San Anselmo Animal Hospital

We went here today for the first time on the recommendation of fellow Unilocalers. Dr. Erteman worked magic with our normally standoffish kitty who not only fell in love with him but practically fell off the table creeping closer and closer to him so she could rub her head on him. He was a true healer and was able to give us intuitive insight into the source of her problem (spraying all over the house for the last year). No other vet or pet psychic has been able to help. Dr. Erteman was warm, casual and real as well as skilled.

Horrible experience. Ever since management changed this place has really gone downhill. The younger veterinarian was very rough with our cat, and even caused his injury to get worse due to poor bandaging. Lastly our indoor cats which have never been outside or had fleas, came home with fleas after our last visit. Never using this «business» again.

My husband I recommend San Anselmo Animal Hospital very highly for your pets. We had them as our dog’s vet for 8 years and they provided great care. Our dog had many health issues toward the end of her life, and we saw Dr. Laura Landman frequently. She was always very nice and caring. She was very knowledgeable and always took time to explain our dog’s condition. She and her staff were amazing with our dog. Our dog died last year, but we were glad she was always under the fabulous care by Dr. Landman and the staff. We will definitely go back to San Anselmo Animal Hospital, when we have another dog.

I have quite a few furry pals and the vets and staff at SAAH are ALWAYS there to help me. Whether it be a routine check up/​shot, or for an emergency! The Vets are caring, thorough and work with their patients owners to plan the best care possible. If only Laura could be my primary care physician — life would be perfect!

Rob is truly a healer. He always explains in detail everything that is going on and really cares; he recites his own experiences with his own animals and is just a wonderful human being! I love him!!! I would never take my baby to another-​as far as the $$$ get pet insurance-​medical treatments are expensive, just like humans thats why humans have health insurance.

Dr. Eterman is the Cat Whisperer, a phenomeanl healer and an exceptional doctor who cares about each and every animal deeply. Kudos if you have found him! I live far away from his office, but am always glad for my cat’s sake I came in.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE: San Anselmo Animal Hospital Staff,
At the Front Desk — Courtney, Crystal, and Tracy — Thank you for your warmth, your kindness, your professionalism, and your concern. Each and every time that we brought our very very sick little Pippin in you made us feel so much better. You gave us hope and we will always be filled with gratitude for you.
When that door opens and the Techs — Jamie, Denise, Shannon, Page, and Victoria, come out and surround our wiggly, squiggly, lickin little Pippin, the love that she has for you is exactly how we feel about you. We let Pippin do the lickin but please please know in your hearts that we are in awe of you. We admire your dedication, care, strength, and warmth. We will always be grateful for the help that you gave Pippin. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for taking care of the best little dog that ever was.
Last and never least Dr. Laura, Dr. Lynne, Dr. Kelle, and always Dr. Rob — thank you for saving our Pippin. We know that we came way too close to losing our little girl. We were so scared. Thank you for sticking to it when you decided to become vets, when you decided to give Pippin the benefit of all that hard work in school and all of the hard-​won experience that followed. Pippin Poppy and her family are the beneficiaries of your work and we know it.
We want to specially thank our dear Dr. Laura for turning over every possible stone, for pushing through when it got tough and for holding our hands and paws. You’re the best.

We have a lab with several unique medical challenges. After trying six different vets with no success, a friend recommended Dr. Erteman based on their positive experience with him. I can say that he was able to quickly diagnose and treat her issues and, I believe, saved her life.
We have been a client now for 3+ years and have found the whole relationship to be outstanding. The appointments start on time, he takes extra time with you to thoroughly discuss all the issues and potential courses of treatment, calls are always returned the same day, his staff is friendly and efficient and his med and food prices are very competitive.
In short, you’ll find no better in Marin.

I truly am so pleased with all of my experiences with Dr. Rob Erteman and his staff. My cats actually love Dr. Rob and he’s very in tune with their personalities and behavior.
He’s called the cat-​whisperer for a reason~ plus, he cleans their teeth personally.

I think Erteman and Kearny are good vets. I have my doubts about Park. She recently diagnosed my aging dog with an eye problem (not what I took him in for) and prescribed drops to reduce eye pressure. At one month recheck drops were not helping and said I needed to take him to doggie eye doctor who is in Santa Rosa. Hubby took afternoon off work to take our dog up to her only to have her tell him dog’s eye pressure was perfectly normal. Ugh… hundreds of dollars later… NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HIS EYES. Dr Park also has him on high blood pressure meds… I am now wondering about that diagnosis…

We’ve been going to Animal Hospital of San Anselmo with our pets since the early 80s. At the time, it was run by Dr. Rob Erteman, and he’s still our doctor of choice. We’ve always been impressed by his knowledge and compassion for our pets!

My original posting about Animal Hospital of San Anselmo, below, was removed without my knowledge by Unilocal sometime in late 2010. Katie S, a mgr at Unilocal,says they can’t find any record of it. Interesting because it was online for over 6 months — and I didn’t remove it! Connecting with Katie is very limiting (her email address is
) so I am posting my «lost» review again below. The original incident with the vet was in April 2009.
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I brought my adopted dog to this Vet for over a year. I always thought they were pricey, the parking was horrible, and the waiting room was too small, but hey, this is Marin County after all…
But then one day last April I took him in because I found a bump on his leg. The diagnosis began, and almost $ 1000 later I was told unceremoniously that he might have to lose his leg. By now after all the tests, the bump was a much bigger and growing fast. But, uh, they couldn’t do the $ 2000.00 surgery for a week or so because that’s when the «surgeon» was at their office.
At that point I made the appointment but also said I’d be getting a second opinion in the meantime. In doing so I decided to go with another Vet who was able to operate immediately, said he was confident the leg would not have to be removed, and the charge would be $ 300. That’s a HUGE difference!!! Am I glad I did. The operation went very well and my little buddy is to this day doing great.
When Dr. Erteman discovered I used another Vet he left me a disturbing voicemail saying that he wouldn’t be treating my dog anymore. He didn’t even bother to ask how he was doing. Where’s the compassion? Bottomline, in my experence it seemed to be all about the coin with these folks.

I have had to bring my dog and cat in here a couple of times and my experiences have all been positive. The staff seem very friendly and the doctors I have encountered have both been competent and direct. I have been to a few other hospitals in the area and I think the level of care here is very good, comparatively.

I cannot say enough about how much we love Dr. Erteman. He’s a special vet. The first time we took in our new dog, he sat with her, pet her, talked to her and gained her trust. It took extra time, but he wasn’t in a rush. Now whenever we go (we’ve been about 15 times), she trusts him completely. He’s amazing with animals, not all vets are, strange, but true.

Dr. Rob Erteman is the best vet I’ve ever encountered. I had a tortoiseshell cat that I inherited from one of my dearest friends. Bing was in my life for three years after my friend passed away. When she was diagnosed with lymphoma, I was devastated. Dr. Erteman offered me some hope and we attempted chemotherapy. But, when it wasn’t working and the time had come for me to make the decision to let her go, Dr. Erteman helped to give me peace of mind about my decision. He also gently guided me to doing it when I was fighting to believe that she might be able to fight that horrible disease off and be able to stay with me for awhile longer. He promised me from the beginning that if the time came that the therapy wasn’t working, he would let me know. This isn’t a vet that will suggest unneeded tests.
He has a special touch and way with animals that I’ve never seen before. I live in San Francisco and don’t have a car or I’d still be taking my current cats to him. It’s so clear how much he cares about animals. I remember that he had cats that he’d rescued that were sort of mascots when I was there.
I also have a friend who has taken all of her cats to Dr. Erteman for years. Mary’s the way that I found Dr. Erteman. I saw first hand the wonderful care he gave her two cats at the time because my cats & I would hitch a ride and time our appointments back to back. Mary’s cats are truly members of her family and she’s spent years volunteering her time saving other cats. She was the best review I could have possibly found.
I’m stunned to see any negative reviews about Dr. Erteman’s office. Admittedly, it has been quite a few years since my cats have been patients of his but I did call to get one of my cat’s records and the front desk couldn’t have been nicer. I never experienced anything but warmth and compassion when I was going through one of the toughest times ever.
The animals in my life are like my children. I want them to have the best food, the best veterinary care and all the love I can give them. If I had an animal that was seriously ill, I’d want Dr. Erteman to be in charge of his/​her care. It was clear to me that Dr. Erteman chose this field because of his love for animals and his special connection with them. I can’t put into words the way he had of touching my cats. I just know that it was something that moved me.

One star for Dr. Erteman and Dr. Kearny, and the non-​vet staff for the care that they have given my dog. The front-​office staff is very nice. One more star for the fact that my dog has seemed to enjoy his time at this animal hospital. Minus three stars for the expensive costs of treatments, and for Dr. Bando failing to diagnose Mario’s cough as something that needed treatment and later giving my dog treatment that I did not request, the hospital charging me for it (they said after the fact they would reimburse me, but never did). For that, I am actually deleting one of the stars I put on earlier.
Due to my experience with Dr. Bando, I cannot recommend going to her. I also wanted to add that when my dog first came to see Dr. Bando with both an eye infection and a cough, she only treated the eye infection, not the cough. She said to not worry about the cough, that it was normal for him to have a cough due to his heart condition. However, he had his heart condition for years with no cough. He had to come back about a week later, as his cough worsened and saw Dr. Kearny, who diagnosed an infection and liquid on his lungs. He was then prescribed antibiotics for the infection, but by that point, he had lost his appetite and we could not get him to take all of his meds, as hard as we tried. He bounced back and seemed to be recouping for a while, but then he worsened again, to the point where he would not eat anything for several days. He died last Friday after this illness.

I brought in my cat because he had blood in his urine. X-​rays were taken and I was told he had bladder stones, ten of them. By now I had paid about $ 300. An operation to remove them was required and would cost $ 1900. A lot of money, so I decided to shop around. My son went to the «hospital» to pick up the x-​rays and was told the operation could be done for $ 1500.
With great serendipity, I called Veterinary Hospital of Ignacio. «We can do that procedure for $ 300», I was told. I brought in the x-​rays. Dr. Galvin said they were a little murky, but seemed to show ten bladder stones. The next day the operation was scheduled and, guess what? No stones at all! My cat just had an inflamed urinary tract. Since the $ 300 was to include sending the stones out for analysis, I was only charged $ 200, which included meds. Bless Dr. Galvin!

I have been taking my three cats here for over five years and have nothing but praise for them. I strongly disagree with Tom about the front desk staff — they are very conscientious, caring, kind, nice, polite, personal, qualified, and nothing but good. And I agree with Brad that Rob is almost part of our family now — he is as concerned about «my girls» as I am.
«Pricey» is a relative term. My animals are part of my family and so price rarely enters into the discussions around their care. If others are not as committed to their animals than perhaps they don’t need to be so concerned about where they take them. I am concerned about them and so I am more than happy to pay a reasonable fee for quality care.
And I’ve worked with a number of the other vets there as well and have no complaints. Rob is my preference for continuity of care, but I have no problems seeing one of the other vets if Rob is not available.

I have no idea what Tom is talking about! The front desk staff are the most friendly and helpful ladies. They come out and say hi to the animals and give them treats and really get to know everyone. They don’t try to sell you products you don’t need, they only have a small selection of specialty products anyway.
I live in Southern California now, but I have taken my pets to SA Animal Hospital for years. I visit my family in the area often and I still take my dogs here whenever I need to and it is always worth the trip! The Doctors and Vet Techs are very knowledgeable and patient. They truly care about the pets and their people. It is very comforting to know that they are there for us. The ladies in the front are sweet as can be and make sure you and your pets are very well taken care of. They have never pushed anything on me, procedures or products.
I honestly have had the hardest time finding a new vet down south because no one else compares to the quality of care at San Anselmo Animal Hospital.

Dr. Erteman is really a part of my family now. Our pets are our children, and Dr. Erteman’s approach to veterinary medicine makes me feel like I’m doing all I can for the health of my pets. He’s not just capable — he’s highly intuitive, which leads him to provide a higher level of care than I could find elsewhere.
I will admit that San Anselmo Animal Hospital can be rather expensive. In my case, it’s worth it for the quality of care. I think that there are many excellent vets in the area, but for my family, I’m sticking with Dr. Erteman.