palmer

We will be closed on Thursday, November 24th for Thanksgiving Day.  We will reopen for regular business hours on Friday, November 25th at 8AM.    Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

An update on our new phone system:   It has taken a little time to get things changed over, but we are finally totally switched over to our new phone system.   Hopefully there will be little change as far as our clients are concerned because it is programmed much the same way our old system has been for many years.   There may be more times where clients need to leave a voice mail message for our staff to call you back.   On the positive side there should be very few times where you get a busy signal, and no times where our phone service suddenly shuts down because of problems with phone wires.   There is sure to be a learning curve with the new system, so please be patient as we continue to strive to serve our clients and patients well.   There will be no messages on hold initially but we hope to have those in place before the holidays.

We will be upgrading our phone system on Friday, November 11th.   This is being done in a manner to minimize the effects on our clients, but there may be a (hopefully short) time where we are unable to answer calls.   If you call on Friday and cannot reach us, please try again a little bit later, or you can send us an email at info@palmeranimalhospital.net .    It may also take a little time to get all of our messages setup so you may not initially hear all of our usual information.   Early on Friday, our internet access will be affected as well, but again we are trying to minimize this effect.

We will be closed on Monday, September 5th, 2022 in observance of the Labor Day Holiday.   We will re-open for regular business hours on Tuesday, September 6th at 8:00AM.    If you have an emergency which cannot wait, please contact one of the following local animal emergency services:

Crossroads Animal Referral and Emergency (CARE) —1080 W. Patrick St, Frederick     301-662-2273

Mountain View Animal Emergency  —- 13810 Crayton Blvd, Hagerstown    301-733-7339

VETURGENCY —- 434 Prospect Blvd., Frederick 301-288-8387 (VETS)  (Open 6PM-12AM Daily)

Examples of emergencies that should not wait:

• Trauma cases— hit by car, fight wounds, falls, broken legs, hemorrhage/bleeding
• Eye trauma/painful eyes/squinting
• Persistent Vomiting or Diarrhea, especially if your pet appears weak or distressed
• Difficulty Breathing, Severe/persistent coughing
• Male cats or dogs straining but unable to urinate
• Toxin ingestion —rat poison, antifreeze, grapes/raisins, human medications, Xylitol
• Seizures, sudden behavior changes, inability to walk

As an update to our post on Feb 28th, we are announcing that due to the much lowered COVID rates in Frederick County, we are eliminating the mask requirement to enter our building.   Hopefully the rates will stay down and this will be long-term change.   The following COVID protocols remain in place:

–Clients will once again have the option of accompanying their pets into our office for their pet’s appointment.    When you arrive at the office, call into the front desk and our staff will let you know when to enter the building and which exam room you will take your pet directly to.  If you do not wish to accompany your pet, our staff will come out to bring your pet in for their appointment.

— Please respect our staff by properly wearing your mask and maintaining social distancing.    This involves remaining behind the blue lines on the floor in our exam rooms and waiting room.   We need room to provide care for your pet, so please give us that room.

–All medication and food pick-ups will remain curbside.   Please call ahead to orders the medication/food that you need.   When you arrive at the office, call in to the front desk staff and they will bring your medication/food to you and check you out at your car.

—Please keep in mind that our appointment schedule is still limited by the number of patients/clients we can safety get into/out of our office in a certain day.   All of our staff our working their hardest to provide the best care that we can for all of our patients.  We will continue to see as many patients as possible, but there are times when we cannot fit more patients into our schedule.

We look forward to things returning to “normal”, but that will still take some time.  Until then, we hope everyone stays safe and healthy.