Wyobraska Veterinary Services’ first day was Nov. 7, but they have already hit the ground running, or rather, driving since their operation is mobile.
Danni Becker and Kodie Woodral were both raised in the area — Becker in Scottsbluff and Woodral in Mitchell. After obtaining their respective veterinary degrees and returning to the area, they found themselves both working at Animal Health Center in Scottsbluff.
“We just wanted to get out to people. It was our main thing,” Becker said. “There was a need for people that weren’t able to travel to (a) clinic or a lot of animals that were too scared, too old or too anxious to come.”
The duo also found transportation was a large factor for people to not bring their pets to the vet, or that they would try to bring them in unsafely.
“So many factors that play into getting your pet from the house to the clinic and back,” Becker said. “And so that kind of is where we started.”
Many residents of the area needing transportation use the Road Runner system, Becker said, but they don’t allow pets.
“This led to a lot of missing appointments.”
By taking out the factor of a building altogether, Becker and Woodral save costs in building rent, utilities and more.
Woodral said, “… We’re trying to make sure that our pricing is really competitive. With it just being the two of us, we just have to make sure our bills are paid, and we don’t have to support a whole staff.”
The duo mostly makes house calls to clients, but not just for small, companion animals.
“We’ll do some large animal stuff, too,” Becker said. “There’s so many people we knew that had, like, goats and pigs, and they don’t have trailers, so they can’t take them in, even if they wanted to.”
Some of those large animal visits include visits to 4-H projects.
“Someone from the club picks up the animals when they buy them, or they take them to the fair when they go, or when they go due to the shows, but they don’t when they’re sick,” Becker said. “They don’t have a trailer at their house OK to get there, and that makes sense.”
As their name suggests, the duo serves communities in the Panhandle and into Wyoming.
“So we cover the Panhandle and then the Torrington area,” Woodral said. “So Bridgeport, Kimball, then we do go a little farther.”
On Dec. 7, Wyobraska Veterinary Services will hold a spay-and-neuter clinic in Hemingford.
“They reached out to us and asked if we would come and do it,” Woodral said.
The pair said this is always an option for smaller communities that don’t have access to veterinary services.
“If their community needs that, we’re more than willing to do it,” Woodral said. “There are a lot of underserved communities, and it’s even harder for those people who have trouble traveling when … there’s no clinic.”
The veterinarians main goal is to be accommodating.
“We want to make veterinary care accessible to the people who can’t currently get it,” Woodral said.
One of their other goals is to build personal relationships with their clients. They’ve proven that since their vehicle is “a moving billboard,” Becker said.
“We’ll be filling up with gas and people will stop us to make an appointment or pay a bill,” she added. “We really want to build those personal relationships with people, and we never want anybody to think that they’re not being heard or not getting, you know, exactly what they called us for.”
The duo can be reached at 308-672-6478, at their website at wyobraskavet.com or their Facebook page, tinyurl.com/WyobraskaVet.
Contact Megan Kelley: megan.kelley@starherald.com, 308-632-9041
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