I've been taking my dogs/cats to Four Paws since 2007, and have always been very happy with the excellent care we've received. When my 15 year old husky mix was ready for greener pastures after suffering from a heart tumor, Patti went abopve and beyond when she cancelled her weekend plans and came to the house and put her to sleep.. Saersha was comfortable, unafraid, and was surrounded by love when she left us. It was a very peaceful, beautiful experience, and a gift that I will always carry with me.Veterinary medicine is, in my opinion, a much more difficult practice than human medicine. Vets have to navigate the complexities of both animal and human behaviors on a daily basis, and that is certainly no easy task. Four Paws is a busy place and maybe people feel slighted because Patti has to zip around from patient to patient, but she is by far the most compassionate, thoughtful, holistic vet I've ever worked with in the 30 plus years I've sought veterinary care. .

I own a pet care company in Missoula. I have worked with Patti Prato and her staff for more than a decade and have nothing but the utmost respect for Dr. Prato's professional knowledge and compassion for her clients and their pets. Dr. Prato has an excellent reputation in Missoula for her veterinary practice and volunteering her time to many noble causes. Her giving nature and admirable work ethic are commendable, and her staff is courteous, compassionate, and knowledgeable. Injury and illness among my own pets is never something I plan on, but even when I call Four Paws at the last minute they do their very best to rearrange their schedule, and I appreciate them very much!

I can't understand anyone saying that Patti, or anyone else at this clinic, is not compassionate. We have a very strange, special needs little pit bull and they have always treated her with nothing but kindness. Up until this summer I took all of our cats to a vet in town who strictly handled cats. One of my cats was very old and had lost all of her teeth. She lost so much weight that she was literally a skeleton and was unable to make it to the litterbox. After a lot of soul searching and tears I took her to the vet to have her put to sleep. The vet refused to do it and instead wanted me to bring this little skeleton to their office to have weekly shots, even after I told her the cat was unable to eat unless I spoon fed her one bite of wet cat food every few hours. I called Patti and told her she situation and she examined the cat and honored my wishes. Now all of our animals go to their office. As far as this vet being about money, that is ridiculous. My previous vet would never do anything for us without an expensive vet visit. This office is willing to prescribe antibiotics for sick old cats without asking me to drag them in for an exam, as long as it's something straight forward. They also, unlike my previous vet, do not recommend constant dentals for animals because they believe them to be hard on the animals. I am CERTAINLY not rich and have never been treated poorly. I would highly recommend this office to anyone.

About a month ago, my daughter Kristin K, wrote a review on Dr. Patti Prato that was totally uncalled for. She was not even in the state of Montana at the time. And she listened to some woman who has a ton of animals in Washington state and thinks she is knowledgeable about veterinary practices. My husband, my son, and I were here from the moment our 14 year old cat suffered a seizure in mid December to when he started throwing blood clots in early January. We had to take him to an emergency clinic on a Saturday because Dr. Prato was not available. NOT her fault. The emergency clinic vet was the one who recommended all the high price procedures for the blood clotting but only recommended it AFTER we had seen our normal vet. Which we did the following week. It was a very rare occasion that Dr. Prato had a substitute vet standing in for her while she took a much needed vacation (according to her staff she NEVER takes vacation because she loves her patients too much). The vet standing in was fabulous also, as was and always is Dr. Prato's staff. Unfortunately, our cat did not improve and my husband and I NOT Dr. Prato made the decision to euthanize him. I apologize profusely for my daughter's review. It is absolutely NOT true. Dr. Prato and her staff are excellent and I will take any and all my four legged family members to her and I will and have recommended her to my friends.

We have 4 dogs, 2 rabbits, 2 reptiles, and 2 fish. We have taken all our dogs to this vet and we are extremely disappointed! They are a well known, and well reviewed vet in general, and are very classy, which seems to cause them to look down on the lower income folks. We always payed all of our bills with no trouble, but they always had a very snobby attitude about it just because we weren't "rich folks" like most of their clients. They were also breed biased against our rottweiler. They wouldn't touch him, or help us when we inquired about his weight problem. When we had them clip his nails, the lady barley picked up his feet and had a disgusted look on her face the whole time, and wouldn't show him any kindness or re-assurance. He is a extremely loving dog and wanted her to at least pet him but she wouldn't touch him! It saddened me very much! He is an older dog, quite big, and has bad hip problems and a increasing weight problem. When we would ask about medication, or treatment to help his pain, they would shrug it off, and never had an answer. We were willing to pay whatever needed in order to care for our babies but we never ever got hep or answers from the staff. Also my little dog is going blind in one eye, and on woman was actually nice and good with him, but claimed that she couldn't do anything and it was self inflicted injury?? I am overall very upset and have since changed vets. I am not sure if its the staffs lack of knowledge, or that they aren't happy with their job, but I think its best they dont take it out on their clients pets!