind of embarrassed and FINALLY examined our dog. Upon feeling her abdomen she said that she could not feel any kind of blockage, so most likely our dog just had an irritated stomach due to the rawhide. In that case the best thing is to put her on a sensitive stomach food like ID and watch her for 24 hours and see if she can pass a bowl movement. However if we had listened to the Vet we would have spent $900+ dollars just to find out there was no serious problem and to get some $40 antibiotic ear ointment! RIDICULOUS. I have a friend who is a Veterinary Technician who used to work at Banfield and she told me that they are all about the money there and squeezing as much out of clients in diagnostic fees and tests and medications etc that aren't always necessary. But it makes them more money. I was so angry that the Vet didn't even bother to look at our dog before telling us about all the charges, it's clear what their priority is there. We ended up leaving Banfield after 2 hours (most of it waiting) without having anything done. We fed our dog ID and she had a bowel movement the next morning. I ordered her some enzymatic ear cleaner for dogs from Amazon and $25.00 and a week later her ears were looking great.