A coworker gave me a kitten (I had 3 other cats at the time) and I called my fancy vet to schedule a neuter. The receptionist insisted that he had to be vaxxed for the neuter. I was polite but clearly frustrated and ended up telling her I would take him to another vet. She finally relented and then said that it's not expensive. They are an extremely expensive vet 45 mins away from me (without traffic), if cost was an issue I wouldn't be going there. The vet later called me and said he'd make an exception.

I had my little boy neutered and have never gone back. I found a vet 5 minutes away when a stray showed up and needed neutering. She gave me no trouble. Didn't ask about vaccines, didn't force me to mask and didn't wear one herself while doing the exam, and even asked me about my other four cats. She now has my 5 cats as patients because she made sense and didn't argue with me and was willing to discuss things rather than demand.

She had me bring my barfer in and actually diagnosed her with something treatable, prescibed a med. She even went line by line over the bloodwork when I asked and not with annoyance. The cat who threw up multiple times a day is now down to once or twice a week. My expensive vet said there was nothing to be done after xrays and refused to do bloodwork on her. (Either inflammatory bowel disease or a slow moving intestinal cancer - both are treated the same, at least at first and she said the biopsy is painful so let's not do that since the treatments start the same).

If a vet ever pushes vaccines on my pets, I know they are crap after that experience. My vet that I loved told me never to vaccinate, but I had to move and could no longer see her.