Spadina Animal Hospital

I came originally to the Spadina Animal Hospital because of its convenient location– and I was extremely lucky to find they are an outstanding place for animal care.
I have a very old, very tiny, long haired chihuahua. She’s a delicate flower. Handsome Dr. Tim took great care of her in our first check-​up, took out an old stitch that hadn’t dissolved (from another vet), gave me a tick-​hazard real talk, and did her anal glands. Don’t worry about that part of you are unsure what that means.
I’m confident that taking Chusi back to the S.A.H. will result in the best care available.

Dr Julian is great! I’ve been taking my basset Chief to him for about 3 years now and it’s been an awesome experience. The facilities are clean and the prices are on par with other vets in the city. I never feel pressured to get unnecessary work done, which is definitely something I was looking for after a bad experience with our precious vet. Highly recommended!

I have worked with many animal professionals since adopting my Lab 3.5 years ago and have had both good and bad experiences.
After recently moving into the financial district downtown I was forced to find a new vet which is always a bit nerve racking. Google pointed me in the direction of the Spadina Animal Hospital and I made an appointment.
The front desk staff were warm and welcoming and the Veterinarian was awesome. He answered all of my questions and diagnosed a problem we were having that so far had seen no improvement. He did not rush our visit and was great with our dog.
My biggest peeve about vets has always been the hard upsell. Being in sales myself I understand that it is part of the business but past experiences elsewhere have left me feeling pick pocketed after each visit. Not only was there no hard up sell, the options for treatment were very clearly laid out and explained so that I could choose the best option for us.
We will be returning to The Spadina Animal hospital for all of our pet’s needs moving forward and I would reccomend them to anybody.

I really like the new management here. Tim is a great guy and his team very passionate. Tim is the vet version of Dr McDreamy so even though I usually take my cat to him when the cat has something horribly wrong with it, Tim always makes my day. I also enjoy the animal movies he has playing in his lounge although I’d like to say that Beethoven doesn’t hold up as much as I thought it did. Just saying.

I’ve been coming here for a couple years, and I’m very grateful to have SAH as my local vet clinic. Always been good — but since Dr Julian took over its been fantastic. He’s an honest, caring and super helpful vet. He keeps me informed on how to keep my dog healthy, checks in with me by email or phone and genuinely is a top notch vet. My dog likes him too.
I would recommend him to anyone.

I LOVE Doctor Timothy Julian. I was referred to Spadina Animal Hospital by my boyfriend’s father who took his cat for a major surgery. I have two rescue kittens, and one of them had runny poo. We took him in for a check up, and I’d say everything was pretty normal but Tim’s attitude and demeanor were just wonderful. He’s the first vet I’ve been to who baby-​talks to my furbabies! He did a thorough cleaning of my kitty’s ear, kept him calm, and even got him purring at one point. The staff are friendly, the space is clean and convenient. I will be taking my second rescue kitten there for his check up as well.

Great place, super friendly and compassionate bunch. Tim has taken care of my family dog as well as a friend’s dog when I dog sat and the she ate our presents under the tree!

Fantastic services — the staff really goes above /​beyond and they are lovely
I love coming here
They are really passionate

All past negative reviews should be ignored – the new owner and vet Tim is awesome!
I took my doggy in last minute after the Harbourfront vet screwed up my appointment. The SAH took me in immediately, the front reception was very welcoming and friendly as I entered and as I left, and the appointment didn’t last long at all. Tim was very thorough with my dog, his quote for dental (as my dog is now 8) was actually $ 200 cheaper than what I got from Harbourfront, and the cost for his annual shots and check-​up was right on par.
I’d recommend this place to anyone with a pet in the area. Give the new ownership a chance!

EDIT — I just had Dr Julien, the new clinic vet reach out to me, to kindly introduce himself. I just want to ensure, that everyone knows that my poor experience was based on the previous vet/​owner. I will be popping by to meet the new veterinarian soon :)
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My doberman got bitten at a nearby dog park, and this was the other dog owners vet — this is the only reason we ended up here.
It was a horrible experience.
Logan needed 13 staples in his flank, which isn’t a huge job but did need to be put under for it. Because we were an «emergency walk in» (the clinic was empty, Thursday at 2pm) they added a fee for that. Cha-​ching!
I knew the clinic was milking the other dog owner, knowing it was a dog bite incident, and the other dog owner was fully willing to pay for any charges i incurred with Logans injury.
I left logan for literally 30 min then received a frazzled phone call from a tech asking me to come pick him up ASAP. Apparently they were unable to keep him calm &
Comfortable (that’s your f-​ing job!). He woke up screaming from the procedure. I could hear my dog crying in the background, through the phone.
That’s the last thing a dog owner wants to hear! I ran over (I literally live across the street) and the tech dragged Logan out from the back room while using an old towel to suspend his back legs that were barely functional. My baby boys eyes were barely open and they were covered in guck. I was so furious. I could also tell the staff where unable to handle my large breed dog. He felt completely scared out of his mind.
I dragged logan home and took a YouTube video of how he was sent home.
This happened 5 years ago, and I will never ever forget it. I get emotional even thinking about it.
I ended up getting his staples removed (&all follow up) at our regular vet.
There was no way in hell I was ever returning to that clinic.

I’ve been to SAH about 10x over the past 3 months for my puppy. At first we were coming for just regular shots but then he broke his leg. I don’t even have the energy to explain the entire situation but I feel that given the number of times I visited, my review is honest. Although I partly blame myself because I kept going back.
While some of my visits were OK and some of the staff are quite friendly, my overall experience at SAH has been terrible. Like many of the other reviews, I do feel that I was nickel-​and-​dimed. Not to mention, after raking out over $ 2000 in fees, one of the technicians (who quite frequently answers the phones) was rude beyond belief. I could write for an hour about my issues but I will summarize below:
1. Rude staff
2. High prices
3. Long waits
4. Poor communication
I was hoping to get through the broken leg ordeal and then transfer to a new vet but I finally gave up. When I transferred to the new vet (Front St Animal Hospital — they’re much better), they asked if they could request my pup’s medical records from my previous vet. When I said «Sure. The previous vet was Spadina Animal Hospital.» the lady was not surprised at all and said «Ohh that makes sense. We’ve had a number of people come to us from there.»
If you love your animal — don’t take them here.

This is our vet for our 2 ½ year old dog. They have changed up their staff a few different times within this period which isn’t a great sign to me. I also suspect that they might be nickle and diming us city folks. This is apparently quite common. We were quoted here $ 500 for neutering and got it done for $ 300 in Mississauga. We’ll probably start looking for a new vet soon — this location is convenient for us but there has to be better and cheaper out there. Spent $ 464 on his annual checkup a couple of weeks ago. Nothing wrong with him, all of that just for 2 vaccines and heartworm meds. Yikes.
Plus side they seem to love the animals and are accomodating with appointment scheduling.

I have to dogs that I bring here– usually my boyfriend brings them in. I think they’re friendly and they’re convenient for us (we live nearby), but I do think they try to nickel and dime you as much as possible– especially my boyfriend because he’s a sucker. They’ve had him do numerous things and purchase things that we don’t need for our dogs– simply because he thinks they’re the experts, so they must know what’s best. They’ve never been rude to us and I know that my puppies are in good health– both have been going there since they were babies. No major complaints other than the standard nickel and diming– but you’ll find that in most places, unfortunately.

Since vets in general come under plenty of criticism, anecdotes like mine can help clear the air. After a freak accident that left Hope (a young black female cat) unable to use her right front leg, the news from SAH was not good. A heavy lamp had fallen from a window sill and crashed down on her paw after she had played with the lamp’s cord. They said that we could pray that the three bones would heal together properly but they may not due to the small size of the bones and the way the bones had broken. They put on a cast (splint) which ended up collecting moisture inside and causing an infection. Since this type of injury and fixing of the problem was unusual, I might expect a problem like this to happen. Casts were replaced and the cat ended up having to be confined to a portable kennel for a couple of months to ensure the best chance of healing. The vet was very concerned about whether the cat would be in pain which was nice to hear. Their prices were high, as expected, but all vets are like that. SAH did ease off on the excessive charges that are typical in cases like this, but only after some negotiation. Don’t be afraid to ask the difficult questions or push for your point of view on your bill because you are the one paying for it and it’s up to you to make sure you are getting your money’s worth. The happy ending to Hope’s story is that she is playing and getting into trouble, acting more like a dog than an indoor cat should ever act like. She’s back to grunting when happy and chasing after her friend Nikki the other black cat in the house. :)

My review is a little negative and positive. Because the first time this place disappointed me and the second time saved our lives. Our first experience was with boarding. I had to leave my dog for a couple days and when I was back he was shaking. Im not sure how many minutes they let him walk on these two days… I wouldnt do boarding with them again but the second time it was a vet issue and they were very very helpful.

We took our Labrador Retriever to this vet as it was the closest to us at the time when we were living in the neighbourhood. They definitely try to nickel-​and-​dime you when you go there. They require a fecal sample every time you visit. And then charge you for the fecal sample tests. They proceeded to send a number of tests to the lab but never fix the issue. Doing the tests ran the bill up very quickly.
One time we were getting his vaccines up to date. We were sure that he needed one but they insisted that his previous one was good for rabies. I asked several times during the visit. Turned out that they were wrong. My wife brought him back in to get the last shot. They tried to charge us for an exam and the shot. She told them no because it was their fault that she had to bring him back. They finally agreed and only charged us for the vaccine.
We’ve since moved and go to another vet that gives us much better service than we experienced at Spadina Animal Hospital.

Over-​priced and they nickle-​and-​dime you. They tried to charge me $ 50 to get a copy of each of my dogs’ vet records. I didn’t fall for that. They also tried to scare me into getting a health certificate for each of my dogs when I told them we were driving to the US and crossing the border, even after I told them that the US Customs does NOT require a health certificate for dogs to enter the US by land. (I checked the gov’t website.) What you do need is a valid rabies certificate, which we brought along with a copy of all of my dogs’ vet records just in case. Had I given in to their unnecessary and costly misinformation, it would have cost me, for each of my dogs, a vet visit ($ 69 i think) per dog plus $ 7.50 just for the health certificate. Seriously, they charge for the certificate in addition to the visit fee. Ridiculous.
Well, we crossed to the US border with just my dogs’ vet records and recent rabies certificates – hassle free.

We took our puppy here for an initial check-​up three weeks ago, which was fine. We left a stool sample, but never heard back from them so assumed everything was fine. (Obviously, in retrospect, we should have followed up.) Three weeks later, at her next scheduled appointment, they told us that her stool sample showed she had a fecal parasite — which could infect other dogs and also our cats — but due to a mix-​up they never called us. Our dog is now on medication, which they provided free of charge, but we would NEVER trust our pets with this vet again.