New vet offers mobile and home services
Robyn O’kane was teaching anatomy and physiology at a college in Queens, New York, when she decided what she really wanted to do was become a veterinarian and move to Georgia to help with the state’s low spay-neuter problem and the lack of access to affordable vet care for many people.
O’kane has a vision of taking affordable animal care to communities instead of asking all her patients’ owners to come to her. The vision is unfolding quickly.
The doors of O’kane’s home base clinic, My Kids Have Paws, in South Dalton, are about to open, but the vet’s mobile veterinary unit hit the road several weeks ago. The vet clinic on wheels is equipped for spay-neuter operations, vaccine services and minor surgery. “Within less than a week of getting the van,” says O’kane, “we had spayed or neutered 30 animals, removed a mass from one animal and taken out more than half a pound of stones from a 13-pound pug’s bladder.”
O’kane has already taken her services to public places in Walker and Murray counties and hopes to expand into Catoosa and other areas. She recently set up a vaccine clinic at the Pumpkin Festival in Eton, Georgia.
O’kane also makes house calls. “I recently made a call to an elderly couple who have 12 dogs,” she says. “I tested them for heartworms and gave them rabies shots.”
There are many reasons people want in-home visits, O’kane says. “It’s less stressful on animals. Some animals are terrified of traveling in cars. Sometimes the owner is disabled. When an animal is so sick it needs to be put to sleep, it’s more peaceful for the animal and the owner if it can happen at home.”
The key to making her model of care work, says O’kane, is smart scheduling and keeping tabs on people so she remains aware of their needs. She tries to group her calls so she can see as many animals as possible in one trip.
“My mission is not to get rich,” says the vet, “but to help people. I don’t take a large salary, but I do pay my employees a good wage so I’ll get and keep dedicated people.”
O’kane has a soft spot for community cats, going so far as to delay the opening of her clinic to help a colony that numbered close to 40, making sure all the cats were spayed or neutered, had rabies shots and were in good health.
My Kids Have Paws treats dogs, cats, rabbits, pygmy goats and other small pet goats, pot-bellied pigs, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, rats, mice, chickens and some other species of animals kept as pets.
On the homefront and true to her profession, O’kane has a personal medley of animals — three pigs, five cows, two goats, a donkey, six dogs and nearly a dozen cats she cares for, a collection that is prone to change as the veterinarian comes across more animals that need her.
My Kids Have Paws is located at 169 Waterfront Way, Dalton. Dr. O’kane can be reached at 706-5164249 or info.mykidshavepaws@ gmail.com. Or learn more at mykidshavepawsvet.com.