I took my 11 year old cat to Dr. Holmgren to find out why her appetite was reduced. He anesthetized her, took a blood test, and after persuading me, cleaned her teeth -- he said, since we're going to put her under anyway, you may as well. When I went to pick her up, she wasn't entirely lucid and couldn't walk straight. Dr. Holmgren reassured me that this was just an effect of the anesthetic and it would wear off. The next day I called him and he gave me bad news about end stage chronic renal failure. That's acceptable, but before I went to see him, my cat was otherwise normal if not eating much, and since then, she had not recovered and was getting worse. A day later I took her to an emergency vet, and got a diagnosis of acute renal failure. It would seem that if Dr. Holmgren were more careful with his procedure, my cat would have had a much gentler decay, maybe a few more months. At the very least, with 38 years of practice, he should have had judgement not to release her in an unstable condition. His service wasn't cheap either, let me say.

Doc Holmgren is more than simply a mobile veterinarian: he is definitely from The Old School. Having become fully disabled early in life, I naturally need a doc who can get to my house if needed. More importantly, because I've never had a chance to build up a nest-egg of any kind, I need a doc who is able (and willing) to think outside the box (that profit box). True, it's what keeps a clinic alive and in existence. However, when compared to the amount of time spent physically with my cats, this doctor has spent much more time on the phone with me helping me to realize that I "probably don't need a veteranarian's services at this point: just hold off for a couple of days." (How many times have I heard him say that!) Almost everybody else has a receptionist buffering the calls, parroting out the phrases, "You need to bring the kitty in for examination" or worse, "We cannot conduct examinations over the phone." Finally, he had the insight to realize it would be best to protect me from the knowledge of my beloved Blue Steel's immanent demise. In retrospect, he turned out to have been right on this one. Others would have taken it in stride, but I could easily have gone off the deep end and jeopardized my family finances for this particular cat. Only a doc who cares as much about the humans involved as he does about his animal patients could pull off the wonderful style of service we've experienced both in his office and at home.