Jackie Saleep: Pioneering Mobile Veterinary Care - From Egypt to Wesley Chapel, Navigating Family, Pets, and the Heartbeat of Home-Based Veterinary Therapy

Ever wondered how a mobile veterinary service can make a world of difference for you and your furry friends? Today's episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brings you an enlightening conversation with Jackie Saleep, the owner and veterinarian of Good Karma Veterinary Therapy. Jackie reveals the incredible benefits of conducting pet appointments in various locations, reducing anxiety for pets and enhancing convenience for owners. Discover how Jackie's practice serves the Wesley Chapel and East Pasco areas, with occasional trips to Sarasota, and hear about the seamless business partnership she shares with her husband, balancing their unique styles in veterinary care.

What’s it like to start fresh in a new country with three young children and a house full of pets? Jackie takes us on her journey from Egypt to Miami, finally finding a family-friendly haven in Wesley Chapel. She shares candid stories about the challenges of uprooting her family, juggling a dynamic household with three kids, three cats, and two Italian greyhounds, and even rescuing a retired racing greyhound during a Mardi Gras trip. Get a glimpse into the lively Salup household, where career, family, and pet ownership coexist in a bustling, heartwarming symphony.

The episode also tackles the often-overlooked challenges in veterinary medicine, from combating burnout to navigating the emotional terrain of end-of-life care for pets. Jackie opens up about the pressures vets face and the misconceptions surrounding mobile veterinary services. Learn about the unique value of personalized, home-based care and how it enhances the bond between vets and pet owners. Plus, hear intriguing comparisons between pet care in the U.S. and Egypt, covering everything from pet insurance to international travel with pets. This episode is a must-listen for pet owners and animal lovers seeking a deeper understanding of the veterinary world.

We are mobile veterinarians providing veterinary services in Wesley Chapel and the surrounding areas. We perform wellness exams, vaccines, acupuncture, laser therapy, euthanasia and more! We are by appointment only and we do not perform dentals or surgeries. In case of emergency, please visit your local ER for immediate assistance.

(813)291-3570
goodkarmaveterinarytherapy@gmail.com
https://goodkarmaveterinarytherapy.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Sedita.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Hello and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, mike Sedita. Today we are joined by the owner, slash veterinarian, of Good Karma Veterinary Therapy, jackie Salup. Jackie, how are you doing today?

Speaker 3: 0:23

I'm doing good. How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 0:25

I am doing excellent. It is finally going to get some rain here in Tampa, so it's a good day to actually be on a podcast and learn a little bit about what you guys do. And, from what I understand, what you guys do is you're stuck being out in the weather and out and doing your your thing. So let me, before we jump into what you know good karma veterinary therapy is, let me tell you a little bit about what the Good Neighbor podcast is.

Speaker 2: 0:49

During 2020 and COVID, when everybody had to be socially distant, we couldn't get in front of people. The Good Neighbor podcast was started as a way for business owners like you to be able to get your message out to the community, to create awareness about what you do and get some understanding without having to be out face to face with people and doing networking, networking things and events like that. And over the last four now years it's been four years since COVID we have good neighbor podcasts all over the country. I'm lucky that I'm here in Tampa and I get to talk to folks like you. So, first and foremost, tell us what is Good Karma Veterinary Therapy? What do you guys do?

Speaker 3: 1:26

So Good. Karma Veterinary Therapy. We are a mobile veterinary service where we do not have a clinic. We come to you. We do all of our appointments inside the house or backyard, wherever you feel more comfortable. We've done them inside bedrooms, on top of people's beds, in closets, bathrooms, cats like bathrooms, so we kind of tailor it to whatever makes a pet less anxious, the owner less anxious, and you know it's very convenient. You don't have to drive to a clinic or wait hours and hours. Your appointment time with us is your appointment time.

Speaker 2: 1:55

So from us, from. I mean I know you don't have a clinic, but where are you guys? I mean, you're going to give me your home address, but where are you guys based out of in Tampa? Are you like Wesley Chapel? Are you in town? Where do you guys reside?

Speaker 3: 2:07

We are in Wesley Chapel. We do travel to Wesley Chapel, new Tampa, zephyr Hills, dade City, tampa. We've gone on occasion as far as Sarasota. We don't get a lot of calls there anymore. You know we try to stay as local as possible, but we've getting a lot more local calls.

Speaker 2: 2:22

So kind of that East Pasco Hillsboro like a long I-75 type corridor there. Yeah, nobody likes to go to Pinellas County. I mean, I lived in Pinellas County for a while. It's like a bad dream. We all try to stay away from those bridges, so you guys generally won't go over that far. It's just too much.

Speaker 3: 2:40

I mean, we will make the exception if we have to, but we try to stay as local as possible. We're chappy, so we want to help the community as much as possible.

Speaker 2: 2:48

That's awesome and that's kind of the Good Neighbor podcast. We're based out of Pasco. Pasco County is a big important thing to us. We're involved in the Wesley Chapel Rotary and a whole bunch of stuff around the area, so we love hearing about good stuff for Wesley Chapel and the surrounding area. Tell us a little bit about your background. Your husband is also a partner in the business, I'm assuming, based on the fact that you're doing the podcast, one of you is the majority partner and one of you is kind of like the silent partner.

Speaker 3: 3:14

Or is it truly 50-50 and he just said I'll take care of the stuff around the house and you go ahead and do the podcast. Well, officially it's 50-50, but it applies to the business. Happy wife, happy life.

Speaker 2: 3:25

Yeah, that's not applying to the business, that's applying to breathing for every man out there Happy wife, happy life. Okay, so it is a 50-50 partnership. Do you guys both go out? Do you generally go out together or do you divide and conquer?

Speaker 3: 3:38

If they're lucky enough they can get both of us. We have all the kids occupied and someone's watching them. We try get both of us. If we have all the kids occupied and you know someone or someone's watching them, you know we try to, especially with a new client, if we're both available we will come out. Um, usually it's just one of us. We have different styles of medicine, you know um, but you know they. I think everyone's pretty happy with him or me or both of us. You know a lot of our clients. They'll have me and then him, but I've never had someone say we prefer one over the other, they either they've been very nice.

Speaker 2: 4:04

So when you say different styles, I mean, are we talking bedside manner with patients? I mean, what is the different style? Are you softer and more coddling? And is he kind of like give me that mouth, Let me get this pill in there?

Speaker 3: 4:16

He's very thorough, he's. He puts the medicine first. He's very great with the people. Though I'm a little bit talkative, you know I like to sit on the floor, pet your dog and give it lots and lots of treats and things like that. But you know, for me the most important thing is that you're comfortable. You know I don't want to force anyone to be examined. That doesn't feel comfortable. You know we want to make sure that. You know we address that before to begin with. But yeah, that's what I've been told by our technicians that we're very different styles. But you know both, we're both kind of compliment each other, I would say.

Speaker 2: 4:45

So you bring up a great point. There's a couple of things that logistically I mean, I know, if I go to the vet I'm like I have a bulldog. My minimum vet visit is like $250 is like the entry point, it's like just to get behind the velvet rope is like that. But there's reception, there is a tech that usually helps the vet, there's all these different things. How do you guys manage that? Does it? Is there a tech always with one of you to help you when you're on the job, and that's the two of you together?

Speaker 3: 5:15

As of now, it's just one of us at a time, unless we both go to the appointments. We like to keep it as personal as possible. Having a tech is wonderful. They're great, they, you know they, they're like your right hand, they do everything to help you out, and but I, we've gotten used to working alone right now. But as the business is growing, we're thinking about hiring maybe somebody later on down the line, but for now you just, you just get one of us or both of us right now. So it's it's a very, you know kind of a private appointment. There's not people coming in and out and lots of hustling and bustling outside of the door, like and then, how about?

Speaker 2: 5:44

how about stuff like, um, I mean, I'm assuming you have like, well, I don't know, I, I'm, I'm. This is all very, very new to me. I've, I've seen mobile grooming, you know grooming vans that have every tool and utensil in that van, like weighing them, weighing the dog, and like how do you, how do you do the logistics of all that stuff? Do you bring a scale in with you? Do you, um, have like a, like a, like a visiting doctor bag, like I'm thinking of the old, like marcus, well, be like a black bag that you walked in with what, what is like a type of equipment do you have to bring with you on a visit to do the thorough exam?

Speaker 3: 6:20

um, that that's a good question. It gets a little bit. You know, we do have to kind of we're kind of nomadic. We have a lot of stuff in the car. We got the minivan. You know, we do bring a scale, we bring a stethoscope, we bring thermometer, we do acupuncture, we have lasers, we bring vaccines, we can do euthanasias as well. The only things that we don't do we don't do radiographs, x-rays, we don't do surgeries. We're just not equipped to do surgeries inside the house and we don't do dentals, because that does require anesthesia.

Speaker 2: 6:46

So in those instances where you have that, do you have partner vets that you work with like or like referral vets? Or do you just say to somebody hey look, you know, it looks like Norman is going to need to have his teeth cleaned. You know you might want to get him in to see an oral vet type of deal. Or do you have those relationships built?

Speaker 3: 7:06

Oh, yes, we definitely. So we are unable to see emergencies as well, since we are by appointment only. So if we kind of we talk to the owner, we feel that this is something that has to be seen very urgently, probably within an hour or that day. We can't see them, we send them to an ER, we ask them to go to their nearest ER. We recommend veterinary emergency group. They're very, you know, we had a lot of good feedback with them. Also, we do have some relationships with several clinics in the area that we recommend if they need a full service, if they need a surgery, like some people will say, oh, I need to have my dog neutered and we weren't able to do that right now in the home, so went out and got a puppy during COVID. So a lot of the clinics, you know they're not fully staffed and there's a lot of, there's tons of clients. There's not enough veterinarians to go around to see everybody, so people do get booked out very far in advance.

Speaker 2: 7:53

So, yeah, I mean, I do have, I have, I did get a puppy during COVID that my ex-wife has that puppy. But yeah, a lot of people did that. And the funny thing is, side note to all of this, it's a weird dynamic and I started to see it with a couple people I know who got puppies during COVID. Those puppies have like separation anxiety because they were so around their owner when COVID hit everybody was on top of each other in the house when people went back to work at least that's what happened with that dog, and I know other people have said the same thing like the dog just was so attached to the one person that they were around during covid.

Speaker 2: 8:32

Um, do you find that I mean I'm well, let me go back up in your experience. I mean I'm assuming you started in a clinic, you went to vet school and you started at a clinic, what, what's a little bit of that background, how you got to that. And then how do you decide to like, do you meet your husband at vet school? Do you guys meet while you're working at a job? Is there like a random veterinary singles website that you guys found each other on? How does all that stuff work and you decide that, hey look, this is a better way for us to vet.

Speaker 3: 9:01

Yeah, so my husband is originally from Egypt and we did meet when I was in vet school. It's a bit of a love story actually.

Speaker 2: 9:06

He wasn't your professor, was he? Oh, no, no.

Speaker 3: 9:15

All right, just checking, just checking. So I was in the middle of my vet school years and I was able to do an elective overseas and I actually went to school in Australia, so you could do overseas. I obviously wanted to do some work in the United States but there was a trip going to South Africa and I was like, oh, that's so cool, let's sign up. So I told my friend, hey, let's sign up, so she signs up. And then I was like, oh yeah, I'll do it later. And then I signed up later in the week and they said, sorry, there's no spots available. And I said, wait what?

Speaker 3: 9:45

Your friend went to South Africa the year after and they happened to have a little clinic in Egypt and they said I was like, you know, I might as well, it's only an eight hour flight away right, might as well do both. So I went to the placement in South Africa and then I ended up at the clinic where he happened to be working. It was actually his last week working there. So if I had gone to the trip with my friend the year before, we wouldn't have never crossed paths.

Speaker 2: 10:07

Totally different story. Yeah, absolutely Sliding door.

Speaker 3: 10:10

So we just, you know, we hit it off. We kept in touch and he opened his own clinic in Egypt and I was able to go there later on in my vet school career, do some placements there. And then, you know, we fell in love, got engaged and we talked about it. We were like, we know, when we get married, what are we going to do? Where are we going to live? Because he had the clinic and I said, you know, I want to raise a family in the United States, let's move there. And he's like we're starting from scratch. I said, I know, and you know, we had our child. We moved to Wesley Chapel, we were living down in Miami.

Speaker 2: 10:45

I said friendly. So that's how we ended up here. And then we were telling me Miami is not family friendly. I'm shocked by that. So when you come from, when you guys come from Egypt, the first landing spot is Miami. And then you were there and just said, you know this, just once the baby came, this isn't family enough for us. So did you get started in Miami, or were you guys working in a clinic in Miami and then kind of started it fresh here, or did you start fresh?

Speaker 3: 11:06

in Tampa. And then, um we? When I found out I was having a baby, I was like we need a house. So I was like where are we going to live, let's? We looked in Tampa. I'm like Wesley chapel. I've never heard of that place, but we'll give it a go. I'm glad we did.

Speaker 2: 11:28

This is back in 2020.

Speaker 3: 11:29

You know, we're very happy here and we've built a really great life here and the community is great, the business is going great.

Speaker 2: 11:32

Um, we're just I don't know. Just, I think it worked out. It was meant to be. So how many kids do you guys have? We have three, three, oh my gosh. So so when you moved here in 2020, you had one, and now you have three. Yes, oh, you guys are busy. How do you have time to vet?

Speaker 3: 11:41

you don't have any time to vet well, we stop being no I time to vet. No, I'm just kidding, we stopped sleeping.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Yeah, no sleep. Um, so so you have three children under five? Yes, all right. So do you have pets? I'm assuming you don't have pets, or how do you manage? Okay, so let's go down the laundry list here. Three kids under five. What kind of animals are in this house?

Speaker 3: 12:04

We have three cats. We have Bika, who's 16. She had her quince last year. I have it on Instagram. Very cool, we've got Luna.

Speaker 1: 12:12

Did she get dressed up for her quinceañera?

Speaker 3: 12:14

She wasn't as into it. She liked the cat treats, but we had cupcakes for ourselves. We enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: 12:28

Cats are very aloof. They don't really get into parties now, but with a dog you might be all excited. Cats are probably like oh quinceanera, you bore me.

Speaker 3: 12:31

I don't want to have to sit here through this whole party. So she's 16 and the other cats, luna's 11. She has, she's a tripod. She's missing her back left leg.

Speaker 2: 12:37

And then we have and there's no problem getting around, I'm sure because they adapt and jump up on the bed.

Speaker 3: 12:42

she. She can steal food, she can run, she can do everything. And the baby. Yes, we have a black panther. He's a black cat. We adopted him last October. He's the baby. And we have two Italian greyhounds, zico and Fabio. They're three and two Like full-size greyhounds. No Italians, they're little. Okay, yeah, the cats beat them up, so they know their place.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Yeah, and greyhounds. I mean I know the adult size greyhounds. While they're trained to run, they generally are pretty lazy around the house. So the Italian greyhounds the same way.

Speaker 3: 13:17

It's a miniature version. They're couch potatoes all day long.

Speaker 2: 13:18

They go out into the yard and then they, you know, they're marathon runners. So funny story is, um 1996, I lived in Atlanta I go with a bunch of buddies to New Orleans for Mardi Gras Very, very G-rated trip. But on the way back we are driving through Alabama or Mississippi, coming back from New Orleans, and we see this dog in the median of the highway. Turns out it's a greyhound. Turns out it was abandoned by its owner because it could no longer race, it had lost the thrill, or whatever owner, because it could no longer race, it had lost the thrill or whatever you call it, the desired race. And we ended up getting it into our van, bringing it home and my buddy's mom ended up keeping it for the rest of its life. It lived its best life the rest of its time.

Speaker 2: 13:58

But that's how I learned that Greyhounds are just kind of like bumps on a layer, as bad as my bulldogdog, like literally just want to lay around and couch potato. Um, but that's a pretty full zoo that you have there with not not saying the kids I'm not referring to the kids, but the animals. Um, do you find and this is kind of the question I wanted to ask about internationally versus domestic here in the us. Pets here in the United States is like a multi-billion dollar entity. I mean between breeders and pet rescue and toys and food and all these different things. Is there the same level of pet appreciation in Egypt that there is here?

Speaker 3: 14:39

I think we're on another level.

Speaker 2: 14:41

Here right Okay.

Speaker 3: 14:42

We have our dogs. We know everything you could think of there. You know they. We treat them like people sometimes well, I will tell you.

Speaker 2: 14:50

It's funny, is so Norman? Norman's part of my brand. He's in all my publications, he's on my podcast, he's all of that stuff. My girlfriend kind of gave me a hard time because I said, well, you know, norman, like we opened the medicine cabinet which is above the refrigerator it's Norman's medicine cabinet. He has his allergy medicine, he has his wipes for his face, his wipes for his ears, he has his cream for his paw pads to soften his paw pads, his cream for his wrinkles, like his coconut oil for his food. Like, he has more stuff and more health and wellness things. And he has pet insurance. Like I'll tell you, I don't know what I would have done.

Speaker 2: 15:32

Norman got pneumonia in March of 2020. And you know, the most expensive, you know like emergency bed around is like Blue Pearl. We had one in Atlanta. It's very expensive but they're readily available all the time. Um, he was in a hyperbaric chamber for seven days. My vet bill was thirteen thousand dollars and thankfully I had pet insurance that paid the majority of it. So, yeah, I mean, from a business standpoint, deciding not only to raise a family in the us and wesley chapel and all that, but from a business standpoint, probably a smarter business decision to set up shop here than in Egypt, right?

Speaker 3: 16:15

We did really well in Egypt. Actually, we lived on the coast and it was a very international state. It was Hurghada. There was a lot of people coming in from Germany, Russia, different countries, and we did a lot of pet passports for them and things like that. So you wouldn't believe the amount of people that travel with their pets overseas.

Speaker 2: 16:28

Explain to me what's a pet passport, giving it a bill of health to be able to travel.

Speaker 3: 16:32

Much like yeah, the proof of rabies, proof of vaccination, you know their health records, things like that, because some countries don't have rabies and things like that. They're very strict about coming back and forth and some people were on holiday there.

Speaker 2: 16:47

They were living part time in Egypt, on the coast and the beach. There is beautiful. So yeah, is there similar quarantine? Like I know, every country has different quarantine. Things like that was part of the reason. At one point I potentially had a job in Europe that I could have taken. This is in a past life and I didn't want to quarantine my dog for 90 days. I didn't want to do that. Um, the passport doesn't alleviate that right.

Speaker 3: 17:06

Oh no, I especially like. I was in Australia where I studied and there you saw the whole interview with Johnny Depp and he brought his dog over there. What happened? They're very, very strict. They don't have rabies there, so you can be quarantined for up to six months and you'd have to do that. It'd be very expensive. So if you don't have your paperwork and your health certificates and things in order, yeah it's, it's going to be a problem.

Speaker 2: 17:26

So when you were a little girl, I mean did you always love pets? Like, were you finding birds on the street and nursing them back to help? I mean, did you always have this, this bug for wanting to do this as a at an early age?

Speaker 3: 17:38

Oh yeah, my, my, um, my crib. They said they would wake up and they'd find all the cats in my crib and they were my best friends and every picture of me is holding it. I had there's a picture of me soaking wet at the beach and I'm holding a cat. I just found a cat at the beach. I don't remember the moment, but I found it in the album. I was like, when did this happen? But I'm like, yeah, that seems like me.

Speaker 2: 17:57

So so now you and your husband have three kids and five animals and all this other stuff and 11 chickens.

Speaker 3: 18:04

I was about to mention.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Oh wait, what 11 chickens? 11 chickens. Okay, so you live in Wesley Chapel, but you probably live a little either northeast, towards Zephyrhills, because Wesley Chapel, in the Wiregrass area, it's tough to just have chickens or like where in Wesley Chapel can you have 11 chickens? I do live in an HOA, okay, so we, we probably don't want to give out that HOA name specifically because we don't, you know, we don't want to bring anything up there. But, like your, your neighbors want, like do you bribe your neighbors with fresh eggs? Like how do you get them to not get upset that your chickens going off?

Speaker 3: 18:43

they have to know that we have chickens, but we don't have any roosters, so they're a bit quieter.

Speaker 2: 18:47

Okay, now is the purpose of the chickens? Is it for having eggs to have? Is that part of the reason why you do it?

Speaker 3: 18:57

A bit and they're pretty friendly. They come up and we feed them leftovers and things and they'll jump right up to you and let you pet them.

Speaker 2: 19:02

Wait a minute. Wait a and things and they'll jump right up to you and let you wait a minute. Wait a minute. You feed them leftovers. So is it like bread, like what? Like you're not feeding them?

Speaker 3: 19:09

no, they eat their regular too, but they'll, they'll eat anything.

Speaker 2: 19:11

They don't have many taste buds, so oh my god, you just throw it out there.

Speaker 3: 19:15

They're like garbage disposals in the yard yeah, they love pasta and they actually love chicken too oh my god, that's cannibal.

Speaker 2: 19:22

What are you doing? Didn't you see social network? You're feeding chickens to chickens. So let me ask you do you guys have the opportunity to do anything for fun, Like I mean, do you just take the kids to main event? I mean, they're too little to go to main events. What do you guys do to have a break? Do you have a babysitter that you can trust to leave with the farm and the kids?

Speaker 3: 19:45

to have a break? Do you have a babysitter that you can trust to leave with the farm and the kids? Oh well, if we do have free time, we do carve out family time. That's very, very important. That's kind of one of the reasons we started the business. So you know we don't work on Saturdays. We that's family time. Family day in the evening the phones are off. You know, that's family time. The kids love to be in anything that's water, especially with this temperature outside right now. My middle daughter she's obsessed with horses, so we do go to a lot of ranches and things. My youngest son he loves cats, dogs, he loves reptiles. So he sees a dog or cat, he kisses it on the head because he sees me doing that. It's really cute.

Speaker 2: 20:15

So it's likely that one or more of them might go into the family business. Is that kind of the vibe and the feel at this point?

Speaker 3: 20:23

Hopefully, you know. If they want to, I would definitely love to mentor them. You know it's it's hard if you go into veterinary medicine and a lot of my colleagues you know they're in clinics now and they're burning out. They're just being forced to see dozens and dozens and dozens of patients and kind of. I don't know if you've been to a clinic and they come in they open the door, their foot's out the door and they're like, okay, is everything? Okay? Good, good, thank you, bye, cause they're just like oh, you've got to see more people, you're not going to get out of here on time. And you know there's a lot of corporates buying veterinary practices now. A lot, yeah, have the medical background. They don't know.

Speaker 2: 21:08

And then just as poor doctors working themselves to death and they're using I think it's the doctors, not the doctors you know the management, they, they, they put a lot of pressure on the doctor. So I mean, that's, that's medicine. Even human medicine in general is a lot of that. I mean, I, you know I'm not going to give the names of the veterinarians, but they are right in your neck of the woods but, um, one of them, my ex-wife, brought her dog, who was a bulldog, who was about to be 14, had brought the dog there previously and you know she's getting older, she's 14, like she's beyond the home stretch of life expectancy of a bulldog, and it was kind of like rubber stamping through and then, when we brought her back to you know, put her down because she was really at the end of life, to make the decision to put her down. Um, you know, all of a sudden at the end now they're like well, you could try this and you could try that, and it just felt very disingenuous because it felt like you had the opportunity six months ago to offer these things, to try to help the dog, and you didn't offer them six months ago. But now, when we're about to put this dog to sleep, who's a patient of yours, who, frankly, the longer this dog is alive, the more likely that dog is going to be in your clinic because you're our vet or her vet. Now, all of a sudden there were all these remedies and things that could be done, but it had gotten past that point, so that felt a little, you know, that kind of felt grimy.

Speaker 2: 22:16

As far as the vet service, I'm fortunate the vet that I do use and you know, look, bulldogs are a different breed use, um, and if you know, look, bulldogs are a different breed if you, if you find a vet that you're comfortable with with a bulldog because I've brought and I've had bulldogs for over 20 years, um, and some people just some vets just aren't necessarily trained on the short brachialis dogs like pugs and frenchies and english um, but when you find one that that does know the breed, it's great. But I'm lucky that the vet that I and again, I'm not going to give that name either, but she is a one-person shop and there is value, like I love what you guys do because there is a whole thing. It's like bringing the dog to the groomer or bringing the dog to the vet, or like I won't board my dog, like there's beautiful boarding facilities, like one of them is right on Mars Bridge Road, there's one up in Wesley Chapel. I don't want to bring my dog to a boarding facility because I want him in his home environment. I don't want him out of that environment.

Speaker 2: 23:15

So what you guys do is a tremendous value of that one-to-one connection. Is there plans for the business? I mean, I know you said about bringing on a tech, but is the plan to keep it smaller? Is the plan to eventually grow it to where you can bring other vets on who want this similar technology work-life?

Speaker 3: 23:34

balance. Well, for now it's just me and my husband, but I mean in the future, who knows, we might, we could, we might scale the business in the future. We'll see how it goes, but it's, it's been a hit so far and people really enjoy having us come over and get to know them and their house and their pets. You know, it's more personal.

Speaker 2: 23:52

And then what is kind of one of the like you run into people with a misconception or like a misunderstanding about what you guys do. Like you, people kind of expect you to bring an x-ray machine and when you don't have it, are they upset, Like what's some of the things you have to kind of educate people why, this is a little bit. This isn't like your, your father's veterinarian service. This is a new, a new thing.

Speaker 3: 24:13

Um, they've been pretty good about that. They've been pretty, you know. They know that we're not equipped to bring an x-ray machine into the the house or do surgery within the house. Um, sometimes we get calls for people wanting us to come to cut nails only cut nails. I said you know we're a veterinary service, I'd probably be better off with a groomer or you know a technician helping you when they can. You know, because you know we do charge a fee, we do charge for our time. Um, and that's another um, kind of what you were telling me about what happened with your dog, that they were kind of giving you options, that your dog was 14 and senior.

Speaker 3: 24:42

It's tricky because some owners they're ready to say goodbye and some want to do everything possible, like down to, you know, the last test to see if there's something that can be done, and it's hard as a doctor to navigate that. You're like do I give this person the option of end-of-life care? Do I tell them that there's this option? Because what people think is kind of a misconception the doctor's not judging you. If it's time to say goodbye and you're saying, hey, I don't want to spend $25,000 on tests that might not give us an answer. That's totally fine. That's not unreasonable.

Speaker 3: 25:13

We're here to give you suggestions and it's up to the owner. We can't make the owner do anything. We, our job is to say hey, this is, you know, what we recommend is what's best for you. But ultimately it's the owner who decides what to do. But I've had people calling me in tears and saying oh, I don't know what to do, my dog just can't walk anymore. And do I do this, do I do that? And I say hey, there comes a point where, so if you want to say, you know I'm, I'm here to help you. I'm not here to make you feel bad or judge you Right.

Speaker 2: 25:43

I think that specific scenario that we're talking about it wasn't so much that I mean we have.

Speaker 2: 25:48

You know, when you own a bulldog, I see it's funny thing is having bulldogs. There's a ton of bulldogs that are in rescues because and I've been doing this now it's since 2003 was when I got my first bulldog. So it's been over 20 years and I get people that get offended from me because people will say to me oh my God, you know, bulldogs are so expensive. And I've actually said to people and offended people and said look, if you can't afford to buy a bulldog, you most likely can't afford to own that bulldog, because the cost of having a bulldog between the vet and the special food and the allergy medication and all the stuff I just said about Norman's little medicine cabinet it gets expensive. At one point we had four of them and the reality is it's not about the. That particular scenario wasn't about the expense. It's not about the. That particular scenario wasn't about the expense. It's not necessarily the expense, it's the, the timing in which the options were made available. Those options could have very easily been made available six months sooner, a year sooner, because the hard part with a bulldog like and again. Probably same thing with the italian greyhound, with a lab or a chihuahua that is very active, you can almost see their. You could see the change in their, their functionality, right like you can. I had a German shepherd. I could see when she hit the point where she was slowing down. You just knew it. She moved different, she acted different.

Speaker 2: 27:13

With a bulldog it's really hard to tell when they're because they all they do is sleep and eat and go to the bathroom. So the seven minutes a day that Norman plays, it's really hard to tell when they're, because all they do is sleep and eat and go to the bathroom. So the seven minutes a day that Norman plays, it's hard to really gauge that. They're on that downslide. And we've been lucky. I mean, my first one lived to be 11. My second one lived to be 11. Third one lived to be almost 14. Norman will be eight here soon. So they've all been pretty pretty well taken care of and maintained. But so it's not a matter of making I. I get what you're saying. You're not judging.

Speaker 2: 27:45

It wasn't a matter of the judgment. It was more like once, as an owner, once you get to that decision where you don't want to see your animal suffer anymore to be to try to be. It was more like a sales pitch at the end there, where it wasn't like you know, hey, this is your option. It was just. It wasn't. The scenario in that particular scenario wasn't great. But the other part that you're kind of talking about, that is end of life scenarios. That's got to be, I would think, a big part of what you guys do. A lot of people want to. If they're going to euthanize their pet, don't want to bring them to a clinic, they want them to do it in their home. Do you guys do that where you do euthanasia and then actually help with the disposal of the pet and all that?

Speaker 3: 28:31

Yeah, we absolutely do. We come in and we help with end of life care and a lot of times people are looking for answers because they're like is it time? I'm not sure. I don't want to prolong some suffering or anything. You know that's hurting them and you know they want that reassurance. That's very important to them.

Speaker 3: 28:45

But sometimes we have to bring it up and that's a difficult conversation when someone that's not on their, you know, not on their mind and say, hey, you know there's not to help them. There's no right or wrong answers Like is it time? I mean, it's hard, but I've seen other doctors, veterinarians do that. They don't know. Is this a good time to put my cat to sleep? My dog is. Is my dog suffering? You know you kind of need a, you know a neutral person to say, hey, you know, this is what I think, this is what I would do if I could make that decision in your shoes, because that's a hard place to be.

Speaker 2: 29:19

Yeah, I think, yeah, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, I think as a pet owner and we already established here in this country pets are like part of your family. If you're not like, if you're going to take on a pet, it's for life, that's your pet. But that decision to put a pet to sleep, people do want that Like hey, look, in my experience as a professional vet, seeing your animal at this stage, is there stuff we could do? Probably yes, but we always went by like quality of life Is quality of life diminished? And it was always hard with a bulldog because quality of life is the couch, the floor, the bathroom and food. So yeah, I mean, that's a hard one. You kind of want that reassurance of someone who's a professional like you to go. You know what Mike, you know looking at it, you know he can't really be doing well with his legs or his breathing or et cetera, et cetera. That's the hardest, that's gotta be the hardest thing to go in and do, as in your profession.

Speaker 3: 30:17

That's gotta be the hardest thing to go in and do, as in your profession. That's you. It's kind of a myth. Um I, to me that's one of the most important point. Appointments I have with my clients is the, the euthanasia or the end of life care, cause that's the one they might remember. The puppy visit, they might remember the one, the dog you know need the antibiotics. But they will not forget when you were there helping their pet Passover and the. I kind of. I worked at a corporate, I was doing end of life care exclusively, and the letters and the things that people told me like I didn't know I made such an impact on their life or it helped them that much. You know everyone's like oh, that's got to be the hardest part of your job. And I said absolutely not. You know, I'm helping these families and it's such an honor. Not everyone gets the chance to do that and I'll take a peaceful death any day. Over the other things I see. I see some very horrible, sad things that I don't want to bring up.

Speaker 2: 31:04

But yeah, I can't even. Honestly, you know, jackie, I cannot even watch, like some of these things, like that stupid Sarah McLaughlin song. Every time I hear that song come on, like I just I could be randomly somewhere in an elevator and hear that song come on and people think I'm you know, I'm callous or cold-hearted. I could watch a movie and a school bus of children could go off a bridge and I'm like, oh, that's terrible. One dog I am legend with Will Smith, that one dog in that movie. I can never go back and watch it. I just like I just don't want to ever watch that, those scenes and the terrible things that happen. Maybe I'm wired wrong, it's possible. I don't know. I wouldn't be the first one, but it's just kind of the thing. So, um, as we, as we start to wrap this up a little bit, what is the one thing people that are listening to this, that love their pet and are looking for that, that personal one-to-one like what do you want them to know about? Good karma, veterinary therapy.

Speaker 3: 32:05

So, um, it's just me and my husband. We would get to know you, we get to know your pets. We come to you If you have trouble driving, if you have 15 cats and you can't take them all to the vet at once, and you know, your time with us is your time with us. We're here to get to know you and we're here to help you. You know we, just we. If it's an emergency or a surgery, we can't, we will refer you. But if you're looking for that personal, you know we will spend our time with you. We're not going to rush you, we're not going to be late. So we just. If you're looking for a new vet and they have trouble with transportation, you're looking for something more convenient, call us.

Speaker 2: 32:39

And then great segue how do people get a hold of you?

Speaker 3: 32:44

So you can contact us by email goodkarmaveterinarytherapy at gmailcom. Our phone number 813-291-3570. You can go on our website, goodkarmaveterinarytherapycom. Find us on social media. We're on Instagram. We're on Facebook, we're on Tik TOK, you know any of those ways.

Speaker 2: 33:02

So what we'll do when we post the video is we will include all those socials and all that information. But, folks, right now, if you want to do a little bit more research, good karma veterinary therapycom. Good karma veterinary therapy at gmailcom or the easiest way, just call Jackie and her husband, 813-291-3570. Check them out. They're family owned. They're going to give you the personal touch, the personal treatment that your pet deserves and that you want for your pet, and they're clearly good neighbors, except maybe for the chickens, but that's probably a story for a totally different podcast. Jackie, thank you so much for being a good neighbor. Thank you so much for being a good neighbor. Thank you so much for being on the Good Neighbor Podcast.

Speaker 3: 33:41

Thank you for having us Appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 33:43

Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPPascocom. That's GNPPascocom, or call 813-922-3610.