10.10.2026

brochures and signs of broken things….

Going back some 10 years, the veterinarian field was a profession; today it is an industry. I think it started when equity companies had cheap money and debt, and were looking for untapped industries they could make money from. They hit both veterinarian and trade businesses, buying them and changing the structures to make profits. This started at the same time as more and more people elected to not get married and not have kids. We started to get pet dogs and cats, and they became our families. So naturally we were more willing to spend more on their healthcare. And that built the industry of pet healthcare as an industry. An industry does not operate just bring your dog in once a year for their vaccinations. It needs reoccurring earnings and ways to add on to the cost. A Denver based pet care company offers a subscription like model, there is private health insurance policies (many vet offices and even animal shelters offer that, when I adopted my new cat I first had to sit through hard sell to buy a policy). There are more and more medications for pets. Ten years ago for dogs there were maybe 3 options for antibiotics. Today, there are med TV and YouTube commercials for pet meds. Last month when I took my dog to the vet, I walked out with 6 brochures (one for a monthly shot to help with back pain, and the side effects were just as crazy as the meds for people we see at the end of commercials( I expected on side effect to be, may turn into a werewolf) . But the worse part from all that is the lost long term relationship we have with a vet. These days you may see what they call a relief vet, someone who moved between different locations. And that has led to mistakes and because you likely will not see the same relief vet twice. I experienced that when a visit to do a pre e-dental procedure, never scheduled the procedures. They came in, looked for 5 minutes, saying we need labs, etc, and she would schedule that, and then never did. And last, there are more and more cases where the treatment offered, as the best option, is so expensive, that people put the pet to sleep because they can’t afford the cost. I had a case when a equity owned vet office claimed my dog had an aggressive form of cancer in his mouth. They said I had to act quickly, or my dog would die. There were two options. One was a meds only treatment (a few hundred dollars) and surgical one at $25,000. I could only do the med one. The dog cancer vets faced dropped when I said no to option #2. And 2nd independent testing and 3 years later, no cancer to began with. And to make it worse, in a ER visit for an infected tooth, two different ER vets in the equity owned office, walked in going see it is the cancer. I had to ask for a 2nd vet and had to yell at her look at the dog before you assume what the issues. She looked at his mouth for 30 seconds, and said oh he has an infected tooth and walked out. End of visit. So if you go to a vet office expect to walk out with a lot brochures ( maybe even one for a doggie/kitty zen retreat sap, I kid). Pet care is now an industry.