I got really lucky and live in a very community driven town with active animal shelters and several vets. My exotics vet turned out to be 3 blocks away from my job which is about 3 miles from my house

My vet is about an hour away, if we don’t get lost. However, boyfriend has yet to make it there without getting lost and I don’t like to drive (and have a horrid sense of direction, when I get my new car, it’s getting a GPS system) so we always end up taking longer. The one roundabout in the area is involved in getting there and the signs aren’t very visible around it, so it’s kind of like “eeny meeny miney mo” on which street is the right one, unless we can remember by looks rather than name one day. lol

But, he’s been working with rabbits for 25 years and he is comfortable with me asking him for exact details on what he’s doing – he knows I am that person that needs to know everything so he explains to me exactly what he’s doing as he does it and gives me ALL treatment options, even ones he personally won’t do because he feels they are too risky/not worth the side effects. All the other vets in the area “treat rabbits” but got all uppity about me asking them a few questions before I picked a vet. Yeah, you’re telling me to FAST my bunny for surgery, but I am the incorrect one and you don’t want to answer what antibiotics are safe… ok thank you and have a nice day, you won’t be touching my rabbits! Our regular vet recommended a couple of emergency vets as well which are about an hour away, but open on nights/weekends but he says not to use them unless we NEED to since they often do more harm than good with rabbits. He dislikes them so much he actually offered to stay late on a Friday night to see Stickers if anything went wrong with her spay.

25 miles, but it’s 70mph for 80% of the drive

I’m lucky that there’s a “small animals” vet in my village, so it’s only 5 minutes away. I can’t believe some of you have to drive for hours for a vet! I’ve never known a vet in the UK that’s not capable of treating rabbits – I always thought it was standard since they’re a pretty common pet.

Posted By Annabel93 on 10/10/2013 12:27 PM

I’m lucky that there’s a “small animals” vet in my village, so it’s only 5 minutes away. I can’t believe some of you have to drive for hours for a vet! I’ve never known a vet in the UK that’s not capable of treating rabbits – I always thought it was standard since they’re a pretty common pet.

Here rabbits are “exotics” and it’s an extra class (optional) to learn to treat them. A lot of the vets don’t opt in for that one. They get the very basics with the regular training, but given how much different treating a rabbit and treating a dog is, they really need to keep up on the advances and care of the animals to be able to do it properly. It’s also more expensive to hire an exotics trained vet or vet tech, so money can be a factor.

But, they will still claim they know all about them and treat them. Even if they can’t answer a basic care question, or know what antibiotics / medicines will KILL a rabbit if given to them. I called around when I was looking and only one vet admitted ignorance of the animal and refused to treat them. The rest were like “we treat them all the time” … and failed every test of if they actually knew anything about their care. My favorite was the vet that started listing toxic foods as dietary advice and it was all the foods toxic to dogs. Like raisins. So, we have vets claiming expertise that end up giving rabbits frontline and the owner doesn’t realize they can’t trust the vet until their rabbit starts having seizures from it.

I also have a cockatiel and same thing with the vets in town for him. All claim to be great with birds. But, at least there is an Avian Vet Certificate vets can earn so it’s easier to actually find a qualified vet for them. Even though it’s a rare thing for a vet to go for, there is a registry of vets that have it. 

Wow, that’s horrendous! I would hate to put my trust into a vet only then to have something happen to my pet due to their ignorance. Fortunately my vet seems to know exactly what she’s talking about. She’s incredibly gentle with them which is nice to see as I can see how unhappy they are at the vet.

My dogs’ vet is 21 minutes away and the one I’ll be using for the buns is 36 minutes away.

When I lived in CT there was an awesome vet about 45min away, so I went to them.

When I moved to NY, that vet became 1.5 hours away, so I found a new vet, again about 45min away. I really like the new place, since the head vet is thought really highly of in the exotic field. Also, the new vet is someone I went to college with (which I didn’t realize until the first time I went there and she walked into the room), so I trust her to take care of the buns 🙂

It’s much easier for the dog. There are a ton of dog/cat vets near my house, so I picked a nice one about 5min away.

My vet is in the next town, but luckily, still only takes about 15 minutes to get there.

I’m lucky, my vet is just a block away. I don’t even drive there, it’s just a five minute walk with Rufus in his carrier. They also have a vet on staff with a pocket pet surgery qual so that was comforting for when I took him for his neuter. Still, Rufus is not much of a fan of being examined by the vet and puts on quite a display no matter how nice and gentle they are with him.

Mine is about 10 minutes away as long as there is no traffic. It is along my route to work too. They only do birds and exotics. We knew them because they were our chinchilla vet. They are pretty good, but sometimes try to the cheap route first. I suppose that is okay though because I know if I think something isn’t going to work, then I can ask that we do something else. It’s nice that they aren’t trying to charge you a ton of money right off the bat anyway.

Like LPT, my vet is in another town but it’s still only a 15-20 minute drive (all highway).

Dog’s vet is 10 min away… Rabbit’s vet is 100miles/2hrs (if traffic isn’t bad)

Our vet is only 15 minutes away. They board rabbits as well – so that’s where our boys stay, when we go away.The nurses get so happy when we drop off our boys for boarding – and they give our boys an exam room to stay in. And when children come in to the office – they invite them to come see our boys 🙂

That one is the closest, the next few are 2 1/2 hrs-4hrs away… it really sucks. THANKFULLY the one that is the closest is also in Richmond (city I grew up in) so I feel somewhat comfortable driving there. The nearest emergency vet is only about 15 min from the rabbit vet… I just have to cross my fingers and hope to never have any emergencies. lol

I know my situation is a bit different since I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in Asia on this whole forum but… I have a small vet right around the corner (2 minute walking distance) that I take for more routine things like nails and vaccines. I have no idea what her qualifications are since she speaks no English but she’s always done a fine job (took my hedgie there last week) and it’s cheap and convenient.
The vet I used when I got her spayed was about 20~30 minutes away. 4 subway stops and a little walking but the vet spoke some remnants of English and had more knowledge of bunnies than I could have hoped for (not what I would call bunny savvy but better than the norm). That one is also open 24 hours too so if there was some kind of emergency I know I have a place within a reasonable distance that I can take her to.

Sadly, everything is 30-60 minutes away from where I live. And in snow it’s even longer.
I would love to live in town just so I didn’t have to worry as much about getting the pets to their doctors, among other things. Plus I have one exotics vet I trust and one cat/dog vet I trust. As such, the bunnies only get seen once every month to two months unless it’s an emergency because their vet goes to university.