Happy Birthday to Us!

Hey folks!

Sorry it’s been a little quiet around the blog lately, we’ve been busy! However, November 5th 2019 marked our 1st birthday! One year ago in November we saw our first patient (a very friendly farm dog named Cannon who had the whole place to himself). Since then, Dr. Meghan has completed another 4500 spays and neuters. So, because clearly the next best thing to cute puppy and kitten pictures is dry but well-organized statistics, I figured I’d share a few to celebrate:

The clear conclusion from this chart: Dr. Meghan has spayed a lot of cats this year, and that’s not even including her volunteer work with Madison Cat Project. While we’ve seen a slight increase in dogs over the course of the year, kitten season has really been what kept us busy:

While dogs have roughly doubled (excluding October, which was just a weirdly super busy month) the number of cats we see each month is up 4-5x on average. The end result being that there are always a lot of kittens in the building, which has been great! They’re like puppies, except that they tend to poop less and in a more predictable manner.

Over the last year, we’ve issued 668 certificates for adoption to 55 different rescues, shelters and humane societies who have collectively vetted ~3000 rescued animals through us. Now, while these organizations and pets have come from all over Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, just as a comparison statistic, that number is just under 50% of the gross reported intakes in Dane County for 2018 (7027). For a single surgeon and our first year being open, that’s not half bad! Also, worth noting, the certificates mentioned above are only required for dogs being adopted out by larger rescues, so that statistic pretty seriously underestimates the total number of adoptions we’ve been able to participate in!

But we no longer just have the one vet, Dr. Abby joined us in August and allowed us to open a full-fledged wellness program, which has made a huge difference in the number of more complicated cases we’ve been able to help with. It’s allowed us to start becoming more involved in the community and pet’s lives long term. We’re finally getting to watch some of these rescue pets grow up after they get adopted as they come back for vaccines and check-ups, which has been incredible! Watching little derpy rescue pups turn into big derpy happy dogs with families and yards of their own has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. As of the time of this writing, we’ve had 1173 wellness exams and administered 2057 rabies vaccines. We’ve also run about 566 fecals, which came in almost as many different shapes, consistencies and smells. For instance, the kitten sitting next to me at the moment just produced something that smells like Boston Harbor. Nostalgia comes from the most unexpected sources…

So What’s Next?

We’re planning to take advantage of the winter slowdown (assuming that actually happens at some point) to make some software updates to help better accommodate wellness. We’d ideally like to be able to send out automatic reminders for vaccines and rechecks as they come due and maybe even add in an online portal so you can check your pet’s records, sort of like a MyChart for cats and dogs. Please bear with us while we get all of our records transferred over once that project starts since it’s likely to cause some hiccups in paperwork as everyone gets used to a new system.

We’re also planning to hire on some additional staff in all roles in the Spring to help expand our capacity, reduce wait times, and help cut down on some of the stress during busy periods (drop-off and pick-up primarily), so if anybody knows any CVTs, Veterinarians or Receptionists with a passion for rescues and affordable care, please point them in our direction, we’ll be posting jobs soon! While I don’t think we’re quite up to needing to bring on a second surgeon yet — Meghan still counts for about 3, we could absolutely use another Wellness Veterinarian since that schedule filled up almost immediately! I think in the future we’ll have one vet for the privately owned pets, and one dedicated exclusively to rescue exams, treatments and certificates.

Our last project for the winter, and this one may get pushed back if things stay busy, is to finish setting up our charitable fund to help with community animals and those who could use a little extra assistance so that our donors can get tax credit for helping out. Ideally we’ll be opening a webstore so that people can purchase Precision Vet and Spay/Neuter merchandise (related note: if anybody is friends with Bob Barker, we’d love an introduction!) and all proceeds from that will go towards our spay it forward fund.

All in all it’s been an incredible first year and we really owe that to all of you that have trusted us with the care of your animals for making our clinic possible. Most of our new clients these days have either been referred to us directly by one of you or cited one of your reviews as the reason for their decision. It’s been an amazing opportunity to be part of the community and we couldn’t be more grateful for the support we’ve received. A special thank you to the rescues that took a chance on us when we first opened — you guys are what kept us alive through our first winter and we quite literally would not be here if it weren’t for your faith in us. So sincerely, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you! We look forward to being around and able to continue to see all of you for years to come.

Here’s to another great year!

George