Mobile veterinarian makes his rounds
Mel White steered his mobile animal hospital as it rolled
through Hollister with his veterinary assistant Ann Azevedo in the
passenger seat. Azevedo took phone calls and scheduled upcoming
appoinments as The House Call Vet headed towards their first
patient of the day.
Mobile veterinarian makes his rounds
Mel White steered his mobile animal hospital as it rolled through Hollister with his veterinary assistant Ann Azevedo in the passenger seat. Azevedo took phone calls and scheduled upcoming appoinments as The House Call Vet headed towards their first patient of the day.
“I can pretty much do anything in here that a full-service stationary animal hospital can do,” White said.
A graduate of Colorado State University, White has been a practicing veterinarian in the Central Valley and Bay Area for more than 30 years. While working for other veterinarians and while he owned his own practice, White found an increasing demand for house-call services and a mobile veterinary practice.
“More and more people wanted house calls,”White said.
In May 2006, White purchased a mobile vet unit and began making house calls for pets by himself.
“When I started I was seeing anyone and everyone to get this thing going,” White said.
Now his schedule is full most days. On a recent morning his first stop was for Bo, a playful yellow lab. A couple weeks ago Bo swallowed a golf ball. The x-rays prove it. White was there to remove the stitches that he had sewn when he removed the golf ball from Bo’s insides on an earlier visit. The mobile vet unit pulled right up to the driveway, Bo hopped up onto the table, the stitches were clipped off and Bo ran right back into the yard as though he didn’t realize he had been to the vet.
“I’ve taken tons of things out of animals, from G.I. Joes, Christmas toys and now a golf ball,” White said.
When business started to pick up, White decided it wasn’t safe for him to be driving, talking on the phone and attempting to schedule appoinments. He hired Azevedo, a veterinary assistant he had helped train at a previous place of employment.
“When he left the animal hospital, I left with him,” Azevedo said.
Sheila DeLuca’s house was the second stop for the vet. Her little poodle mix Rosie just had a litter of puppies and was due to be spayed. White pulled into the driveway where DeLuca and Rosie stepped into the mobile hospital. The basic check-up began with a look at her weight, teeth, temperature and heart rate. When the examination finished DeLuca stepped out of the unit and back into her home. For the next 40 minutes, White and Azevedo prepped Rosie for surgery, performed a routine spaying procedure and then when Rosie came to from the anesthesia she was back in the comfort of her own home. Sheila came out of the house to carry Rosie back in herself.
“He is the kindest doctor,” DeLuca said.
The mobile animal hospital is a tight space with a small, fully-equipped operating room in the back of the vehicle, an examination table in the middle, a small refrigirator and a small generator powering all the equipment. It also has four pet crates and loads of medical supplies stored up high in cabinets.
“We really have to work around each other,” Azevedo said.
The third stop during the day was for a Chesapeake Bay Retreiver named Beau who had a rotting tooth that was causing him trouble. Kit Russell, Beau’s owner, has called White for his services before.
“One phone call and they know who I am and they show up on time,” Russell said.
It was another simple procedure.
“We’ve been seeing Beau since he was a puppy,” Azevedo said.
Along side Russell and Beau were Art Liebhardt and his dog Ol’ Buddy who were there for a few routine shots. As White waited for the anesthesia to kick in on Beau, he gave Ol’ Buddy his vaccinations.
“Buddy, you’re set for another 1,000 miles,” White said.
To make an appointment, call 262-0253 or visit TheHouseCallVet.net.
Services include Wellness Exams, ID Microchipping, Immunizations, Blood Pressure Checks, X-Rays, Dentistry, Surgery, At-Home Euthanasia, and Pet Health Insuranc. The House Call Vet services the towns of Hollister, Paicines, Tres Pinos, San Juan Bautista, Salinas, Aromas and Prunedale.
