I just had an odd experience that I was not too happy about, but I'm not sure if I should be upset or not.

Years ago I used a larger vet clinic in the area as a primary veterinarian. The founding vet had a great reputation, and the clinic kept evening and weekend hours and is one of the emergency vets in the area (not the 24-hour vet, but again they did have extended hours). The downsides were several: they had a revolving door of young vets coming and going, so you never knew who you'd get. They were great with dogs, but I had several vets who seemed to have not much concern for cats, and my cat would get only a cursory exam. And thirdly, the waits were ridiculous. One would think an emergency clinic would leave gaps in their scheduling for emergencies, but this one did not seem to and I would routinely wait an hour or so. Unacceptable as my cat is terrified of leaving the house and spent the entire wait nearly hyperventilating.

I asked around and got some referrals, and ended up with the vet I have now about 8 years ago. It's a smaller office, but they do have 3 vets there (one mainly does surgeries now, as far as I can tell). I generally like them. They do fecal exams and bloodwork and x-rays and stuff on site, so they are modern but I wouldn't define them as hi-tech. The waits are reasonable. I expect to wait a few minutes, of course. I also like that once a puppy has all his shots for a year or two, then they switch to an every-three-year program for most vaccines, and don't normally vaccinate elderly animals for anything except rabies.

Well, we had an appointment for a routine checkup/ booster shot for Jack this morning at 9:40. The office is a good 20 minutes away or so, which can reach closer to a half hour if traffic is really bad. We normally like to take Jack somewhere fun after the vet so he doesn't keep a stressful memory in his head for long, so at the last minute we were grabbing his towel and water bottle and treats and stuff so we could go to a park afterwords, and in the rush we left his stool sample on the front porch.

I remembered when we were halfway there. I made a split-second decision to go back home for it, but this would make us a bit late (the other option would have been to go without it and then have to take it back at another time. Since they lack evening hours and as I said they are nearly a half hour away, this option wasn't great either).

We grabbed it off the porch where it was and headed back out, and I made what I thought would be a courtesy call to apologize profusely and tell them we'd be 15 minutes late. The front desk person put me on hold, then came back and said "If you'll be 15 minutes late, we need to reschedule." I was already almost halfway there, and I must say I was a bit stunned.

Now I know it's bad to be late. I understand that, and I don't expect them to wait an hour for me. But 15 minutes? On average, I wait longer than that for them. A routine visit is maybe 10 or so minutes in the waiting room, then we go in and get the pet weighed and the assistant brings the chart and goes to tell the vet we are ready. Then we wait another 5 to 10 or sometimes 15 or so minutes in the office, waiting for the vet to arrive. Generally when I first arrive I have plenty of time (already running into our appointment time) to get heartworm and flea medications refilled before they are ready to see us.

The desk person explained they were very busy and already had people in the waiting room. But what puzzled me is, if there are people there waiting then they can take them back and we would happily have waited instead of inconveniencing people behind us.

I would have expected to be bumped if we said we would be half an hour or more late, but I suppose I was just stunned because even though I'm normally on time for appointments, I have almost never been taken back into the office of any doctor, anywhere, at the time my appointment was meant to be, as various doctors and vets of course always get their schedules backed up. I am highly suspicious that if we were there promptly at 9:40 we would have been immediately taken back to see the vet, as that has pretty much never happened to me. What difference would it make if I'm waiting in the waiting room or in transit. Again I take full responsibility for being late, but I'm a long-term client and have spent a fair amount of time waiting for them, with one pet or another in tow. Does it seem reasonable to have them cancel an appointment over 15 minutes? I mean, that's "I was stuck in traffic" time or "Sorry, my cat could not be pried out from under the bed" timeframe.

Maybe I'm just overreacting. I'm curious as to anyone else's experience.