PAWS is a full service American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) accredited veterinary clinic located in Indian Head, Maryland. We offer routine services, such as vaccines, spay/neuter, and annual check-ups, as well as emergency/critical care, advanced soft-tissue and orthopedic surgery with progressive pain management, and palliative end-of-life care.  
​Now open seven days a week! 8am until 7pm.

A Message from PAWS about changes due to COVID-19

Dear Valued Clients,
As I am sure you are all aware the spread of COVID-19 is causing massive disruptions across our nation ranging from forced closing of the schools, panic and shortages at the supermarket, and an influx of patients to our hospitals. Due to the nature of Veterinary Medicine the options for tele-work and complete social distancing is very limited for our staff. 
At this time PAWS will REMAIN OPEN for our normal hours.
The AVMA has recently made several suggestions for veterinary hospitals to minimize the risk to staff and clients, ration remaining PPE (gloves, masks, surgery gowns, etc), and to remain open and servicing our clients for as long as possible.
These recommendations include temporarily suspending scheduling of all routine and non-emergency surgery, immediately discontinuing physical contact with clients (handshakes, hugs, etc), replacing owners? leashes with disposable or cleanable leashes, minimizing staff-on-hand, and minimizing client-client interaction.
To adhere to these recommendations and maximize our effort to keep our clients and staff healthy PAWS will be taking aggressive steps over the coming weeks. My goal is that we remain open and able to treat your loved ones without interruption, but this means that our staff must stay healthy enough to safely come to work.
These changes include:
1)      If you are ill, especially with flu-like symptoms please attempt to arrange alternate transport for your pets to the clinic.
2)      We are temporarily closing our lobby to clients except on a case-by-case basis.
3)      We are temporarily delaying all elective and non-emergency surgery.
4)      The new protocol for appointments will be as follows:
           a.       Please park in the provided parking spaces and leave a space between cars when available
           b.       A staff member will come to your car and bring your pet into the hospital
           c.       We will then contact you via Skype, Facetime, or phone to obtain a history, discuss the physical exam, and discuss                                       recommendations for treatment
           d.       Once complete our team members will take credit card or CareCredit information over the phone for check-out (we are                             requesting that all cash and check transactions be discontinued)
           e.       A staff member will then return your pet, medications, and receipt to your car  
I understand that this is going to be difficult and the situation will continue to be evolving.  We appreciate your understanding and flexibility.
As a final note, I would like to reiterate that there is no indications that COVID-19 affects pets in any way. Please don't hesitate to call if you have any further questions or concerns.
Derek Parkin, DVM