Burbank Veterinary Center

Like so many other reviewers, I can honestly say that Dr. B is probably one of the best Vets in town - BUT...their front office staff has become unbearable, rude, dispassionate, and very "Stepford Wife-ish." We came to this office when they first opened, many years ago. We have had many pets with them, inclusive of pure bred dogs, to average cats. We've gone through surgeries, spaying, allergies, everything. UNTIL a few years ago, when the upcharges became completely unreasonable! $700 for an annual exam on my cat, who, at the time, was 6 years old! They insisted that we do a "senior panel" and a slew of other lab tests, "just to be sure." And when we began to question the need of these services, we were met with comments that were shaming and guilting. It got to the point where we couldn't walk out of the door without spending EASILY $1000. We finally started shopping around and have found other vets that we have been extremely happy with. Buyer BEWARE! While you are getting a great Vet - you are also dealing with much, much more!

Avoid at all cost, we’re still paying the price for this vet over prescribing and diagnosing. Apart from our own experience needing to constantly politely refuse excess over medication and unnecessary procedure recommendations (my dog had a dewclaw they wanted to surgically remove and a puppy they tried to get us monthly professional teeth cleaning for). I also witnessed them making many owners feel terribly in the waiting room for declining excessive treatments. People who probably were struggling enough with bills being treated like they were awful dog parents. I’m sure some people in the organization have good intentions - but please take warning if you’re anything other than very wealthy and want to be prescribed every surgery and special food and treatment, then you should avoid this place. To clarify why we’re still paying the price, the medical records from my visits have made my insurance not cover several important areas of care since they considered them preexisting conditions. My current vet has not found these to be issues and we’re still working on resolving this - but in the meantime, paying for it.

Dr. Burpee is fantastic. Friendly, realistic, and caring. Been going here for my cats for a decade. I now drive over and hour each way because of the service. 10/10!

Dr B provides excellent service and has always put my animal's needs first. She is not cheap, but that is because she gives high quality care. If your pet is like your family member, that is what you want. Still going to see her even though I moved 30 miles away!

Dr. Burpee is AMAZING. We switched to Dr. B through the referral of a friend. Our previous vet had ZERO experience with pregnant dogs/litters. We had adopted our dog pregnant. We thought she had ticks, and our old vet told us we couldn't use any prevention on her because of her pregnancy. They offered us no solution to getting rid of them before the puppies came. When the puppies came, one of them was involved in an accident with mom, and instead of going to my old vet I went to Dr. B. She noticed something on the puppy, and took a look at it under the microscope. Guess what? THE DOGS HAD LICE! Our old vet didn't even bother to properly diagnose the problem! Dr. B had us use Frontline Plus on the mom (Which is OKAY for pregnant/nursing dogs. If we had just gone to Dr. B in the first place, we would've solved this problem before the puppies came. Now we were battling how to get rid of lice on 2 week old puppies!) Dr. B helped us find a solution to all of our problems regarding the puppies and mom. She is a saint. She also literally saved the lives of my litter. When my puppies fell sick, one of them suddenly passed away (maybe from choking on vomit, maybe from fluids in the lungs, we don't know). That night we hurried them off to ASG - where the emergency vet told us that if we didn't hospitalize our puppies, they would all die because she claimed they had distemper. The vet said we couldn't put them all on antibiotics, and we couldn't administer an IV at home. We called Dr. B's office right when they opened the next day, and they squeezed our puppies in first thing in the morning. Her staff taught me how to IV them, and she put them on antibiotics. Within a couple of days, all of their fevers were gone and they were eating and playing again. Dr. B had us do a test on two of them to be sure it wasn't distemper or parvo (both tested negative). Instead of just giving up on them like the emergency vet, she worked with us to test them and do everything we could to keep them alive and get them better. (Which they are now!) Dr. B even called me to check up on how the puppies were doing, which meant so much to us. She really cares, and when she doesn't have the answer to something, she researches and gets back to you. THIS IS HUGE! It's great to have a vet that says "I don't know, let me find out" versus one that says "I don't know" and offers no solutions. She is so patient, knowledgable, and helpful. Like the other reviews say, they are a little on the expensive side, but she works with you and has NEVER pressured us to spend money we don't have. They have even worked with us on our bills, because 6 puppies is expensive! They are definitely worth it. These gorgeous pups are here today thanks to Dr. B

I have been coming here for six years actually closer to seven years with two dogs. I think people that leave poor reviews based on one experience are really being a bit unfair as are people that talk about price. I was married to a vet for six years and I am aware of the cost of insurance rising medical equipment, rising, and medication and supplies increasing and becoming more expensive. The staff are always helpful and large enough that during very busy periods the wait times are not excessive. Burbank Veterinary Center has an outstanding staff in my opinion. They are very complete in their care and examination procedure. Over this last weekend I called them knowing that they were closed, but they had a referral phone number if needed fortunately, I did not need the number or the service of the emergency room. On Monday morning when they opened, I received a phone call stating that they saw that I had called when they were not in. They asked if there was anything they could do and was everything OK and I told them everything was fine, but thank you very much for the call which was not the expected. In closing, I think their prices are fair based on their large responsive staff, which even when very busy are still responsive. Their facilities, where rents are extremely high, the price for a convenient location for many, are very well maintained. Their human restroom is spotless. Sometimes it’s a good practice to look around at what you are paying for and observe more than just the obvious.

We used to go here for several years, and like others have mentioned, saw a severe downgrade in that time. When we first started seeing this vet, the Google ratings were nearly 5 stars. The decline to 3.1 is consistent with what we noticed over the years as well. Like others mentioned, it’s impossible to get out of this place without being excessively upcharged. Routine visits would turn into $600+ visits every time regardless of what was going on. Our new vet explains our options for treatment and the pros and cons of everything and then has a discussion with us to help make sure we understand what is necessary and what is extra. It’s something I really appreciate that made me realize those conversations never happened here - just someone asking you to approve a bill with a bunch of extra tests for several hundred dollars each time. Adding on extra charges we don’t need like nail trimming (which we would do ourselves) and other non-essential services without calling attention to it. It definitely felt like they had a directive to get every person buying as much as possible. In addition to this, since taking out cat elsewhere, we’ve learned that there were conditions she was living with that this vet never caught in years of going there, despite the very many extra tests and expenses we agreed to. Since switching to a new vet, our cat’s quality of life has drastically improved as we were finally able to get to the bottom of what was going on with her.