Larger building helps Grand Valley’s lone 24/7 emergency-pet-care facility grow its services

Tim Harty, The Business Times

In literal need of more room to operate, Animal ER of the Western Slope tripled its space when it moved into its new home at 2558 Patterson Road in early October.

Now the 24/7 emergency facility for pets has 7,200 square feet between ground-floor office space and a large basement in the building it bought in January for $2,238,000 from Jesse Dryer and Ashley VanGundy of 970 Rentals Ltd.

That makes a lot more things possible that were never going to happen at its previous location, 1660 North Ave., which was 2,400 square feet.

“Space was a big issue for us,” said veterinarian Graham Molinaro, who owns Animal ER along with veterinarians Terry McQuade and Bebe Hoang and vet technicians Jennie Hudson and Sami Sours. “We were seeing 30 cases out of three exam rooms. That’s pretty hard to do in a 12-hour shift. 

“And this also gives us a bigger ICU, too, some more space for patients who were at capacity … And also my collectible infrastructure, stuff like that that we can upgrade potentially for more advanced machinery down the line in this building. We have a whole basement area that we’re using somewhat, but we haven’t even really leveraged fully yet.”

Growing staff is possible now, too, and Molinaro said it is Animal ER’s intention to do that.

Molinaro said the current staff has six full-time-equivalent veterinarians, plus support staff, both full and part-time, at about 27 to 30 people. He thinks the number of veterinarians will hold for a while, but the support staff can be bumped up to about 45 people.

The new location also will allow Animal ER to bring in some board-certified specialists.

“The Grand Valley only has two of those right now, maybe three,” Molinaro said. “And places like Denver, you know, have hundreds, so it’d be nice to be able to have those services for the local community, so they are not driving to see an ophthalmologist or cardiologist or an internist, all those things you have to drive to a Denver and Salt Lake for.” 

Animal ER can treat a greater volume of pets, and Molinaro said a big advantage of its larger facility is it provides space to do more surgeries.

“We were down to one surgery suite at the last place, so it kind of locked us in to needing to use that and reserve it only for true emergencies,” he said. “Now, having two suites gives us the ability to give more of those, or to do more … urgent-care type things in a surgical suite.”

Hudson said Animal ER also has a dedicated Comfort Care Room now for pet owners who are bringing their pets in for end-of-life services such as euthanasia and cremation. She said that it’s important to be able to give pet owners and family a place to gather and have some privacy during such a difficult time.

Another specialized room Animal ER now has is the Triage Suite.

If a pet is brought in and its condition is critical, “it immediately comes to this room,” Hudson said. “It’s also designed so people can be with them.”

Ultimately, Animal ER of the Western Slope’s new location lets it keep doing all of the things it has been providing, starting with being “truly the only 24/7 emergency facility (for pets) for a very large distance,” Molinaro said. “That means Animal ER can offer things that primary-care practices – they’re the vet you’ve known and seen probably every year – just simply often can’t offer.”

He added that’s because the emergency services require special equipment, special training and the ability to handle that workflow.

Molinaro gave the example of an urgent situation that occurred shortly before he and Hudson sat down with The Business Times for an interview on Oct. 14.

“If you come in here with a surgical emergency – like we almost had just before you got here – we would have done that surgery right away,” he said. “You know, we have that.

“And we have spent a lot of time making sure we have specialty and special equipment that other places don’t have, because we do see those cases and we do take all those cases.”

Working on visibility

Veterinarian and co-owner Graham Molinaro acknowledged Animal ER of the Western Slope’s new address, 2558 Patterson Road, isn’t the easiest place to find. But it is working on adding more and better signage.

Animal ER technician Jennie Hudson added the facility is getting more signage to make the building more noticeable, including a “huge sign” that was being installed in mid-October.

It helps to be a destination that people seek, as opposed to a veterinary office that people choose because of visibility or accessibility.

“We try to be really clear with signage for that reason, because we worry about it,” Molinaro said. “We are usually a destination; we’re the only 24/7 emergency facility in Western Colorado.”

What makes them different

In addition to being a 24/7 emergency facility, Animal ER of the Western Slope is a rarity in these parts for a couple other reasons.

“We are locally and privately owned, which for vet practices is increasingly rare,” Molinaro said. “Beyond that, we all live here (in the Grand Valley). We all ended up together, and we all work here full-time schedules, so that’s somewhat unique in the current climate.”

Molinaro and Hudson said Animal ER also does a lot of pro bono work for places such as Mesa County Animal Services and the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, especially treating strays that get brought in.

“Often they turn out to have an owner, but we will very often do life-saving stuff while they’re still a stray,” Molinaro said. “It’s something that Jennie and I have done through multiple businesses before this that we ran, that we feel really strongly about being able to take care of them.

“So we take any of them. I mean, they show up with it, and we take them all. We have agreements.”

Most common patients

Animal ER of the Western Slope mostly treats dogs and cats, but they also see a few exotic pets, such as rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, ferrets and reptiles. 

“Dogs make up most of the caseload,” Molinaro said. “Our most common things, we do a lot of foreign-body surgeries; you know, your dog eats something, and we’re taking it out. It got stuck in their intestines. A lot of intoxications, particularly marijuana. We see a lot of dogs for getting into THC.”

Hudson added, “Bites. We get a lot of dog bites.”

As for cats, Molinaro said, “It’s a lot of blocked cats, when they can’t urinate. That’s really common for us.”

Plans for future growth, but not just yet

If Animal ER continues to grow as its owners hope, the day may come when they need a larger location or a second location. 

“We kind of keep mentioning the potential to add specialty medicine in, and that would probably, once it gets to a certain size, be at a sister location or something like that, try growing with that,” Molinaro said. “But it’d be hard to outgrow this place right now. … We have a couple-thousand square feet in the basement that we haven’t really fully utilized yet.”

Being in close quarters previously also made the crew pretty efficient, and it carried over to the larger facility.

“We’ve operated for so long in the small space that, right now, this just has so much potential, being so much bigger,” Hudson said.

Molinaro added another adjustment to the new location is “we have to change our work flow a little, in good ways for this space. We can use this space differently.”