Bush Veterinary Neurology Service - Rockville Rockville, Virginia

Professional, kind, extremely knowledgeable. If you think your dog might be having a neurological issue, Bush is THE place in the DC area to go. They have several VA locations as well.

Our dog at 3 years old starting scraping his rear toes when walking. Dr. Barker said he looked good on exam. I requested a MRI. The MRI was completed. I was told he has degenerative disc disease but she wasn’t sure that was the cause. She suggested vitamins and did not respond to my follow up email. I then took our dog to our regular vet. We did a trial of Gabapenten- no scraping when he walks.

I had to wait longer than I had hoped for an appointment but was advised that if an emergency occurred before the appointment, I could bring my pet to the hospital. That was reassuring. Staff was patient and understanding.

I've only needed the BVNS services during the pandemic, and therefore, I've never had the opportunity to visit the inside of the facility, or meet in person the neurosurgeos, the technicians or the staff. Grateful to have this much needed Rockville facility. Dr Barker performed surgery on our family pup Luna, 9 year young, runt of the litter pit bull. Luna is a nervous, skittish, introverted, timid, stoic pup. Dr Barker recognized Luna's personality, nature, characteristics and accommodated her accordingly. Dr Barker successfully performed an emergency surgery on Luna's ruptured disc. Luna slowly but steadily has been regaining the mobility in her hind legs. The only shortcoming of this facility is that it's open Monday thru Thursday, and a neurosurgeon is not available for a night, weekend or holiday emergency surgery. I suppose a case of supply and demand ... a shortage of demand in MC perhaps. Luna had ruptured her disc on Memorial Day. In the DC metro area, no veterinary neurosurgeon was available for an emergency surgery. Had Luna had an emergency surgery within 12 hours of her injury, the recovery would've been full and fast. By the time Luna had her surgery the following day, her spinal cord had been compressed for about 30 hours. If I could change anything about the veterinary neurology in the DC metro area, it would be the availability of neurosurgeons on nights, weekends and holidays for emergency surgeries. Besides being a superb neurosurgeon, Dr Barker is personable, caring, compassionate, active listener, patient in answering questions. With Dr Barker, Luna has been in good hands. The BVNS technicians and the staff have been very caring and good with Luna. They all seem to be animal lovers in general. If you happen to be in need of veterinary neurologist services, BVNS is a good place. Best wishes to you and your beloved family pets

Our bulldog has a very bad infection in his TECA tracts, which worked it's way into his brain. It is a very unusual and complicated situation that will require ongoing treatment. So far it has required 2 MRI's to look at the problem. We are very grateful that Dr. Bush, Dr. Thomas, Anna & Maddie worked as a team to address the serious and complicated condition of our bulldog. We recognize how hard they have worked to put together the information they had and come up with a Plan A and also a Plan B in case Plan A doesn't work. We are all hopeful that Plan A will work and Carson will be on his long road to healing. We are also grateful that the staff at Bush recognized the seriousness of Carson's situation and were able to get us in to their office quickly. Thank you so much for taking on his case. I would very much recommend Bush Neurology, their staff from the receptionist to the lead Doctor are very knowledgeable, professional, compassionate and friendly.

In Nov 2020, my dog lost function in his hind legs. I suspected hip dysplasia and took him to his vet. After a hip X-ray, the vet suggested the issue may be neurological. She gave us three options for neurologists - one of them was BVNS. We made our first visit to BVNS in Jan 2021. My dog was evaluated by Dr. Barker and given an MRI of his lower back. He was placed on Prednisone and Gabapentin, and told to rest over the next few months. I was informed that if he did not recover enough with meds, surgery may be required. Two months later, my dog improved partially, but plateaued. Surgery was scheduled for a few weeks out. A second MRI was performed, and the surgery was aborted. They didn’t see anything that needed to be fixed, so we were sent home while my dog’s MRI was reviewed again. This is when the level of care drastically deteriorated. I started a GoFundMe page to help lessen the blow of rapidly mounting vet bills and surgery. The shelter I adopted my dog from phoned in a $1000 payment to be applied to my account. BVNS lost this payment. They have acknowledged its receipt, and followed it up by saying they don’t know what happened or where it was applied. It will not be going toward my dog’s care. After the March visit, the staff at BVNS have tried multiple medicines to see what might help. Some were less than $100/month, and one was $800/month. Dr. Barker suggested doing an MRI of the upper back/shoulder/neck area and enlisted the help of another neurologist. We made an appointment for June 2021 so Dr. Bush could perform an evaluation. At the June appointment, I brought Dr. Barker’s desire to do an MRI of the neck/shoulders. Dr. Bush said no, saying he thought the neck “looked fine.” He suggested my dog start PT for a strained inner leg muscle, but also acknowledged that “whatever’s going on with his back” needed to be determined. No further imaging was suggested to determine “whatever’s going on with his back.” My dog had been experiencing urinary and fecal incontinence (since the March appointment). Dr. Bush said it was not a known side effect of the medication that my dog was on, mentioned he could perform a urinalysis by drawing urine directly from the bladder, then didn’t. A few weeks later, I took my dog to a normal vet check up and insisted an X-ray be performed on his bladder. The vet saw an enlarged prostate. We were recommended an emergency vet for an ultrasound and possible biopsy for cancer. The vet said there would have been an enlarged prostate shown on the January or March MRIs and suggested I call Dr. Barker to determine when the prostate issue occurred and how likely it was to be cancer. Dr. Barker responded to us quickly with an interpretation of the January MRI, saying my dog’s prostate looked fine there. She mentioned it would be a few days to get the March MRI from the Leesburg location. Despite calling twice and pleading for a callback, it has been about three weeks and still nothing. This follows a similar trend, where even when I’ve been asked to touch base on treatment, return calls take three weeks or more. My dog’s regular vet is aware of our ongoing tribulations with BVNS and strongly suggests I take my dog to a new neurologist. After talking to the emergency vet and informing him of the struggles we’ve experienced, he agrees. I know how caring and dedicated vets are to perform the work they do, and I respect that endlessly. But we’re now over 6 months from my dog’s first appointment, with no real treatment plan, the Billing Department lost money, I can’t get a return call to save my life (or my dog’s,), and there has been zero initiative to treat my dog. I am following the suggestion of the normal and emergency vets, and taking my dog elsewhere. Somewhere his treatment may actually produce results, not just debt, stress, and a suffering dog.

Dr Bush and team gave realistic expectations and recommendations for Shorty's diagnosis. After findings from MRI and based on his overall demeanor, still recommended conservative treatment and did not push for surgery since pain medication made the ivdd manageable. Very happy with communication and outcome thus far Explanation of initial findings and avenues of potential treatments that included realistic pros and cons to help in decision making was transparent and thorough

After a stroke, our cat, Marie can walk today - thanks to Bush Vet Neurological Service and special thanks to Dr Baker and Ms Ricky.

Dr. Barker listened to all of my concerns and patiently pointed me to the best next diagnostic step. She offered a very thorough assessment and treatment plan that helped my guy. I did not feel like she was "over testing" my dog. He was very well taken care of by the techs and I could tell he was in good hands even though I could not go back with him due to COVID protocol. Bush has an impressively thorough and caring, compassionate vet and tech staff.

I greatly appreciated the candid nature with which my pet's attempts at a diagnosis was handled. While no diagnosis was able to be found for my pet's hip issue, I appreciated the level of genuine care that went into the attempt.

It’s one of the hardest things when your fur baby isn’t feeling well, but Dr. Barker has approached each step with so much kindness as well as her expert knowledge. I feel less anxious knowing I am informed on my pup’s condition and that we have Dr. Barker and her team in our corner. Thank you to Dr. Barker and each staff member who has made this experience a little more bearable. We appreciate each of you so, so much.

Dr. Lamy and Dr. Barker are incredible! Dr. Lamy is the one that spoke with me on the phone to keep us updated on our dog Copper and she was so incredibly kind, positive, patient, and thorough in her explanations. Even though we couldn't go in with Copper, I felt that he was getting the best care possible. Copper is like a child to me, and it was so hard to leave him somewhere without me but it helped so much to know that he was safe and well cared for. They were prompt at fitting him in and getting diagnostics ran. Also, given the circumstances and what all he needed, I felt that BVNS was fair on prices for their services. Overall, I am 100% happy with the care and service we received for Copper! Thank you all so much!

Great place..very knowledgeable and helpful..got my dog back on track after a scary incident.

This is a long overdue review, but late last year our dog (who with anxiety issues is not an easy patient) was in debilitating pain with an apparent neck injury. BVNS, Dr. Cuff, and team were able to expertly diagnose and treat through surgery the underlying problem. And they treated our dog with compassion and care, even if he wasn't very happy about it! Since then our dog made a rapid recovery - almost completely back to his old self, and we cannot express thanks enough to everyone at BVNS, Dr. Cuff, and the team for making that happen!

About 2 weeks ago our 4 year old Australian shepherd was having cluster seizures. After a night at an emergency vet we took him to BVNS. Dr. Bush listened to us, worked with us, and was very professional. Sadly our puppy did not make it but most of the staff was wonderful. Today I received flowers from them after already receiving a very thoughtful card where all the staff wrote a heartfelt comment.

They saved my two year old cat. They are very responsive, professional and compassionate.

We brought our border collie here based on out vet's recommendation for a neck/spinal issue. The doctors/techs were very professional and understanding when explaining the issue and possible solutions to us.

We have been very pleased with the care our dog has received at Bush Veterinary Neurology. Dr. Cuff and the rest of the staff are very professional, caring and competent. We rest assured that our pup is getting high quality care!

Great specialist for dogs with spinal problems.

Pricey but cutting edge health care for dogs.

I was nervous to make the appointment, because we don’t have pet insurance and because I was afraid the costs would be overwhelming. I’m happy to say that, in our case, the costs were minimal and our pet is fully recovered. My puppy, Chase, had been limping on and off for several months, with different limbs being affected each time. Although Chase was seen by three different primary care vets, one radiologist (who took a complete set of x-rays), and one orthopedic specialist, no one had any idea what was going on. They referred me to a neurologist, since they thought Chase might be having muscle coordination issues due to swelling in his brain. In the meantime, Chase’s condition was slowly getting worse. Dr Dan Cuff carefully examined Chase and disgnosed him with poly-mediated arthritis, which was easily tested with oral steroids. No expensive tests were necessary, and Chase was better within days. I wish we had visited Bush earlier. Thank you, Dr Cuff, for helping our puppy!

BVNS was able to get us an emergency appointment when our 13 year old dachshund went down and was suffering from full paralysis in all 4 legs. Dr. Lipitz was able to perform surgery that day, staying late to take care of our little one, and called us at 9pm when surgery was done to let us know how Chloe was doing. Chloe woke up the next day with the ability to use all four legs and go potty on her own. We are now a few months post-op and Chloe has recovered fully, is walking again, and is better than ever. She just celebrated her 14th birthday!!! We can't thank the team at BVNS enough for saving Chloe's life.

I cannot say enough good things about Bush Neurology in Rockville, MD. About a month after adopting a 1 year old Bernese/Aussie mix named Finn, he began having seizures. After they 1st episode, his situation quickly got worse and our normal vet recommended Bush to us. I showed up with Finn to our appointment in a near panic because I was so terrified of him being fatally ill. Dr. Lipitz was able to explain all my options to me and calmed me down. After running some tests, she diagnosed Finn with genetic epilepsy and has been an amazing guide during this time. It's been about 5 months and we've been able to work together to control his seizures. She's always great about answering my questions and encourages me to update her on his progress. The veterinary assistants and other staff are also incredibly friendly and knowledgeable. I adore this place.

Dr. Lipitz and Vet Tech Ali are absolutely amazing. I have to give credit to the whole BVNS team too (I only met Dr. Lipitz and Ali). My 12 year old mini dachshund Rudy needed surgery. I thought he was never going to be the same since age was not on his side. They not only saved Rudy but saved apart of me as a result. You can tell that they truly want to make a difference. At each post opp appointment even the receptionists (who see every dog that walks through the doors) remembered Rudy. That was very comforting in that he wasn't just a patient number. I have recommended BUSH to family, friends and even clients. Thank you BVNS!!!