This morning, while I was hanging out with my dog Rigby, she started acting a bit… weird. First, she seemed a bit dazed, and then, when she tried to stand, she couldn’t. Thankfully, after a couple of minutes, she was completely back to normal — but I was obviously worried about what had just happened. That’s when I remembered that I had access to an online service called Pawp and decided to give it a try.
Pawp is a virtual veterinary platform where you can talk to a professional about what’s happening with your pet. According to the site, vets are available 24/7 and your membership includes unlimited on-demand visits. Typically, an annual basic membership to Pawp would cost $99. However, since I have Walmart+ (which itself is covered by my American Express Platinum Card), the service is included.
I’d actually set up a profile for Rigby a while back when I initially signed up, but this was my first time actually talking to a vet. One thing I learned right away is that the Pawp site has very limited functionality, so you’ll really need to use the mobile app to access the service. Once I logged in, I was able to join the queue to speak to someone. This wait lasted only a couple of minutes.
While it seems as though you can FaceTime with a vet, in this instance, we communicated just in text. That said, I was able to share a video I took of Rigby so she could see what was going on. I actually had some issues getting this video to upload at first… but that’s likely because the original was more than 8 minutes long. After I trimmed this down to a more reasonable size, I was able to send it off.
During this conversation, it was quite apparent that I was speaking with a real person and not an AI chatbot. After watching the video, they gave me their initial analysis, asked some follow-up questions, and provided me with some more information about what they thought the issue might be. Of course, they also recommended that I take her to my in-person vet to have them check it out.
After our chat, the vet made a care plan for Rigby that shows up in my dashboard. This just includes some reminders or what to look for and what the problem could possibly be — which will surely be useful when I do take her in on Monday.
So if I have to take Rigby to the vet anyway, was it worth contacting Pawp? In my opinion, absolutely! To be honest, taking Rigby to the vet clinic today wouldn’t be easy since I don’t currently have a car. Nevertheless, if Pawp insisted that I needed to get her seen ASAP, I’d make it happen. However, since they just advised that I do it soon, I could calm down and schedule an appointment for Monday instead. Similarly, I’m sure there are situations where you might talk to a Pawp vet and realize there’s likely not a reason for you to make a visit to the in-person vet after all.
Obviously, this was just a brief initial experience with Pawp, so I’m not exactly prepared to give it my full endorsement. What I will say, though, is that those who have pets and are already Walmart+ members will definitely want to take advantage of this perk and create an account just in case. Personally, I’m quite glad Pawp was around to help me navigate the situation with Rigby this morning and will definitely keep the app around in case I need to call them again in the future.