Compassion Drives New Valley Pet Clinic

Dr. Julia Leese hopes she’ll never have to turn away a guinea pig. Or a rabbit, cat or horse.

All customers are welcome at Leese’s new Spokane Valley veterinary clinic: the rich and poor; those with owners and those all alone in the world.

Except snakes. They’re the only animal this 29-year-old veterinarian can’t tolerate.

Leese, who graduated from Washington State University in 1995, has spent the last several years working at two Valley clinics.

“Too often,” she said, “I would have to stand (at the counter) and say, `I can’t help you. You don’t have the money.”’

She opened Mountain Empire Veterinary Service this week in a 2,290-square-foot office at 12619 E. Sprague.

It’s not a typical clinic. The idealistic veterinarian plans to set up compassion funds for families who can’t afford treatment. She’ll offer grief counseling and reference materials for those who’ve lost a pet. She’ll rescue and adopt out unwanted animals from her office.

The clinic includes a special room used only for euthanasia. Inside, families can cuddle their pet on a couch while it’s put to sleep.

No cold metal tables, Leese said, or exam rooms they’ll have to come back to when they bring in a new pet for its first vaccinations.

Several of her ideas - such as improved pain management and the euthanasia room - represent new concepts in the industry. Others, said the president of the Inland Empire Veterinary Medical Association, are quite uncommon, in large part because they make it difficult to survive financially.

Veterinary clinics, said Dr. Brian Hunter, will occasionally provide free care and shelter to needy animals.

“But I don’t know of anyone who advertises it,” he said.

If they did, they’d be deluged.

But Leese, who named her business after her uncle’s veterinary clinic in Tennessee, said she’s going to do her best to make the concept work. Knowing she’ll be taking in less money, she’s started accepting donations of blankets, towels and newspapers. She’s accepting donations for the compassion fund that will serve needy customers.

Benefactors, she said, will get cards telling them who their money helped.

“I’m willing to take less of a paycheck home so we can fix more animals,” she said.

Fellow veterinarians such as Hunter wish her well but suspect she’ll get burned out and have to eventually scale back her programs. Some also believe free services and rescue programs allow some owners to duck responsibilities and hand off problem pets.

Leese hopes to prove them wrong, although she admits her goals are big. She’s wanted to be a veterinarian since she was 9, when her beloved gray horse developed twisted intestines. A female veterinarian came to her home in Pocatello, Idaho, to treat the animal.

A few years later, Leese began working summers at the doctor’s clinic.

Today, animals remain her passion. She personally owns two horses, three dogs, a goat, a cat, a rabbit, a guinea pig and a hamster.

She originally planned to limit her practice to horses but decided too many others had the same idea. Despite its urban location just east of Pines Road, her new clinic includes a horse surgery stall. And galloping horse wallpaper.

Leese hopes to plaster those walls with photos of her clients. And she hopes to achieve at least some of her many goals.

“Part of the profession,” she said, “is compassion.”