Community is one of our Company Values

It has come to our attention that someone is publicly saying that we do not work with charity groups.  Ironically, this person knows this not to be true.  There is the old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished” and this might be evidence of it.  We had worked closely with a rescue group on her pet’s behalf for quite some time.  With our help, her poodle was able to get thousands of dollars of veterinary care and treatment at no cost to her.  The rescue, who was made aware of these libelous comments by the same person who alerted us, has contacted us and apologized for the actions and words of this individual.  They expressed their desire to maintain our good ongoing relationship for the benefit of other pets.

Community is one of our seven company values.  The importance of it is taught to every new trainee and reiterated throughout our culture.  Our hospital is proud to be part of the Kissimmee/Poinciana community.  Our team and doctor live here.  This is OUR community.  When the community suffers, we suffer.  When the community prospers, we prosper.  Our clients and patients are our neighbors.  Serving our patients is more than just getting a good return for some faceless shareholders.  It’s about advocating for our community’s pets.  We are proud to provide AAHA-Accredited medicine: the highest standard of care in the United States for our patients. 

Our team has donated hundreds of hours of their time to help deserving animals.  We’ve donated tens of thousands of dollars of products to rescues, shelters, and charity groups.  Our team has worked with community groups and HOAs to ensure that disease doesn’t spread in our dog parks.  We take car loads of supplies and diet to shelters every few months.  We’ve gone to schools to help educate about pets, the industry, and how one can help pets themselves.  Our team has given tours of the hospital and been pet-related merit badge counselors for many local Scout groups.  We’ve hosted and educated dozens of interns to ensure that members of our community can learn and access good-paying jobs in the pet industry.  We have ongoing relationships with Animal Behavior College, Southern Technical College, Tuskegee University, University of Florida, Valencia College, and others to help our community’s students.  We also work with a variety of national groups such as Waggle.org to help our patients raise critical funds.  I can only imagine how many people are out there who can speak about how our team has helped them and/or their pet!

Dr. Young frequently gives FREE presentations in communities, schools, and to groups about pet first aid, preparing for hurricanes with pets, holiday hazards, living with pets in Florida, and other topics.  These are based on the needs we witness on a daily basis here.  Our goal with these talks is to prevent the need for us to see your pet – to save your pet from suffering and to save you money!  They aren’t about selling services or items.  We want you to spend your money keeping your pet happy and healthy – not on sick care!  Some of these are also available on our website and social media.  If your group would like to schedule one of these talks, please reach out!

Some of our most popular community efforts are our dog park checks.  We regularly go and inspect local dog parks for dangers.  We report any issues to the proper HOA for correction.  Thanks in part to our efforts, many of the issues we find are corrected before pets are lost or injured!  We also collect grocery bags full of fecal samples.  Yes, it is very gross.  Our team processes these samples in our lab looking for potential parasites and other issues present.  All of this information is published free for all on our website for the public good.  Our goal is to make sure our community has safe spaces for our pets to safely play!

Recently, we’ve begun donating to the Not One More Vet foundation (nomv.org) to help provide resources and support for others in the industry that face these sorts of baseless attacks, disgusting behavior, and cyberbullying.  Recent studies indicate that the rates of suicide among veterinary professionals is as much as 5 times higher than the general population.  This makes veterinary medicine one of the worst industries for mental health and suicide!  Now, whenever we terminate our relationship with a client, we make a donation in that client’s name to NOMV.  Hopefully, this will help these individuals’ future vets while supporting our team.  We are also in the process of replacing our existing recovery collars for pets with new ones from a company that donates 100% of profits to NOMV.  Keep an eye out for these adorable, heart covered collars that support an excellent cause!

Finally, our hospital works with the Veterinary Care Foundation to provide funds for local rescues, deserving pets, and other needs through our philanthropic, non-for-profit Angel Fund.  Our team set this 501(c)3 up out of their love for animals.  The same men and women that help your pets are the ones who felt the need to start this charity, fund this charity, and maintain the operations.  The hospital itself provides the bookkeeping and covers the annual maintenance costs to maintain the group’s 501(c)3 status as a non-for-profit.  This allows the fund to use EVERY penny raised to help pets in our community.  The team established that if a group received a grant, then they should also receive volunteer hours!  Through this fund, our team has been able to provide thousands of dollars in care and grants, as well as, hundreds of hours of service to the community and its pets.  We hope to have more fund-raising events for our Angel Fund once COVID is behind us!

In speaking of these activities with someone who asked about the false allegation, they asked us why we don’t spend more time shouting all of this from the roof.  They suggested that people should know how much we do for the community.  I explained that we don’t do this as part of our marketing or for the pats on the back.  The resources we dedicate to helping our community isn’t part of our marketing budget.  These efforts are done because we care about our industry, our community, and its pets.  We do these things because it is right thing to do.  It’s literally one of our values.  It’s a shame when doing the right thing is punished.