I’m Dr. Emily, DVM, CCRT, CPAT-KA and I created Tulsa Animal Rehab & Wellness to provide a better way to care for the physical rehabilitation needs and behavioral health of animals. You can read more about my journey through veterinary medicine and why I became both a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Therapist (CCRT) and Certified Professional Animal Trainer (CPAT-KA) HERE.
I have written a few learning portals about important topics like IVDD, what a functional diagnosis is, and about pet disability assistance with wheelchairs. But I wanted to give you a little insight into exactly what to expect from working with me as a veterinary team member for your pet’s best health care.
There are 5 things that make Tulsa Animal Rehab & Wellness specifically different to help set your fur friend up for success:
We Listen: When you fill out the inquiry form or email tulsarehabvet@gmail.com with information about your pet, that information matters to me! I look at every single question you answer and start my mind going to work excited to help your canine or feline companion. Depending on your answers, I often send initial helpful information when I email back to schedule a call to be able to listen even more. When our fur friends aren’t feeling themselves, it breaks our hearts, so when you fill out an inquiry, I want to help your family as fast and as well as possible.
Free Discovery Consultation: The listening part never stops once that inquiry form is sent. Once I have heard to your concerns on the inquiry form and/or via email, the next step is getting even more information and talking with you about your pet’s needs during a free discovery consultation call. I have found that this is really the best way to get more specific details that are needed in understanding the situation and condition(s) as a whole. This isn’t even just about your pet, it is about you and your family because it all matters in your dog or cat’s physical and behavioral wellbeing.
This is a great time for you to ask any new questions or get clarification on things you may have read online. It can be hard to think of all the questions at your general practice vet office and during the visit with your potentially stressed fur friend. Being a veterinarian, I can be a reliable resource and veterinary ally for your general questions that have come up since your last vet visit.
Every animal and family is different, as well as has varying needs and abilities. Occasionally, together we may discover that your pet may need to get further diagnostics, see a boarded veterinary specialist, or would be better served by a different option that hadn’t been considered. That is one of the main reasons I started free Discovery Consultations- because I want to make sure that, with or without me, your pet gets exactly what they and your family needs to be set up for success! During the discovery consultation we are also able to talk together about what to expect during your first rehab appointment(Learning Portal Post about this coming soon!) or what behavioral program will be most beneficial for your situation.
Combination of advanced behavioral & physical rehabilitation medicine with one professional: While general practice veterinarians are incredibly skilled and important, there are certain veterinary conditions that are not best cared for in the typical veterinary practice setting for every patient. Veterinary medicine is a broad profession that varies in span of honey bee healthcare to total hip replacement surgeries in dogs. All veterinarians who graduated from an AVMA accredited veterinary school received training across species (including primates). In addition to graduation from vet school, to practice as a licensed veterinarian in your state, veterinarians have both passed an all-day board exam called the National Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE) that includes testing on all non-human species and a state licensing examination. Because of the breadth of our responsibility as veterinarians, we constantly have to be learning to keep up with advancements we are excited to share with the animals in our community.
For example, there are some veterinarians that are incredibly skilled surgeons because of advanced training that I am very thankful for! I was trained in surgery, and have performed many surgeries in my time as a general practice vet, but it isn’t my passion or what I focused my continued education into so I am happy to now leave surgeries to the veterinarians who have put the effort into continuing their education in that area.
Through my growth in the veterinary profession, I quickly saw the need for behavior to be a focus of my continuing education. Whether it be my time in general practice or in zoological medicine, behavior was a consistent theme in the overall outcomes for animals. Chronic stress, whether physical pain or emotional stress, has long term side-effects on the animals in our care, and it is our responsibility as their guardians to do our best to give them a quality of life for as long as possible.
Behavior is always happening, so having a fear free rehabilitation veterinarian that can help behavioral concerns along with physical healing is a combination that is frequently needed, but rarely available. Physical rehab depends so heavily on behavioral knowledge that I offer free behavior informational video library access to current physical rehab patients. I am thankful to have had the opportunities I have in both general practice and zoological medicine to see the need to focus on these two disciplines of vet med.
Payment Plan Options: I didn’t want to become a business owner. I wanted to help as many animals as possible and just focus on that (I even got into vet school a year early just to be able to help animals faster!), not on business. But to be able to offer the best care for animals in my community, I have had to grow in this direction as well. The cost of services have been calculated to be as affordable as possible for the services provided, but I know that even the things we need, some of us can’t always afford suddenly.
That is why I put a lot of time and effort trying to find a way to offer a secure payment plan option with no additional cost or fee attached. Typical options available usually are complicated with credit checks, fees for the pet parent, and frustration all around keeping pets from the care they need. I am not a stranger to having to make hard decisions like you are possibly going through, so if a payment plan would help your fur family, I have a no fee/cost secure payment plan option to help make this time a little more manageable.
No Cookie-Cutter Approach: The way I think as a veterinarian and the way I was trained in physical therapy concepts is very different than a traditional medical algorithm or cookie-cutter approach. I believe the best medicine looks at the entire individual, and I can help by being part of your veterinary team. By being a mobile rehabilitation veterinarian, I can work with behaviors and identify pain that can be impossible to find in the general practice setting.
All your appointments will be with a rehabilitation veterinarian. I do not believe in assembly line patient care and technician lead appointments to be the best way to set up animals and their families up for success with a physical rehabilitation or behavioral therapy need. Instead, you can expect that each appointment is with an experienced therapist that watches your dog’s movements closely, adjust the treatment plan as needed, and answer all your questions.
Each treatment plan is tailored to the individual patient’s needs. The treatments are based on exam findings, how the patient is doing, your goals, and history. I do not apply one treatment protocol for all patients with a similar injury. I choose the treatments each session based on how your pet is doing and their individual progression.
The initial physical rehab appointments are about 2 hours long to allow time to answer all questions, create a plan together that fits your goals, get started on treatments, and teach you as much as possible. Our physical rehab treatment appointments are about an hour long, compared to the average 30 minutes in our industry. Behavior appointments depend on the program based on the individual dog’s needs where sessions can be virtual, in person, or a hybrid program.
Check in soon for an updated Learning Portal Post that is all about what the first appointment for physical or behavior rehabilitation looks like!