The Dog & Cat Doctor

I used Engel for many years, with multiple dogs, and I was generally satisfied, though I felt he was a bit pricey. I’m afraid that I reached a boiling point when I asked to have my dog’s teeth cleaned, and returned to find that he had extracted eight of her teeth!
Obviously, the cost was now much greater, almost $ 1000.00 instead of the original $ 250.00; furthermore, this was done without my permission. My dog’s teeth weren’t troubling her, and if there was some issue that required extraction, we should have had a conversation about it.
I switched to another vet, and so far, I’ve been happy. Procedures there are transparent, and the communication is excellent.

I happened to come across the Unilocal reviews for The Dog & Cat Doctor and was quite surprised at all the negative reviews. I’ve been bringing our dog to Dr. Engel and his staff for almost 5 years and have never experienced anything but care provided in the kindest, most professional and compassionate way. We even board our dog here when we need to and have had nothing but the best experience. We have never felt pressured into services we did not want. We watch what our dog eats, exercise her and brush her teeth regularly. Our dog was diagnosed with allergies by another vet and until we came here, we never were advised to test for specific allergens. The test was a bit expensive, but well worth it. We now know what foods and environmental substances she is allergic to and, along with allergy shots we administer at home, the dog has been in great shape.

You are reading this because you are searching for the best vet for your pet.
My 16 year old diabetic cat is thriving thanks to Dr Engle. On my first visit, Dr Engle empowered me the owner to be part of my cat’s care by teaching me how to use a human glucometer to monitor my cat’s blood sugar. My cat is no longer on insulin. He placed my cat strictly on diabetic canned food. He also told me that just like most human diabetics weight loss is an important issue to diabetes control. He encouraged me to have my cat loose a few pounds. My 16 y.o. cat looks great and can now leap onto the kitchen counter again.
My previous vet had put my cat on insulin and dry diabetic food immediately upon diagnosis. We had many emergency low blood sugar events and when I questioned my old vet about the use of a glucometer he overrode me and told me to come weekly for blood tests.. It was hard to make the break from someone I used since he was a kitten but when your vet does not want to empower you, make the break and get a different vet. Your pet’s life depends on it.
I highly recommend Dr. Engle. He empowered me in the care of my cats.
Dr Engle’s office is clean and cheerful. There are park benches, plants and resident cats add to the charm. His staff is excellent and caring. They make many follow up calls to see how the patient is doing. Once you get into the exam room your pet gets his full attention. He listens to the pet parent also. If you have a pet emergency and they are open that day they will fit you in. Parking is a pain in the neck but you can’t be perfect.
I made the switch and I am sure that it has saved my cats life. I highly recommend Dr. Engle

Vet review 1 star
Dr. Engel is only out for the money in your pocket.
My dog came in to remove a blockage (bone) in her rectum that caused 4 days of constipation. The bone was close to coming out (can feel it from a self exam), but instead of trying to prod it out, Engel stuck a thermometer up the anus and further pushed the bone inside. He insisted on putting my dog through surgery and up sell prescription food.
I’ve also had experience with Adam Engel, Dr. Engel’s son, the «trainer.» Do not waste your time with him. Like another reviewer said, you’ll pay $ 350 for a story about how wolves are dogs and we should yell at our dogs.
TLDR; «Dr». Engel and son is only looking to line their pockets, not help furry friends.

Being shocked by the bad reviews, I could’nt help but to write about our experiences with Mr. Engel. He has been treating out cats for over 5 years. We have had to leave our cats with him for surgeries and they literally call you every few hours to let you know how the cat is doing and what is going on. No procedure is done without you knowing what the possible outcome is. One of our cats had cancer, and usually after removing the tumors, the cats don’t live that much longer (she is an older cat), well it has been three years and she is happy and healthy. The doctor does not charge an arm and a leg. The staff is very friedly. They were able to calm our cat down and make sure that she is comfortable. Highly reccomend the doctor and this clinic!

I called the office to find out if they have a trainer for my puppy. The secretary recommended me Adam Engel, who is the son of the vet. I contacted him, and he stated that he does not give prices over the phone (I wondered why) He came over and said the price is $ 350 which includes todays visit and at least few more fallow up visits. I felt bad that he came and had him train the dog. The training consisted of 1 hour of lecture about where dogs came from and 15 minutes showing how to hold the leash. I was so shocked, but paid him because he told a story for an hour that dogs come from wolves. It was the biggest mistake of my life. Guess what its been 3 weeks, have not heard back from Adam, as he said he will call and schedule a 2 week follow up. I honestly want to never see or hear from him ever again. From what I hear his father is a scam artist himself (who is the vet) Never use Adam Engel to train your dog unless you want to know that dogs come from wolves and want to throw away $ 350.

Ok, I completely have to agree with the review below stating complete shock and utter surprise by the review of this vet’s office. This is literally the best vet and vet staff I have ever been to, and I am a pet owner of 20+ years.
About two weeks ago, my cat, Daddy, was sneezing a lot and over the course of 2 – 3 days, he started bleeding from his nose. In a complete panic, I googled the closet vet and right away, Dr. Engle came up. I didn’t see the Unilocal review, just his website. Right away, I liked the fact that he had a friendly picture of himself on the website, and I called and was RIGHT AWAY given an appointment. When I brought Daddy in, I first saw Rocky who CONSTANTLY assured me that Daddy was going to be okay, that the vet would be with him shortly. I had to wait 30 minutes, but it was a Sunday. The fact that the doctor is even open on Sunday, and doesn’t charge emergency prices is amazing. When the doctor got to look at Daddy, he was immediately upset with the state of his teeth. He told me that Daddy had tartar buildup and that his mouth looked infected, and that he was going to need to get some teeth cleaned and/​or possibly pulled. But BEFORE he did that, he prescribed Daddy a weeks’ worth of medicine to try and rule out allergies being the cause of the sneezing and nosebleed.
I went home with Daddy, feeling better already that he was weighed, checkout out, had bloodwork done, and that the ENTIRE staff at the office had been completely soothing, helpful, and reassuring during the whole visit. Unfortunately, after 3 days Daddy’s nose got worse and I took him back in to the office. Meanwhile, the office had been calling to check in with me and see how my little boy was doing! I found that so comforting! When I dropped him off that morning, they said the doctor would be in by noon and that he’d call me right away once he examined Daddy. When I spoke to Doctor Engle a few hours later, he told me Daddy needed to be put under anesthesia and his teeth pulled immediately. That there was a terrible infection, decaying in his nasal cavity, and gingivitis. I told him whatever had to be done (mentally calculating a bill over over $, 1500) and prepared for the worst. Two hours later the doctor called me again and told me everything went PERFECTLY and that Daddy would be waking up soon! When he woke up, the office called me again to see how I WAS DOING and to tell me that Daddy would be ready to be picked up and they would have instructions and medicine for me.
Well last night I took Daddy home after this whole ordeal of anesthesia, teeth being pulled, his nasal passage being flushed, and continuous nosebleeds. Let me just say, the first night was hard. He was drooling, still flushing out the infection orally, and was SO WONKY from the anesthesia that he fell over when i took him out of his cat carrier. But I cleaned his face with baby wipes, gave him his liquid injectable meds, and let him sleeping on my blanket all night. Today, Daddy woke up a new man. He has purred for the first time in weeks, he drank water and went to the litter box on his own. He hasn’t eaten yet, but the office said there is no cause for concern especially if he is drinking water. He even rubbed his face on my computer like he had a habit of doing when we was healthy. The office also called me today just to check in on Daddy and to make a follow up appointment for Friday.
I made this traumatic story as short as I possibly could while giving all the necessary information. I walked out only having paid $ 800 with medication included. To me, it was worth every penny and I was even expecting to pay more, a sweet surprise. I want to especially thank Rocky and Karen who work at the office along with the doctor. I have never had an experience at the vet with two more comforting and informative people. They never made me feel like I was crazy to call numerous times checking in on Daddy, they called me constantly, they gave advice without pressuring me, and they never made me feel like any of it was for the money. Also, Julio who assisted the doctor during Daddy’s surgery… THANK YOU! A huge thank you and much love to the Doctor and the staff at THE DOG AND CAT DOCTOR. Daddy and I will be lifelong patients.

I wouldn’t recommend him as a doctor. My mom used 2 take our 2 dogs there and he would constantly say the dogs were over weight. We have a German Shepard mix and a MinPin. There ribs n spine were showing and he kept saying they were perfect. A second opinion confirmed they were under weight.
The staff isn’t too pleasant either.
By far the worst experience I’ve ever had

I’m surprised by the reviews on Unilocal!This place was recommended by a board member in our building when we moved. She LOVED them and had taken her pets to them for over 20 years (or something along those lines).
Flash forward a couple months, and my cat’s funky nose problem came back. We moved from BK where the vet there thought it was a fungus. Anyway, I found the note I made from the board member and called these guys up, despite Unilocal reviews, and am glad I did. They are open on Sundays! Big bonus. We arrived with our cat, and the woman at the desk (named Rocky I think) checked us in and was able to get Angus’s records faxed over from the old vet. We waited a while, but didn’t mind. She gave us copies of the faxed records, and introduced us to the tech, who was also very nice. I asked him about the weight score of my cat according to the records, and he said he would teach me how to check the cats weight once inside the exam room, which he did. Dr. Engel was very, very nice and thoughtful. He and the tech handled Angus very gently, and gave us all the time necessary to discuss what it might be. We decided to sedate him a bit to take a sample of his nose funk while we waited. We walked to Trader Joes and back. Dr. Engel came out to chat, told us to be careful with Angus while he woke up, and said he would call Friday to discuss the results. He thought it might be allergies.
Rocky called the next day to check on Angus (he’s fine). Oh, one more thing about her. When I told her a neighbor referred, she asked the neighbor’s name, which I forgot. All I said was «a board member in our building» and she knew her name immediately, the woman’s dog name, and when she came to the practice. She also told me about the other Angus cat in the practice… which made me feel like she really knew and cared about their clients and was very in tune with their health. I felt we got way more attention than we did at our other vet office, which actually had several doctors… I felt this created less continuity with ongoing problems, because we’d see several different doctors who weren’t up to speed. We’ll get the results back on Friday and come up with a plan, but I do believe we will stay with Dr. Engel while we live nearby. The tests etc weren’t cheap, but that is my experience with nyc vets.

Dr. Engel as a vet is fine. He told me what needs to be done to the cat, cut and dry. I took my cat in years ago as a kitten and he treated him very well, actually went out of his way as my son was born while the cat was in his care. One of his technicians however is a complete idiot. I brought in my cat and jokingly said «he doesn’t like people or cats» because my cat is a house cat and he just dismisses the world. Apparently there was a stray cat being seen after ours and the tech had received a warning. Ummm house cat/​stray cat not the same. Instead of asking me to take my cat out of the box, he grabbed a towel, threw it over my cats head and the cat went crazy, literally. Peed on the table, growling, twisting. I told the guy to take the towel off the cats head because he literally would have stopped but the guy insisted that «sometimes when animals are in a new environment, they react». Ummm no sometimes when an idiot throws a towel over a cat’s head, the cat thinks an idiot is hurting him. By the time Dr. Engel came in all he saw was a crazy cat and I told him take the towel off the cat’s head, we just hold him by the neck and he stays. To which he repeated «sometimes when animals are in a new environement they don’t handle it well». I tried to explain that his idiot technician threw a towel over the cat’s head which was the only reason he was acting that way but he said and «sometimes the parents react also». One unnecessary sedation shot and $ 40 later the cat was seen. Although I’d like to take my cat back to Dr. Engel because as a vet he’s fine, I’m just too annoyed by his idiot technician. I’ll have to take the cat to Bellerose Animal Hospital and be pushy about not overcharging me. They charge too much but are capable of holding down a 7 pound cat without sedation.

AVOID THIS VET!!! Dr. Engel has repeatedly misdiagnosed my pets (one hamster & one chinchilla) to the point where, by the time I got a second opinion and started another treatment with another vet, they both passed away. My chinchilla was barely a year old, and chinchillas have a lifespan of at least 15 years. Also, I had a gut feeling that the animals are not being treated well behind the scenes, since her temperament changed radically when I tried to pick her up. The only reason I went to him was because he was the only one in my area who will treat rodents — NEVER AGAIN!!!

My dog was vomitting repeatedly one morning and I decided to take him to the nearest vet. On the way there, he vomitted again and started having diarrhea that had blood in it. When I went in to see the vet, he told me my dog was fat and needed to lose weight. I explained the entire situation in detail and he checked my dog. He just gave him a few things orally and said he hoped my dog could hold it down long enough for it to work. He took a blood sample and charged me 422 dollars for just that. My dog continued to have diarrhea that was bloody and looked very sick. The next day he vomitted again and he was still having bloody diarrhea. I took him to my vet in long island immediately. I didn’t want to waste anymore time. Turns out my dog was dehydrated and they took xrays to see if there was something in his stomach causing the bleeding. Long story short, I believe he should have done more for my dog. My other vet had my dog hooked up to an iv and kept overnight, taking many more precautions than this dog and cat doctor, and they charged me much less to do all that and keep him overnight (355) than he did just to look at my dog and take a blood sample. It wasn’t worth it to me. Too expensive and didn’t bother to take an xray or call me the next day with the results. He did call me after my vet called up to send the results and told me that my dog didn’t look dehydrated when he saw him and that’s why he didn’t keep him overnight, which is a complete lie because my dog looked pretty sick when I went to take him in. Again, not worth it.