Why did you end up opening a clinic in Oak Cliff?
We operated that clinic in East Dallas for several years, and honestly, we planned to buy a building to move that office to because we were having some issues with our landlord. And as we started looking at properties in East Dallas, somehow we really kind of zeroed in on Oak Cliff as being a really underserved area, as far as just preventative animal veterinary care in general. As we kept trying to look in East Dallas, we kept coming back to this just dearth of resources in West Dallas. And so that’s kind of what happened with the Oak Cliff office. Then we found the land, we bought the building and we opened it. And it was kind of funny because once it was open, we both were like, “Well, wait, we still have the original problem.” And we finally did buy a building in East Dallas and opened an office over there. By then, it was kind of 11 years from the first one. But Oak Cliff was never on our radar, except for the fact that it was impossible to look at a map of Dallas and see the little pins where all the veterinary clinics were, and there was just an absolute missing section of the city. And even a lot of the clinics that were over there, like the Vet Stop and Hampton Road and things like that, they were either not taking new patients or on the verge of retiring.
I know you give back and do volunteer services. tell me more about that.
I’m really big on just access to care in general, and that’s kind of the term that we use in the industry about trying to make sure that underserved areas have the care that they need.
So giving back is a big part of what you do — how fulfilling is it for you to be able to help others and help animals?
It’s the whole point of doing it. We can all get a paycheck doing so many things, and so I think everybody has to kind of figure out what fills their heart. And for me, being of service to people, to help them provide for their pets, is what fuels me and fills me. Especially with my surgery patients, I tend to give my personal number to all of my clients that have surgery with me, so that I’m on call for them basically 24 hours a day if their pet has a complication after surgery. But for me, that’s actually the part that I get the most out of, is the connection with the person and then working collaboratively to see that pet get to a better place, whatever that may be, but that’s actually what gets me the most satisfaction of what I’m doing.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.