Meet Lavella Short!! Our Featured Employee of the Week!

Lavella has been the Customer Service Manager since coming to us in July 2008.  She is a native of San Luis Obispo and has lived here a majority of her life.  She has worked for the IRS while living in Fresno, been a Phlebotomist as well as an EMT, and most recently as a Lasik Technician prior to coming to Animal Care Clinic.  In June 2010 she adopted a "brother" for her cat, Rocky, from the Department of Animal Services.  He's a Cheweenie (Chihuahua and Dachshund mix) named Petey.  Although they are different species, they get along amazingly well.  Lavella loves NASCAR, football (go Chargers!), movies, traveling, making clay figurines and hanging out with family and friends. 

First Animal Care Clinic Trip to Mexicali

Four employees of Animal Care Clinic (Bonnie Markoff, Travis Morris, Ashley Ventimiglia, and Nicole Gunkel) took a trip to Mexicali, Mexico in what we deemed a "fact finding mission." Our own Gustavo Rayas along with our new friends from the Mexicali vet school, Tomas Renteria and Julio Mercado, have a vision to improve upon the curriculum and to raise the small animal hospital to AAHA standards. We were shown hospitality by everyone we met! Tours of the university owned small animal veterinary hospital and veterinary school were given on day one, followed by a presentation to a group of students by Dr. Markoff and Ashley on "Practicing Excellence" and a discussion of goals for our future involvement together on day two. ACC was excited by the people we met and are looking forward to a cooperative exchange and future involvement in Mexicali!

Animal Care Clinic Ventures to Mexicali!

Small Animal Veterinary Hospital in Mexicali.

Written by Gustavo Rayas, RVT

Ever since I graduated veterinary school in Mexico, I have had the dream to come back and help my school to improve and develop. Then six years ago Dr. Markoff and I were talking about an idea to visit my vet school in Mexicali. We started brainstorming about what we could do to help them. My biggest goal was to train them in leadership skills, management, and confidently developing working protocols. These are areas we work on to achieve at Animal Care Clinic to a high level and not previously focused in Mexico. When my good friend and classmate, Tomas Renteria was promoted to dean of the veterinary school, a great opportunity presented itself. Tomas shares with me a vision to work with and improve the vet school in Mexicali.  I went back to Bonnie and presented my idea again, and this time, we ran with it. 

In July of 2010, a group of school officials came to visit Animal Care Clinic during our annual Wine Gala/Open House and also to see Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo. This opened up personal relations between Animal Care Clinic and the Mexicali vet school.  After further discussion, we agreed to focus my goal by working on bringing the school up to American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) standards. These standards encourage the best management practices, medical procedures, and customer service in animal hospitals in North America. 

Team Animal Care Clinic/Mexicali during our first visit to the Mexicali vet school.

Dr. Markoff discussing our future involvement with Tomas Renteria,
vet school staff and students.

This November, Dr. Markoff led a small team of Animal Care Clinic employees to scout out the vet school and their small animal veterinary hospital. The trip was very successful and our team members were excited by our idea after seeing the current facilities and meeting students and staff members.  The future plan is for Animal Care Clinic to act as their formal mentor.  We will follow the AAHA Mentoring Program step-by-step in order to establish a good relationship and learning environment.  We hope that our working relationship with our new friends in Mexicali will lead to not only us helping them, but new experiences and personal growth for our own team.  We will keep you posted with future updates and look forward to what the future brings!   

Meet Alex Stone!! Our Featured Employee of the Week!

Alex has been a part of the ACC lodge team since February 2008 and now also works as a veterinary nurse. Originally from Newbury Park, California, he currently attends Cal Poly and aspires to one day attend veterinary school. He is an active volunteer at the Cal Poly Vet Clinic. Alex has a lab named Buddy, he also loves to play sports with friends, especially baseball. He also enjoys working in the mountains of Idaho doing trail maintenance for the Forest Service during the summer.

Animal Care Clinic Guide Dog Update

Written by Stephanie Ruggerone

November brought two exciting “events” to ACC employees.  Dr. Evans received her long awaited guide dog puppy, “Payton”, and Practice Administrator Stephanie Ruggerone’s guide dog puppy, “Recco”, represented Guide Dogs of America at a four day Las Vegas fundraiser!

Jennifer Evans and 11 week Payton.

“Payton” is an adorable female yellow Labrador retriever proving to be extremely full of energy and running poor Dr. Evans ragged.  She is a real love bug and staff is sometimes finding it difficult to follow the guide dog rules, as they would like to hold and play with her all day.  Come on by and meet little Miss Payton or maybe you saw her in the San Luis Obispo Holiday Parade on December 3^rd.

“Recco” was one of approximately thirty guide dogs, and the only Golden Retriever, to saunter down the strip, spend a day lounging on the 18^th tee of the Angel Park Country Club and smooze with over six hundred donors at the Paris Banquet Hall in Las Vegas.  The Guide Dogs of America annual golf tournament and awards banquet is a major fundraising opportunity for the school and brings donors from all over America and Canada.  It was indeed an honor to be asked to represent puppy raisers and the dedicated work involved in bringing a well-trained dog to assist someone sight impaired.

At eleven months of age, “Recco” is showing many qualities needed to become successful in harness.  His Vegas adventure began with a long bus ride from Sylmar, CA. to Las Vegas.  Imagine a charter bus filled with twenty-five people and fifteen dogs!  Legroom was at a premium but the dogs were all on their best behavior.  The Paris Hotel & Casino was our home base and graciously even created a special “relieving” area for our dogs near a side exit.  A 7:30 AM potty call isn’t exactly easy when going from the 5th floor (for some the 33^rd floor!) to the lobby, across the casino and out to the relief area.  In the early AM many visitors wondered why all the dogs appeared to be walking like they were “dogs on a mission”!   After arrival we had some free time and decided to walk the strip.  Easy enough you might think, except when you are walking dogs wearing bright yellow jackets and weaving in and out of huge crowds of people, many of us being just slightly intoxicated.  It took us approximately two hours to walk from the Bellagio past the Mirage and to Treasure Island!  We must have been stopped at least fifty times to explain the dogs and allow for some petting and answer questions.  But that is exactly what it was all about, educating the public on these precious gifts to the blind.

The noise and heat from the Mirage Volcano were apparent to us, but Recco hardly twitched an ear.  He actually took initiative to weave through the crowds without my direction and remained focused even when bombarded with people touching him while he was heeling.  We just don’t have this type of activity and distractions in San Luis Obispo so it is amazing that Recco took so much in stride.

Gary Ruggerone (Stephanie's husband) with Recco and Watson

The golf tournament also presented a few new experiences for Recco.  Each tee is assigned a dog or two and we were stationed at the 18^th hole.  Recco can officially claim to have been fully trained with regards to loose rabbits!  Now these were not your normal run and hide rabbits, these guys are used to people and bold as brass.  I am sure a few of them had a great time just taunting the dogs all day long.  Add to the rabbits, several covey of quail, flocks of pigeons and flying golf balls and they had their share of visual distractions.  We also found out golf carts were not made to hold two people AND two guide dogs.  Somehow we made it back to the clubhouse without falling or jumping, out of the golf cart, leaving all the wildlife on the tee, and making friends with 100 or more golfers.
Saturday evening brought the banquet, the highlight for most donors.  Recco and other dogs were asked to sit still for what seemed like hundreds of photos and again were asked to remain calm and collected while being pet and talked to for hours by total strangers.  Even for dogs who love people, this can prove stressful but Recco again proved he has great guide dog potential.

Traffic noise, casino bells and buzzers, bright disco type lights, loud music, “unstable” people, not to mention having very few places to potty can really stress a dog out!  Now multiply that by four for a puppy raised on six acres in San Luis Obispo and it is understandable that Recco, and all the other dogs, came home a bit tired.  We all had a wonderful time and hope that we were able to spread information about Guide Dogs to others to ensure these programs, supported entirely by donations, continue in the future.

Recco will be with us for approximately six more months and due for his one year of age evaluation at Guide Dogs of America in January.  We will keep you posted on his progress and his upcoming evaluation score!

Animal Care Clinic is an AAHA Practice of the Year Finalist!

Your veterinary hospital will display this
image if they are AAHA accredited.

Written by Nicole Gunkel, RVT

Some of you may have seen our post a few months back that we sent in our application for American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Practice of the Year.  Well, I have some exciting news that we recently found out that Animal Care Clinic is a finalist for Practice of the Year!!!  We are all elated that we have made it as a finalist this year!  It all started last spring, when in one of our regular veterinary periodicals there was an article about the first annual AAHA Practice of the Year awards.  I read it and thought, why didn’t we hear about this?  In my mind, Animal Care Clinic should be a shoe-in for this award!  So I decided that when it was time to send in applications for the following year, we would be among them!  AAHA will announce awards for first, second, third and two honorable mentions.  We will find out where we stand in March at the AAHA conference in Toronto.  So, keep your fingers crossed that we did as well as I know we can, first!

For those that are unfamiliar, let me tell you a little more about the American Animal Hospital Association, AAHA accreditation, and what it means to you as pet owners.  AAHA was established in 1933 as an international association.  They accredit animal hospitals throughout the U.S. and Canada.  AAHA accredited hospitals undergo voluntary evaluations to be assessed on 900 standards in the areas of quality of care, diagnostic and pharmacy, management, medical records, and facilities.  AAHA is known among veterinarians and pet owners for their standards.  AAHA standards require hospitals to provide diagnostic services (x-ray and laboratory) to quickly diagnose pets, focus on quality of care in anesthesia, contagious diseases, dentistry, pain management, patient care, surgery and emergency care.  Accredited hospitals have an onsite pharmacy and must also have medical records that are thorough and complete.  You might be surprised how many places do NOT have thorough and complete records!  For these reasons, it should be important to you that your pet is seen by an accredited hospital.  There are many hospitals that do meet these standards, but have not gone through the evaluation.  However, you do not have that guarantee unless your hospital can prove they are AAHA accredited.  You can be confident that if you pet is taken to an AAHA accredited hospital they are more likely to be given top-quality care.  The AAHA standards are also periodically reviewed and updated, so consistently accredited hospitals can stay on the leading edge of veterinary medicine and give the care your pet’s deserve.

If you would like to learn more about the American Animal Hospital Association, you can visit their websites at: http://www.aahanet.org/ or http://www.healthypet.com/.  Their Healthy Pet website is built specifically for pet owners with helpful information on pet care, travel, fun stuff and even interactive pet stuff just for kids!  They have an AAHA hospital finder, so you can locate the AAHA accredited hospitals nearest to your location.  You can also connect with AAHA through Facebook!

Everyone at Animal Care Clinic is very proud of our AAHA accreditation.  We have been accredited with AAHA since 1993 and have maintained our certification since that time.  If you would ever like to talk to us about our AAHA accreditation, get a tour or have any questions at all, please contact us!  We look forward to announcing how we fared as a finalist in the coming year!

Meet Melissa Reuter-Wagoner, RVT!! Our Featured Employee of the Week!

Melissa is another smooth, easy-going addition to the Animal Care Clinic Team. She grew up near Santa Clarita, California and graduated with a B.S. in Animal Science from Cal Poly in June 2007. Melissa is a very inquisitive part of the Veterinary Nursing team, joining ACC in July 2006. We are so happy to have Melissa as one of our Registered Veterinary Technicians. Melissa’s passions include riding her jumping horse, music, ballet, and traveling.