The American Animal Hospital Association is an organization that accredits veterinary practices and also provides training. This blog post is to share our story and suggest a bit of caution to animal owners, especially those who are diabetic which is our situation. Molly, our 10 year old Golden Retriever was diagnosed a few months prior to this writing, in May 2026. After losing trust in some local veterinary practices I went on my own journey of self-education and what I learned was infuriating. I was not angry at the AAHA but it does play a role here and I want other pet owners to be educated because I had a very difficult time obtaining answers.
The Journey
When I started the journey one of the resources I gathered was by joining Facebook Groups for support. There are many with this focus, one of the larger groups is called Canine Diabetes Support and Information, or CDSI for short. Read on before you join that group, my experience has been less than stellar with the members and admins. Across the groups I learned a few things and kept them in mind while continuing to research. One of the things I noticed was that many of the group admins boast they are AAHA educated and trained. Some of the comments I have read from admins were that, “Not all vets are AAHA certified.” when it came to dealing with bad information.
One of the practices we left due to issues was AAHA accredited and after finding that out, I had questions. The primary vet that retired may have been certified or not, I don’t know but he was the best physician I’ve ever worked with and I have worked with several hundred human doctors (dogs are better than humans anyway). The two remaining vets in the practice created a very bad situation for us and the problems continued when the two vets gave us conflicting information and also told us things that conflicted with the hospital that kept Molly overnight. I contacted the AAHA to ask which vets in that practice were certified and the response I received was long-winded and vague, not answering my question. I then changed my question to be very simple and asked, “To be accredited, is there any specific training required of the vets in a practice?” I probably exchange 10-12 emails and Facebook Messages with the AAHA before they provided an answer–No, they are not.
Facebook Group
When I was unable to get answers directly from the AAHA, I visited the aforementioned CDSI Group and posted my question there. The next day, my post was gone, having been deleted by the admins. I posted again and specifically stated that my post had been removed. The first couple replies were from an admin basically saying, “Google is your friend” with a couple links that provided no answer so I let them know I still had no answer. The admin then asked, “Why not ask your vet?” Keep in mind, this is a group who’s admins brag they are AAHA educated and promote AAHA and honestly, they were not nice about it. In fact, after several back and forth replies, someone finally answered my question and the following day the AAHA finally responded with the answer I suspected. If a practice is AAHA accredited, it has nothing to with the knowledge of the vets or employees in the practice.
I was taken aback by some of the responses as some of them acted defensive and were basically attacking me for asking such a question. Honestly, I believe they may be veterinarians because the Karen-level was in full force as far as how they were responding. I asked a simple yes or no question that resulted in 10-12 emails and direct messages, in addition to many comments questioning why I was even asking and acting like I was an idiot. The real issues with their replies started when I explained my reason for asking so that’s another reason I believe they are veterinarians. Here is a link to my post and I’ll include screenshots below. In my opinion, there might be useful information in this group and others, but do your research and don’t engage any more than you have to because “Karen” will come after you for questioning anything. Then the admin turned off comments because their own members cannot control themselves and get emotional over a simple yes or no question.
