Desert Cross Veterinary Hospital

11/05/2025

I generally try to sleep in to around 5 am on Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes I have ranch calls on Saturday and have to get up earlier and sometimes I am just to uncomfortable to stay in bed but I do try to get a few extra hours of sleep on the weekends. That being said, it is not the recommended sleep schedule according to the experts that say go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning. I just don’t think those doctors actually get up at 2:30 in the morning during the weekdays. Who wants to be up at 2:30 in the morning if you don’t actually have stuff you need to do?

The weather is slowly cooling down and most mornings it is in the low 40’s and gets up to the low to mid 80’s during the afternoon. It is not a bad time of year although unlike most people around here, it is not my favorite time of year. I love the warm and the hot and spring time is definitely my favorite time of year when it goes from being cold to warm! This kind of weather calls for a sweater in the morning and short to no sleeves in the afternoon so layered dressing is a must, at least for me.

We have had a barn full of sick horses and this past weekend Emma left to go back to Tucson on Saturday so I had to doctor the horses Sunday morning before church. I got up at 5 and did my morning routine and headed out the door a bit after 6 so that I could feed the chickens and take care of the horses in the barn before church. My chosen dress had no sleeves and the heels I had picked to go with it were really high and so I put on a zip up sweatshirt and some flip flops and headed out the door with heels in hand.

I walked over and fed the chickens first and then over to the barn to check on and care for the horses. As I was mixing the sulfa tabs and looked down at my sweatshirt over my dress and my big ol feet in my flip flops I thought about how different I looked right then to what I was going to look in about 30 minutes when I finished everything and stopped by Safeway to buy the cookies. As I went about doctoring the horses I pondered upon how much of what we put off to the world is not truth, we show the world the part of us that we want them to see and who we truly are is often hidden out of sight and out of judgment.

As a kid we were not allowed to leave our house to go out into public in sweats or dressed sloppily. We didn’t get to wear sweats to school or have holes in your clothes. You dressed presentable because you wanted people to respect you and you needed to be able to respect yourself. Our home clothes were often dirty and tattered and in my case covered in cow poop but we chose our better clothes for public.

The manipulation of how you want people to see you starts very early! We women start wearing makeup to hide or change our facial appearance. There are entire companies built around shapewear that holds in your extra fluff and makes you look more put together and sleek. We alter our hair and we wear jewelry and fancy clothes all to change how we actually look into what we want people to see and hope that they will have a certain thought about us. It is truly saddening if one starts to think about it. Why is it that we train our children so young that who they are, what they are naturally is not enough?

Social media has made all of this exponentially worse. We see people’s filtered images and highlight moments and we think that they have everything we do not when all they really have is a better imagination and a deeper sense of insecurity that they are trying to hide with photos that reveal too much skin and well done makeup all topped off with a filter that makes it all smooth. It is even worse now with AI because everything can be made perfect and yet not one of us is perfect!

As I sit back and think about all that I am and all that I wanted to be, I am glad for what God gave me. Sure I have hated it at times in my life. I have struggled with all the same insecurities over weight and flawed skin and bad hair but now, now in this last half of life I have realized that learning to be ok with not being ok, it is the greatest gift that one can give themselves short of accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. It takes some work to try and be healthy but we are who God created us to be and we have the body that He chose for us and learning to love who we are and how we look, it is so freeing.

In a world full of fake, find a way to be real to who you are. You are beautifully perfect just as you are because that is who God created you to be! The makeup and the clothes and the fancy shoes and perfect hair, they are not who you are or what makes you special. You, the person inside the skin, the mind that worries about what others are thinking, that is beautiful and perfect and amazing. Start to love yourself and while I do think it is important to dress properly, how you dress means nothing if you haven’t done the work to care for and make your inside person beautiful and learn to love that person because that person actually shines forth greater and stronger than you realize.

11/03/2025

I generally do not read posts that we are tagged in but for some stupid reason I did this morning. I mostly dont read them because it is people complaining about us not being available to them 24/7 because they waited for days for their pet to get really sick before all of a sudden being worried that the animal might die overnight while they sleep or they put their pet outside and they don’t have a yard and it got hit by a car or attacked and it is our fault for not being available and not theirs for not going out with their animal to make sure it didn’t get into trouble. Or they complain because they think we are too expensive.

We opened in October of 2008. Our exam fee was $45. In 2014 I hired my first associate and raised the fee to $55 and now 11 years later it is still $55 even though I have two other doctors and about 20 more staff members and the cost of everything has gone up. I have not raised our spay neuter prices in at least 5 years and it was only then because my inventory manager showed me how much money we were actually losing because we were not covering our cost so I raised it to a break even point which is probably no longer a break even point.

When we opened our x-ray cost was $85, now it is $185 because my staff is more knowledgeable and better trained and they like you want to be paid for doing their job well and getting better at it. Bloodwork when we opened was $125 and is now $155, see above reasoning even though I feel like $30 over almost 20 years is not even keeping up with inflation. Our fees for vaccines has not gone up since 2014. Our fracture repair is still about $1000 which is the same cost that I was getting for them in 1997 when I moved to our beautiful valley. Instead of charging people more I have worked very hard at getting better at them so that I can do them more efficiently and effectively and try and save more legs.

When I moved here in 1997 there were two veterinary clinics with two doctors each. When we opened in 2008 there were three veterinary clinics with the other two have two doctors and us just having me. Now, now there is only us and thank the good Lord there are just now three doctors working full time. Population of only Graham county in 1997 was 30,000 and now is 41,000 and yet there are less veterinarians and way, way more animals. There were also two veterinary clinics in Willcox and now there are none. We didn’t do anything to put anyone out of business, we have just struggled and suffered and tried to get better so that we can help the animals that need us and pay our staff and our bills without raising prices.

I do not have to be here. This isn’t a threat it is just the truth. I have been practicing for a long time and I could readily take any one of the dozens of offers I get from corporations and sell the practice and move to Alpine and buy me a little house and open a small clinic where maybe people would be happy to have me there trying to help their animals. I wouldn’t have to work very hard and I could enjoy the outdoors and all my too many horses. The people of the Gila Valley would see veterinary prices quadruple or more in less than a year and then when no one could afford it and the practice closed because the corporation that bought it can’t get any veterinarians to move to the middle of nowhere and practice like we do, maybe people will look back and think that we actually weren’t that bad after all.

I know we are not perfect. I know it is not convenient to not be available 24/7. I know that my personality is not easy for a lot of people but I am still here doing what few people want to do and that is dedicating my life to animals in a rural town and working 60-70 hours a week doing it at the age of 53 when I could be sitting back and enjoying retirement or taking it easy and doing less instead of constantly trying to do more. So before you complain and make posts about all that we aren’t please just remember that we are still here and still trying to do our best to help all the animals that come to us at prices that are at least a decade lower than what they should be.

10/31/2025

All the kids have dressed up to play this Halloween day! Swing by and say hi!

10/31/2025

10/28/2025

With Halloween coming up we are already having calls about dogs getting into the candy stash.

Chocolate is NOT good for your dog but it is not going to automatically kill them either. The chart below is a great visual message on the amount of chocolate that your dog could eat without it being toxic to them.

It is NOT suggested that you give your dog any chocolate but should they get into the Halloween stash it might bring you some sense of peace knowing how much is too much for them.

Should your dog get into dark chocolate, hospitalization and treatment is always recommended. If they get into some milk chocolate, generally they will do just fine other than maybe some diarrhea as a reminder to keep the candy up high.

Keep your pets safe this Halloween and keep your candy stash out of reach.

10/22/2025

Cones sent home with your dog are sent home for a reason. Your dog doesn’t understand how significant it is if they lick or chew out their sutures. It is incredibly important that if your dog gets sent home with “the cone” you leave it on for the entire time the sutures are in place.

Don’t fall for their sad eyes and lies! They can eat and drink and do all the things they need to do with the cone on. I promise. I have never had a dog starve from being subject to wearing a cone.

It only takes them a minute to undo all the sutures and open everything up and cost you a lot more money. Leave the cone on, your wallet and your vet will thank you for it.

10/18/2025

The veterinary industry has changed so much in the five decades that I have been a part of it. I started working in a vet clinic as kennel help in the 80s. I went to vet school and got my first job in the 90s. I started my business in the early 2000s and I start my second and current clinic in the late 2000s. And here we are in 2025 and I am ever amazed at how devastatingly far away the profession has gotten from actually taking care of the animals and trying to save them within whatever the client can afford.

I remember back in the 80s it was considered unethical to advertise. You hung out your shingle and you worked hard and you did your best and if you were good at what you did, the people came. When I graduated from veterinary school all that had changed and people were advertising and the consultant companies were making everything about how many dollars you could get per client transaction. Today when I get my weekly practice health report from my software program the first thing it tells me is my weekly revenue and how much money I averaged per client. I wish it would give me how many animals went home healthy and got to be with their people who love them because to me, that is the most important thing.

Corporate America got involved in the veterinary industry in 1987. It is now estimated that at least 75% of all emergency and specialty hospitals are owned by a corporation and at least 30% of all general practices and primary care clinics are owned by a corporation. I get calls and emails and LinkedIn invites and letters daily from corporations wanting to buy Desert Cross Veterinary Hospital. Why? Because corporate America is all about making money and they have learned that people will pay a ton of money, all their money to try and save their pets. I don’t believe it should be that way. Our pets give us so much but we should be able to get care for them without being made to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for basic to moderate care.

My promise to you, all of you who are currently clients and who might one day become a client, short of some devastating emergency, my plan is to never sell to a corporation. My goal is to always try to offer affordable veterinary care to anyone and everyone who comes in our doors. We have had animals flown in from the midwest, the northwest and driven from Northern California and Southern California and from all over the state of Arizona and neighboring states to have their animals receive care at Desert Cross. It is not because I am so great but because I think people know we care and we will do everything we can to try and help your pet with whatever amount of money that you have.

We are not the cheapest place, we aren’t perfect, but after almost 3 decades I can tell you that I will always be honest with you about what I can or can’t do and what I know or don’t know and you can then decide for yourself what you want to do. I believe it is never the veterinarians job to force a person to choose treatment for their animal but rather to present the facts or opinions that they have and give information on what could be done to help and then allow the client to make the decision.

Our lobby is often full and there is often a long wait but that wait will result in our very best for your animal and trying to do our best for your animal with the money that you have available. Most of our surgeries are well under $1000 and the very few that are over rarely have resulted in a bill over $2000. Most of our intensive care is also under a $1000 be it a Parvo puppy or a blocked cat or any other illness. We strive to offer supportive care for a price that most people can afford.

I have big dreams and goals for the coming years and it is all centered around trying to get reasonable and affordable veterinary care for all animals in our surrounding rural areas. It is the dream of doing greater things in the future that makes what one does never get old. The best business is the one that works to give the greatest service at a price that people can afford, that is always our goal and mission. Thank you for allowing us to constantly work at getting better at what we love to do. Thank you for believing in us and letting us help your animals and you as a privately owned business. It takes all of us giving up something to help the animals.

10/17/2025

We here at Desert Cross have the absolute best technicians out there. I would put our girls up against anyone on getting stuff done and being good at it. They work very hard and they make it possible for us doctors to do what we need to do to take the best care of your animals that we can.

It is Veterinary Technician week and we absolutely appreciate our techs and all that they do. Please thank them for their dedication and hard work to keep your animals happy and healthy!

10/13/2025

Thank the good Lord for the rains of the past few days! We have definitely needed the moisture and I will continue to pray for more of it as our land is parched and our reservoirs empty and our ranchers are in such a difficult spot. As much of a mess as it makes, bring on the mess Lord God!

With this mess though brings a huge increase in abscesses in our dry footed horses! Last night I went out to feed my broodmares and babies and dear ol Lenita was three legged lame. She has had struggles with laminitis since her racing days and every single time it rains, she develops a ton of abscesses in her front feet.

If you walk out to go feed and you see your horse standing there with one foot up and not wanting to walk, before you hit the panic button and think the leg is broken, take a deep breath and clean their foot out and call the farrier to come and find the abscess or make an appointment so we can help to find it and get it draining and you can get to soaking.

Antibiotics don’t get great penetration into the foot and are generally not effective in and of themselves in treating abscesses in the foot. A good 20 minute soak in epsom salt twice a day will help a lot. There are animallintex poultice pads that you can also order from Amazon and get wet and apply to the foot to help draw them out as well.

Abscess suck and they are rarely ever just easy to find and care for but with some diligence you can absolutely help your horse feel better.