Lake Forest Animal Hospital

In March 2015 my 18yr old Kooiker was at the end of her life. Dr Laberto had treated her for the past 6yrs and was kind enough to come to my house to euthanize her. His caring for her as her health declined was the best! I love that he will discuss the scientific pros and cons of treatment and risk/​benefit. All my dogs and fosters love Dr laberto and his staff.

I became a client of LAKE FOREST ANIMAL HOSPITAL on 12/​13/​2013 when I adopted a kitten (Randy) from a county shelter, and I’m glad I did. Little Randy has become Devon’s best buddy; Devon is my 16-​year-​old cat.
I did a lot of research before choosing Lake Forest; I wanted to make sure that I was comfortable with all of the vets at this hospital in case one decided to leave because a vet that I liked a lot at another hospital moved to North Carolina, and I wasn’t comfortable with the remaining vets. So, that put me in the search mode. My research surfaced a lot of good stuff about Lake Forest Animal Hospital and the Lake Forest vets; so, I gave them a try, and I’m glad I chose Lake Forest.
I wanted an AAHA ACCREDITED hospital/​clinic, and LAKE FOREST ANIMAL HOSPITAL is AAHA ACCREDITED.
I’m an experienced pet owner and have had some bad experiences at some other vet clinics. However, I’m having only good experiences at Lake Forest, and the hospital is a quick drive from my Germantown home. I view Dr. Mark Liberto as ETHICAL, HONEST, and KNOWLEDGEABLE, and he runs this hospital with INTEGRITY. I’m certain that I will be a client of Lake Forest forever. I currently have six pets; so, I’m there often.
I don’t know if Unilocal will put this review in the «not recommended» section, but I’m confident that Unilocal searchers will see it. The 5-​star reviews relating to Lake Forest are not meaningless; they sound real to me.
And a REAL PLUS: LAKE FOREST ANIMAL HOSPITAL is a BRAND NEW RENOVATED, AAHA ACCREDITED HOSPITAL that is now 2.5 times the size it used to be; so, I suspect, the hospital has all up-​to-​date, state-​of-​the-​art stuff.

Very caring vet! I am a huge dog and cat mom and want nothing but the best for my fur babies. With that said, I would never recommend a vet if they weren’t the best for them. I am shocked to see the low ratings here since we never had any issues. Dr. Liberto always hear our concerns, he doesn’t do things that we don’t want and always recommends the best for our babies. I even recommended them to a friend of mine and even they were super happy with the services and care.

The morning I was dropping our dog off, I heard one of the employees explain to another client on the phone that they had found their dog… that was not a good start to our vacation hearing that as we were dropping off ours for the few days… Then when we picked up our dog, she came out with a case of diarrhea (she’s never had diarrhea & she’s a rescue pup). She’s been home now for 2 days & still with diarrhea & blood. When I picked her up from boarding, they automatically asked if I wanted meds & had no idea how extreme her case was… trying to do the bland recommended diet & if this doesn’t clear by early Mon am, I’m calling the L.F.A.H. I would’ve thought they would’ve tested her & made sure she was fine before releasing her especially because they noted she had diarrhea the 2^nd day+. I mean, that’s the main reason why we board her at a Vet. The other reason is because one of my friends boards her two big dogs there & came highly recommended. Not thrilled about the walking area & being on Frederick Ave (very busy road)…Praying our dog’s diarrhea clears up quickly & praying she didn’t catch anything there. Wondering if anyone else had this experience?

Dr. Liberto, Dr. Krueger, and all the staff at Lake Forest Animal Hospital are wonderful. We’ve taken our cats to them for years and have never experienced anything but consistently terrific care. Our older cat especially has suffered from several illnesses (most recently kidney disease), and they’ve kept him going — and happy — for far longer than I could have imagined.
The doctors are really exceptional, and they truly care about their animal patients (as well as their human companions). I would highly recommend Dr. Liberto and Dr. Krueger to anyone.

If I could give this joke of a vet negative stars, I would. Please, if you care at all about your pet — DO NOT TAKE THEM HERE! I wish I knew what I know now, because I absolutely would not have gone.
It’s hard to know where to start in this story. Because I know many people will not read this whole thing let me fast forward to the end — Dr. Liberto’s short sightedness cause my 7 year old cat a great deal of unnecessary PAIN and she ended up DYING four days after seeing him; maybe not because of something he did but, in my opinion, all the signs were screaming at him and he didn’t see any of them.
Let me also say that his partner, Dr. Kruger, is a very good vet in my opinion. However, because Dr. Liberto owns the shop — I don’t think she can make decisions the way she would want to. So, I wouldn’t risk going to this place even if you paid me.
My cat broke two toes from trying to crawl away from the vacuum when my roommate was vacuuming while I was at work. Now because she had a cast I had to keep her in a confined space. If you’ve ever tried to do this with a cat it is NOT easy. Because she absolutely hated being in there and I hadn’t gotten sleep for a solid week and a half I began letting her sleep with me. I never thought she would jump 7ft to the top of the closet, with a cast on. She did and it seems that this fall ended up causing her death.
Bianca (my cat) did NOT like the vet. So, she had to be sedated each time. Here is the laundry list of things that went wrong. The list gets worse as you read on.
(1) HE HELD HER UP OFF THE TABLE BY the nape of her neck and said, «see it doesn’t hurt her.» I’m sorry, YES IT DOES. There is a difference between doing what you need to to treat the animal and showing off. Just because a sedated cat does not whimper from being held in mid air by a handful of skin does NOT mean she is not in pain.
(2) He told me not to talk to her while sedated. That actually, if i was quite it would relax her more. really???
(3) he was way too rough. After she took her fall, Dr. Liberto (unfortunately) was working and because I was worried, I didn’t wait for his partner (the vet I normally saw). It seemed like she had fractured her back leg. She was sedated and they took an X-​ray. From the X-​ray it seemed barely fractured. After he «got a good x-​ray» he insisted on manipulating her leg FIVE times. Each time she moaned through the sedation. Both myself AND his vet assistant commented on him manipulating her too much, this did nothing to stop him. In hindsight I wish I would have physically removed him from the room.
(4) after I took her home from this traumatic experience she was worse. I got worried and called my vet from home (I am only in the DC area for 4 months). My vet from home suggested I get a specialist to look at the x-​ray because there may be nerve damage if she was in this much pain. I asked him to do this — HE NEVER DID even though I asked him 2x!!!
(5) they gave me an incorrect dosage of pain meds. By this I mean too large of a dosage. I had to fight tooth and nail for them to get them to realize this.
(6) I explained to him each of the signs she was exhibiting (instability, vocalizing her pain alot, and HE SAW FOR HIMSELF a broken blood vessel in her eye from her fall). That wasn’t enough for him to pinpoint the problem. He asked me finally, 3 days later after I continued to express my concerns, to send him a video. He only watched the video after I called him several times. Finally, after calling him repeatedly, he told me he was worried she had neurological issues. Translation — issues having to do with the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord, NERVES, and muscles. EXACTLY WHAT MY VET FROM HOME DIAGNOSED OVER THE PHONE AND WHAT I TOLD HIM I WAS CONCERNED ABOUT. She had died by the time I got home from work that day, about 4 hours after speaking with Dr. Liberto.

I was directed to Lake Forest vet hospital when my old vet (Fox Chapel) closed down. I had my records faxed/​transferred and left it at that.
4 months later, I needed to re-​order heartworm pills for my 2 dogs. I ordered online and gave Lake Forest’s number as my vet. 2 days later, I come to find out Lake Forest refuses to let the prescription to be filled.
I called to see what the problem was. They tell me that they won’t let me fill the prescription because I haven’t paid a $ 53 per-​dog examination fee. I said that an examination wasn’t necessary because they already had their annual exams at my old vet and are current on heartworm meds (which they can see from the dogs’ records). They still refused. At this point they put the vet on the phone who literally told me, «You have to have the exams done, that’s why we go to school all those years» or something to that effect. I was livid.
At that point, I decided that I didn’t feel like being extorted so I elected to find a new vet. Once I did, I requested that the new vet contact Lake Forest to obtain my dogs’ medical records. Lake Forest refuses to fax the records because «I have never actually been there». A lovely made-​up reason if I’ve ever heard one.

My dogs and my sisters cats use Lake Forest and we are both very pleased with the service and the prices. It is very easy to get an appointment and the staff is very friendly. I think Dr, Krueger is wonderful. She is very friendly and gentle with the animals. I am so glad that we found Lake Forest because there are so many bad vets out there.