My dog died about two hours after Dr. Baxter performed a routine teeth cleaning and extraction on May 23, 2019 at All Creatures Vet Clinic in Charleston, S.C. Dr. Baxter released him to me before he was recovered from anesthesia.
When I raced back to Dr. Baxter with my dog, here is what happened: (1) When I called Dr. Baxter from the car, he told me to "find some emergency vet." (2) When Dr. Baxter performed chest compressions on my dog, he positioned my dog to be lying on his left side, which means his heart was not facing up towards Dr. Baxter's hands -- dogs should be lying on their right side so that the heart can be pressed. (3) Dr. Baxter would not tell me that my dog was actually dead despite me repeatedly asking, "Is my dog dead?", instead leaving that task to my friend who met me and is an M.D. (4) Dr. Baxter told me I "brought him in cold." (5) Dr. Baxter locked me out of the room that he was in with my dog by opening a drawer inside the room to jam the door closed. (6) When I asked Dr. Baxter several times through the closed door to please let me into the room, he said "this is my room" or "this is my hospital." (7) Eventually, after I was allowed in, I asked Dr. Baxter to leave me alone in the room with my dog so that we could have a moment of peace, but Dr. Baxter refused to leave. After several minutes Dr. Baxter left the room, but he then returned and closed the door behind him. (8) Dr. Baxter leaned on the closed door with his arm pressed out against it; when I asked why he was leaning on the door as if he would not leave or as if I could not leave, he moved his hand just a few inches to his left so that his weight was on the door frame instead of the door panel itself. (9) When I was sitting on the floor holding my dead dog and asked Dr. Baxter again to please leave me alone in the room with my friends, he walked over to me, crouched down over me, and said, "I have news for you, this is my hospital, not yours." (10) When Dr. Baxter was done trying to assist my dog, he left the breathing tube in the dog's throat for several minutes and only later removed it when I asked him to. (11) Finally, when my friends and I left All Creatures Vet Hospital with my dead dog, we were encouraged to leave through the back door.
Dr. Baxter is new to All Creatures. All of the positive reviews on Yelp are for Dr. Berger or Dr. Cutler.
