by L.A. Craig

The Central Animal Hospital sits at the corner of D and Second streets in Petaluma, caddy-corner from the neighborhood firehouse. The property is partially bordered by an Anchor-Hocking fence, behind which men work on a remodel job to allow maximum efficiency of the clinic’s 3,200 square feet.

A logo on the facility’s front promises “quality care for family pets.” Inside, veterinarian Matt Carter and his staff of 15, including another vet, work their tails off to bring those words to life.

Carter, a native of Los Alamitos, received his DVM from U.C. Davis in 1995 and bought the practice in 2002. He’s there when the place opens at 8:30 a.m. Closing time is 5:30 p.m., but he’s likely to be returning phone calls, updating records or doing lab work until 8:00 or so.

“We do have a reference lab we use, but if I want the results today I use our equipment, Carter says. “We have the same kind of chemistry analyzer used by NASA on the Space Shuttle.”

“We close for two hours on Thursdays for a weekly staff meeting to keep everybody on the same page,” he says. “We do an hour of training and discuss issues for the week. We do some boarding of animals. We also care for some rodents, some rabbits. No humans stay here overnight.”

The clinic is busy, busy, busy. While nobody moves with great urgency, which could adversely affect the animals, there is an incessant front-door ding-dong and the constantly-ringing phone is broadcast over the intercom, also frequently used for in-house communication. “We have to block off time for surgeries,” Carter says. “We refer cases to other clinics if need be.”

Bedside manner

Carter’s first patient of the day is Sally, a four or five-year-old Lab mix who was a rescued, and presumably reformed, runaway. She's frisky and friendly despite the lameness she suffers in a rear leg since swimming in a local creek.

There’s contradiction at work in Carter’s bedside manner. He coaxes with his voice, repeatedly intones “good dog,” and his hands are gentle but clearly demanding as he positions the dog and probes the problem area.

He remembers the first and only time he was bitten. “It was my fault,” he says. “I hadn’t properly tried to avoid a dangerous situation. You can’t run a business if you’re getting injured all the time, so a possible danger is the first thing I look at when I walk in there. Most animals will tell you how they’re feeling. If there’s any potential for a problem, I have to sedate them.”

After his initial diagnosis of a torn ligament, a brief rundown of options, and the “how much will it cost?” talk, Carter breaks out a show-and-tell sort of book to illustrate the necessary procedure to Sally’s owner.

Ultimately, Sally will need the services of a specialist, so Carter offers to package up the x-rays and provides the proper referral materials, a vaccination to protect Sally from kennel cough, and a CD for home viewing of what the actual surgery will entail.

“This might have been a second opinion so I try to be up front with people,” Carter explains. “I’ve been down that road and I know that things cost a lot nowadays and there’s no way to really soften the blow for people. You can divorce yourself from the cost, but it’s hard to divorce yourself from peoples’ feelings.”

Some people will laugh at the idea of spending large amounts of money on an animal, he says, but others will do anything they can to help their pets. Many clinics subscribe to credit plans to make paying easier.

Yes, there are other options

Of course, Carter is quick to point out that to his patients’ owners that the most expensive option is often neither necessary nor prudent. “If the cost isn’t feasible, there are always options,” he says. “I have to be up front about what’s available these days. There’s no end to the stuff we can do. There’s more all the time, like radiation treatments, chemo, kidney transplants. At Davis they’re doing brain surgery on animals every day of the week.

“The hardest thing is helping people to decide what to do. We only consider euthanasia if a pet’s quality of life isn’t any good. That’s always hard on the owners and it’s hard on the staff, too. Also, I don’t want to get sued because I didn’t tell somebody all their options.”

Next up for Carter is a beautiful seven-year-old male Rottweiler named Dakota, a regular patient and former blood donor who is in for a teeth cleaning and to have few suspicious-feeling skin masses sampled for off-the-premises biopsy. Dakota is friendly and obedient but hyper and must be injected with morphine to mellow way down before the knock-out anesthesia is administered.

Meanwhile, two clinicians struggle with a large and uncooperative dog they are trying to x-ray, and Carter jumps in to assist his assistants. Eventually, the dog’s fear is overcome long enough to get the job done, but just barely. “A lot of dogs get scared when you put them on their backs,” the vet says. “It’s understandable.”

In another examination room a pair of longhaired Persian tabby cats, Tango and Taffy, wait to get checked out. They are ranch-dwelling partners in crime and Taffy, it turns out, has a slight wound that might be infected. The treatment is topical cream.

In a small operating room, Dakota is ready for the anesthesia that will put out his proverbial lights. Staffers insert an IV catheter into his foreleg and start a drip that will keep his blood pressure stable.

Lights Out

After he oversees the examination of the dog’s teeth and shaving of the troublesome growths, Carter gets ready to wash up and don his green operating scrubs. The work on Dakota will take about two hours total. then there will be more pets to examine until closing time.

As the vet makes his way to the washroom, an assistant from the front office approaches with a request for him to perform an autopsy and do a toxicology report on a dog and cat who belonged to the same owner and had mysteriously died a short time apart. He agrees, on the condition that the clients understand that there are no guarantees on results.

“It’s hard to pin-point what my best day has been here,” Carter says, ducking in to change. “Every day has its own challenges. Just being able to help people is the main reward. It’s a privilege.”