Heart of Texas Veterinary Specialty Center

Great vets, nice staff, recommended for emergencies and specialty services. I went to treat my pet there for an emergency, I got regular follow up calls, as well a thorough explanation of next steps. Dr. Visanje was great

We had to put our beloved 10 year old lab down today. Dr. Martin and Kirby Kunze were more than professional and caring, they were empathic and compassionate, and made the experience as peaceful as it could be. I appreciate everything they did for me and our ‘Rags’. I strongly recommend Heart of Texas.

I can not say enough of how caring & professional the staff was to my daughter & I. We took our 13yr old miniature doberman pincher as a walk in last week. She was dying & we didn’t want her to suffer any longer. They were very fast in getting us into a room where we held our little Boo for the last time. Doctor & Staff were very kind, caring & extremely sensitive to our situation. They walked us through the process & gave us several options. They gave us all the time we needed to say good-​bye and we held her until she peacefully pasted. Doctor was gentle & so very kind. My daughter & I left with such comfort from the staff. I highly recommend them to anyone.

I was referred to HOT for my dog’s jaw removal surgery. I am considering other options, too, like reconstruction surgery at one of the veterinary universities; however, I’d been told by several people dogs can live very good lives without the reconstruction. Obviously, if I am not going to one of the veterinary dental universities who do this procedure all the time, I want to know how much experience a local doctor has with this type of procedure before I spend the time and money to consult with him/​her about my dog’s particular case. Dr. Vasanjee told his staff to tell me that he wouldn’t recommend reconstruction surgery but I would have to come in for a consultation to ask anything else, including how much experience he’d had with jaw removal surgeries. I hung up, kind of shocked that they weren’t willing to tell me about his experience when I am looking at spending thousands of dollars on a life-​altering surgery for my dog. After thinking about it, I decided I was not going to see someone who wouldn’t even tell me about his qualifications to remove my dog’s jaw, so I called back. I told them that I only needed a minute or two of his time to hear about his experience level with that particular type of surgery so I felt comfortable coming in and spending several hundred dollars to discuss my dog’s particular case, but he wouldn’t speak to me about it and told his staff to tell me that he wouldn’t answer that question unless I came in for a paid consultation. If you are providing an expensive service (or any service!), I don’t think it’s too much to ask to spend 2 minutes or less with a client who is looking to book an appointment to let her know that you have a lot of experience with that type of procedure so she wishes to proceed forward doing business with you. I would be shocked to have a carpenter not be willing to tell me how many kitchen remodels he has done until I paid him first! Sorry, you don’t get to treat me like a credit card without a brain and still get my business.
I cancelled my appointment and am going to Dr. Caplan with Capital Area Veterinary Specialists. She didn’t speak directly to me, but at least she had her long-​time staff talk to me about all her experience with this type of procedure, let me know that she’s given numerous lectures on the topic, what her certifications are, etc.
For the record, Dr. Capron at the Animal Dental Clinic was the BEST! He wasn’t even going to get my business (he was referring me to other people he felt were better equipped for the procedure) and yet he still spent a total of almost 40 minutes on the phone with me between two phone conversations! Wow, talk about making you feel like he actually cares about your pet and not just your money!!! He was AWESOME!!! I am sorry that I can’t give him my money for this procedure!
UPDATE: With Dr. Caplan’s support, I ended up going to Colorado State University to get a special type of radiation treatment to hopefully prevent my dog from having her jaw removed!

I previously wrote a review in November about my 5 year old cat that died unexpectedly 15 hours after being taken to this hospital. A follow up to my review. We never received a call or anything from this vet hospital. Never a call from the vet or anyone from the staff. I guess we were not worth a follow up call. We had selected yhe option to have the cat examined, hydrated, basic urinalysis, and any needed medication as opposed to the higher end hospital admission and more testing. The cat was never hydrated and was given a powerful narcotic pain medication then sent home.
We have two more cats at home. This hospital will never see us again. I have warned friends and co-​workers of this vet group. I know of one of those warnings was passed onto another individual who was looking for a 24 hour care center for her pets.
I will continue to warn others.

This place was an absolute godsend! Last week after taking my dog to the vet a couple times she still wasn’t feeling better, in fact, getting worse. We haven’t been in this area too long and have only had one other experience where we needed an emergency vet. We tried an ER vet we previously went to and it did not go well (not even the first time). They were super insensitive and rude and basically turned us away. I am so thankful that happened! Had that not happened, we would have never found Heart of Texas.
They treated my dog immediately. The vet tech, Dana, recognized the urgency and need for our dog to been seen quickly. She took a comprehensive background on what had transpired the week before leading up to this. She totally put us at ease! Dr. Martin was so nice and informative. We had a million questions, obviously because we were so concerned with our pet’s health, and she took the time to answer every single one thoroughly!
The following morning when we returned to the ER to pick our dog, Coalie, up we walked in knowing what the next steps were. Dr. Pasternak had already reached out to an eye specialist and got us in the same day! This was a remarkable gesture because we had been so concerned about how long we would have to wait to get her treated. We also returned to Heart of Texas after seeing the specialist and worked with Claudia. She was phenomenal! We had to learn how to administer some meds they prescribed. She totally calmed our nerves by being so compassionate and friendly! Tabatha was so kind when I called for updates on Coalie and she made us feel at ease because of how well they were treating her!
Every single person we’ve encountered at this clinic has been above remarkable. If I could give them 100 stars I WOULD! Thank you to all of your staff!

This is a review for Dr. Wood and the internal medicine staff.
My 10 year-​old, very tiny chihuahua fell ill a few weeks ago. Routine testing at the e-​vet close to our house (ultrasound, urinalysis, x-​rays, blood panel) turned up nothing unusual except high blood pressure. Once the e-​vet had done everything they could think of to figure out what was wrong with him, they referred us to Dr. Wood at Heart of Texas.
I had to bring him in as an emergency patient late in the evening because he was sick enough to need IV fluids and monitoring all night, which obviously I couldn’t do myself. The vet techs and the vet on call took good care of him until Dr. Wood was able to see him in the morning.
If you have a dog with very non-​specific symptoms, and your regular vet or e-​vet just can’t figure out what’s wrong, I would highly recommend seeing Dr. Wood. She is very thorough and very communicative about possible diagnoses. For a day or two she tried to just rule things out, like a neurological condition (his eyes were dilating to different size, turns out that was just iris atrophy).
But while we were working on ruling things out, Dr. Wood re-​ran the tests that the e-​vet had initially run, looking for some clues. She noticed some glucose in his urine that wasn’t there before, and floated the possibility of leptospirosis, and put him on antibiotics right away. Initially he did not have a fever or an elevated white blood cell count that would indicate a lepto infection, but I guess she had a hunch. Eventually he did test positive for lepto, although the first test (a blood test) was negative. We had to wait several days for a urine culture. Fortunately as soon as he was on antibiotics, he started getting much better and I was able to take him home.
The whole ordeal had him hospitalized for about four days. Never at any point did I feel like they were trying to get more money out of me than what was necessary… Dr. Wood has very adament about getting him feeling better so that I could take him home. The vet techs in internal med are WONDERFUL. They took really, really good care of my little guy. Hand-​fed him, wrapped him up when he was chilly, let me come visit him in the afternoon. They also called me every evening before they left to tell me how he was doing. I was absolutely, 100% comfortable leaving him in their care.
Because I spent a lot of time in the waiting room here, I heard other pet parents raving about Dr. Daly and Dr. Vasanjee, and how great they are. If the dogs ever need an oncologist or a surgeon, I know where I’m coming! Yes, there are cheaper options for veterinary care out there, but like many things there is truth to the old «you get what you pay for» adage.

I took my dog to the ER portion of HOT and although the FD staff was not overly accommodating, the doctor and tech were very nice and diagnosed my dog correctly. I set up for the oncologist, Dr. Daly, the next day, and she is GREAT. She was personable, knowledgeable, informative and compassionate, given that my dog only has months to live. I would highly recommend her. (And I did find the staff friendlier the next day).

We’ve brought our dog to Heart of Texas three times now for treatment for elbow dysplasia and we are very happy. Dr. Vasanjee is very knowledgeable and explained everything. We really like his style-​he treated our dog’s case with less invasive, and consequently less expensive treatment first, before jumping into surgery.
My only major complaint is how small their waiting room is. It’s difficult maneuvering a big dog with a joint problem to the front desk while trying to pay your bill and trying to keep him from greeting other dogs entering just behind you. I really wish there were two entrance doors to this place or the counter was in another location, because a lot of big dogs with joint problems do come here.
We have not experienced much else that was negative, except we did wait 20 minutes once for the techs to bring him up front after his procedure because they forgot we were there. I suspect it was because it was a busy Friday afternoon more than anything else.
Overall we are happy with the treatment we have received and would come here again.

I’ll start this post with the positive — Dr. Vasanjee is an incredible surgeon and did a wonderful job removing a malignant fibrosarcoma from my dogs face. He is healing very well — I couldn’t have asked for a better surgeon.
Now the bad. To summarize the experience before surgery: Patient care really isn’t just about the patient, but about their family too. I was heartbroken when we got the diagnosis, knowing that my dog had to have such a major surgery was difficult to deal with, and it would have been nice if, that morning that I dropped off my dog for surgery, the tech would have at least looked me in the eye (literally, there was no eye contact from this woman) and let me know that they were going to take good care of him. I had to quickly walk out to my car so I wouldn’t collapse in tears from the sheer horror of giving my dog to such a clearly uncaring human being. I wasn’t able to leave the parking lot for 20 minutes because I was in such shock.
Post-​op: I took the time to tell the clinic manager about my horrible experience, and she did seem to listen and thanked me for giving her the opportunity to work with her staff. Immediately following my conversation with the clinic manager, my dog was returned to me from his surgery with a gigantic cyst on his back foot that had developed over the 48 hours he was in their care (post-​op). I asked the nurse about it and she said it must have been there before he came in — believe me, if it was, I would have known. I noticed that it was bleeding and asked if she could look at it, and she said I’d have to take him to his PCP. I understand the referral process, but here I am at an emergency clinic about to take my very lethargic little pup home, and they wouldn’t help me. I broke down, drove to his PCP who referred me back to HOT because they couldn’t get me in.
So, back to HOT we went and I got a lecture about how they don’t want the referring provider to get upset because they are taking care of issues outside of the referral for surgery… I handed them my credit card and asked them to please just help me take care of my dog and bill me as an emergency patient like they would everyone else. They gladly accepted my credit card at this point, took him to the back room, drained the cyst and wrapped it up and we were finally able to go home after spending over 4 hours at HOT that afternoon.
I would recommend the surgeon hands-​down, but they need to get their clinical support staff to a much higher level of patient care before I’d send anyone to HOT.

Amazing staff and board certified doctors! My dog and I could not be happier with Dr. Vasanjee, the surgical staff and the hospital staff! I never thought I would see Pete play again or the brightness in his eyes as they are now after Dr. Vasanjee rebuilt his jaw. Thank you Heart of Texas for being so good to our family.

The Emergency department was thorough and caring with my elderly mothers dog. That dog is her life and Heart of Texas Vets and staff were fair, fast, and right on target with a reasonable treatment recommendation. Happy to report Mom and «Shiraz» are doing great!

Bad bad bad «hospital»… Cannot find negative star! One star is a waste!
False advertisement. They said ²⁴⁄₇. We was being referred from Bandfield hospital to come their to drain the abscess of our dog so that he can recover faster on Saturday night. They gave us a general doctor instead of surgeon, saying surgeon is not in till Monday, charged $ 89 for «consultation fee». When we come on Monday, surgeon charged another $ 125 «consultation fee» suggesting surgery for abscess with 3 days stay for over $ 3,000. We said we cannot affor d 3K, then she said she needs a ultrasound. We paid for ultrasound but technician not show up till 11:30 pm. When the ultrasound result found nothing foreign, then surgeon suggest to drain the pus with over 1.3K. We asked to drop two test to fit our credit card to do procedure, she refused.
Our dog came home, paid close to $ 400 without any treatment to the abscess. Thank God we have Amox and on the 4^th day of the sharks trying to bite us, the abscess is gone without any surgery.
To tell the fact: do not go there unless you like to be there for your status of lots of money to throw away and the dogs must be suffer for lots of consultations visit.
The «emergency hospital» is misleading, there are no surgeon ²⁴⁄₇. If your dog got a car hit, it is a bad place to go since your dog does not have a chance to live to see a surgeon! This misleading is abusing dog owners hopping to get the dog immediately rescued!
Love dogs? None of that. Clyde survive with our love instead of doctor with lots of greed and negligent!

We are referred by our regular vet to Dr. Vasanjee for my Corgi’s hernia issue.
The staff and doctor are very detail and caring through out the process — from initial consultation to surgery and now we are in follow-​up.
I did my research beforehand regarding the procedure needed for my Corgi. During consultation, Dr. Vasanjee was patience and answered all my questions and concerns.
Therefore, I do recommend to do basic research if your fur-​baby requires any special treatment, so that you can have productive conversation with the vet.
The day of surgery, I was nervous and I called a few times in to check on the status.
They have a number of scheduled procedures, my Corgi was scheduled later in the day, yet they were patience and not annoyed by my repeated phone calls.
The surgery went well, Dr. Vasanjee also called and let me know the status. Corgi stayed overnight and gone home safe next day.
Certainly the cost is not cheap, but my Corgi is part of family. Within ability, I do my best to get the treatment he needs. I am glad we got good treatment and resolution from Heart of Texas Vet as well.

Complete waste of money and very disappointed. It was over $ 600 for the heart exam and they told me nothing that my regular vet did not already tell me. They shoved a bunch of pills in my hand and said here you go. Never once did they tell me any other options. This place is a total money grab.
Prescriptions are a whole other headache. I had a hand written one that was apparently a controlled substance. I didn’t take it to the drug store right away and when I did they told me it would expire by the time they could order the medication. In order to get another one, I have to make yet another appointment ($ 60) for my dog to be seen or the vet suggested giving my dog over-​the-​counter cough medicine. NO ONE even mentioned that this may be an issue. The vet took 2 days to call me back about refills on the other prescriptions, telling me I could just get them filled at my regular vet anyway.
I would rather go to my regular vet for the remainder of my dog’s life where I am spoken to like a human and not an ATM machine. Completely disappointed and 100% regret spending my money here.

Thursday and Friday my 9 year old pug, Roxy, was lethargic, but otherwise doing OK. I kept an eye on her and thought maybe her stomach was upset or something small — she had also been sharing a large kennel in our kitchen with my Shih Tzu, her life partner, Mr. Piddles for a couple days due a kennel malfunction while it was storming and I thought maybe she didn’t get any sleep or something. Saturday, she seemed in better spirits, but by Saturday night, our sitter texted me and told me she wasn’t doing so hot. Sunday morning I spent looking for an open vet in Round Rock to no avail. We ended up finding Heart of Texas and took her in.
Due to Roxy’s limited breathing, they checked her in quickly — no wait, which was nice. The vet met with me and was very polite and comforting, she thought Roxy had pneumonia or a heart issue — something treatable — and was confident that everything would be OK. She told me a pug came in that looked like and had the same symptoms as Roxy the day before and it ended up being treatable pneumonia.
They cut a couple tests to cut the cost for us, but still did what they needed to. We were there around 2 hours and after the X-​Rays got back (they were sent to a radiologist to review), the vet came in, very solemn, and told us that Roxy had a large mass in her chest and that basically we could get more expensive testing done, but at that point, it would only be to give us closure on what the mass was and not to prolong her life, there was nothing she or anyone else could do. She told us we could put Roxy down or we could take her home, make her comfortable, and give her pain killers until she passed, but that she would not survive outside of an oxygen tent. We were heartbroken. The vet told us she wouldn’t judge us for our decision, as people usually think the more humane thing is to put dogs down in that situation. My husband, who was not with me at the time, was totally against putting her down and wanted her to pass peacefully in her own home surrounded by the people that loved her. He was also afraid our daughter would associate vets with death since she saw us leave with Roxy sick. So we opted to take her home. The vet understood and prepped Roxy to go home, leaving an IV in her leg in case we brought her back in (if she didn’t pass that night so she wouldn’t suffer). The staff gave me pain killers to give her and fluids to flush the IV with.
We got Roxy home, my 3 year old daughter got to lay with her and pet her, and my husband got to be with her too. Roxy calmed down and seemed happy to be home. We made her as comfortable as possible and gave her pain killers at the specified time in the instructions and flushed her IV, shortly thereafter, Roxy laid down and died peacefully surrounded by the family that had rescued her and gave her a happy life.
That may sound totally depressing, and it was, but I am SO thankful that we were able to take her to Heart of Texas — we didn’t pay as much as we thought we would and the staff were incredibly nice and compassionate. I am happy the vet didn’t jerk us around — she could have told us about expensive treatments or whatever, played on our emotions, but she didn’t — she was straightforward. What got me most of all was that you could totally see the emotion in her face when the test results came back and it wasn’t something treatable. She wasn’t cold, she wasn’t distant, it was like she was losing her own pet and that comforted us in our time of need.
I hope I don’t have to take anymore of our furry children to a pet hospital, but if I do, I will totally take them to Heart of Texas.

I was so happy with the whole staff at Heart of Texas. The office is very clean and the staff was very professional. I received several phone calls checking on my dog to make sure she was okay. The doctor was so nice to my pittbull. This vet clinic went above and beyond for my dog. I highly recommend this emergency vet clinic in case of an emergency. Thank you so much for taking such good care of Kassie. Heart of Texas saved the day.

Dr Vasanjee is a miracle worker. He saved our little kitty Smudge. He is a very kind and skilled vet. I would trust any of our animals with him. The staff that man the front desk are better than awesome. Martha, Jamie, vet tech Priscilla and the others are valuable to their business and they treat you and your pet with kindness and respect.

Back in October, one of our two dogs had two seizures and since our vet clinic suggested we take him to Heart of Texas (HOT) since our regular vet couldn’t see him quickly enough. I arrived at HOT with him and they took him back immediately to get his vitals. The vet met with me, explained the situation, and asked for permission to do blood work, which I approved. That came back normal, so they wanted to keep him overnight for observation to see if he was going to have another seizure and if so, take measures to stop it and then put him on maintenance meds. I left him overnight and he did have another. They treated him and started him on anti-​seizure meds. Level of care up to that point was great. I couldn’t have asked for better.
When we arrived the next day to pick him up, they stuck us in an unlit treatment room that reeked of horses (?). I thought, well, they’re busy, so I can deal with this. A tech brought him to us and asked us to wait for the doctor. She arrived after about ten minutes (again, they were busy, so I understood the wait), but all she did was hand me a pill bottle, tell me they’d e-​mail the discharge instructions, and show us the door. (She said she was having a really bad day.) Again, I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Well, last night, he had two more and another this morning. I called my vet clinic to talk to them about options. They don’t typically prescribe the medication HOT put him on, so suggested I call them and ask them for advice on increasing the dosage. I spoke to a tech at HOT who took my information and put me on hold while she spoke to an ER vet. She came back on the line pretty quickly only to tell me the doctor wouldn’t give any advice regarding increasing/​decreasing the medication and that I should take him to a neurologist. The whole call was pretty much a waste of my time.
What I got from this whole experience was the feeling that HOT is very accommodating when treating your pet, up to the point where they take your money. After you pay, it’s hand’s off, buster. You’re not giving us any more money so you’re on your own.

Dr. Vasengee said he would need roughly $ 7,500 to operate on my dog (my dog was suffering from a ruptured disc in his back and could barely walk) and the doctor told us that there was no promise of success.
We went to a different vet after a few visits here when my fiancé and I started feeling like something was off about this place; they started to recommend different, more expensive scanning procedures as if they forgot what they recommended the prior visit.
The different vet in Austin said they could cure my dog with an 80% probability of success for $ 2,000 flat. That is not a typo: Heart of Texas quoted us at $ 7,500 with no guarantee at all for my dog’s back surgery. Other vet: $ 2,000 with 80% guarantee.
It’s been over 6 weeks after the surgery and my dog is fine, I’m so glad I went somewhere else for help.