Request an appointment at any hour.
Our online booking runs through Shepherd, the same system that holds your pet's records. You can request a visit whenever it suits you, including late at night when the worry tends to arrive.
If your pet is in crisis, or you think today may be the day, please phone instead. Online requests are answered in the order they arrive and may not be seen immediately. A phone call reaches Dr. Atkinson-Spinks directly, and some conversations should not wait for an inbox.
Good to book online
- Quality of life consultations
- Hospice and palliative follow-up visits
- Acupuncture and laser therapy sessions
- Recheck appointments for an existing patient
- Planning conversations, with no decision attached
Better to phone
- In-home euthanasia, at any stage of deciding
- Anything urgent, or a sudden change today
- A pet who is painful, breathless or will not settle
- When you are not sure what you need
What you will need
- Your pet's name, species, age and rough weight
- Your address, and a note if there are stairs or access difficulties
- What is going on, in as much or as little detail as you like
- Any diagnosis and the medications they are currently taking
- The name of your regular veterinary clinic
If you do not have all of it, send the request anyway. We will fill in the gaps together.
Have records already? Email them to records@heartvet.ca and Dr. Atkinson-Spinks will have read them before she arrives. A photograph of a printed page is fine.
What happens next
A request is not a confirmed appointment. Dr. Atkinson-Spinks reviews each one herself and comes back to you to agree a time, usually the same day.
Because H.E.A.R.T. is a single-veterinarian mobile practice covering a long stretch of island, appointment times depend on where else she is that day. We will always tell you the full cost before the visit is confirmed, so nothing is a surprise.
More than a booking form.
Shepherd also gives you a portal for your own animal. Once you are a client you can look back at visit records, request prescription refills, and find vaccination certificates without having to phone and ask.
It is the same system we work in, so what you see is what we see. There is no separate set of notes.
Prefer to talk to a person?
You will not be put through a call center. The phone is answered by Dr. Atkinson-Spinks, and if she is with a family she will call you back. Leave your name, your pet's name and a number.