Vern Otte:
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The cats and dogs that pepper the wallpaper in Dr. Vern Otte's veterinary hospital are a wildly colorful but silent lot. The cats and dogs that patrol the halls, mingle with the staff, and greet visitors lean toward blacks and browns—and are just as quiet. It's not what you'd expect when you enter a facility jammed with critters large and small.
Says Otte about veterinary clinics, "Practices can have personalities." It's clear that the State Line Animal Hospital in Leawood and its lead veterinarian are a special breed. Since Otte bought the hospital in 1977, it has grown into a full-service veterinary facility serving more than 4,000 clients. The practice is marked by professionalism, deep relationships, and calm.
And let's not forget that for the past four years, Otte has been a volunteer vet during the wild and wooly Alaskan Iditarod.
Our interview with Otte helps explain it all.
The Best Times: Can you give us the what-when-why of your career?
Vern Otte: I always had my dogs and cats. I grew up on a farm, but didn't want to take it over from my dad. So I went to college and was studying agronomy when the Vietnam War came along and I was called up to serve in the military. I got to serve in a medical arena, and that solidified what I wanted. I like people, animals, and medicine, so veterinary medicine was a great fit!
I graduated from Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine in 1975 and then practiced at Raritan Hospital for Animals in Edison, N.J. In 1977 I returned to Kansas City, where I purchased the State Line Animal Hospital. I was 34 or 35 when I opened the practice—a little older than your traditional starting vet!
My goal was to build a practice that would offer the best care in all areas of veterinary medicine and to provide for the physical and emotional needs of my patients. I was always very aware that vets have two "clients" at all times—the animal and the owner.
BT: Tell us how your military career has coincided with animal medicine.
VO: In 1966 I started a 36-year military career with a direct commission in the U.S. Army Reserve as second lieutenant, attending the Army Medical Field Service School at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. From there I was the adjutant for an infantry battalion in Berlin, then the personnel officer for a hospital in Augsburg, Germany. Early on I held various leadership positions, joining the Army Veterinary Corps after graduating from K-State Veterinary School.
I've held many veterinary medical command and staff officer positions across the nation during my career. My first veterinary staff position was with the 302nd Civil Affairs Unit in Kearny, N.J. I was staff officer in the 141st Medical Detachment in Columbia, Mo., and commanded that unit when it was activated for Desert Storm in 1991. I was the first commander of the 445th Medical Detachment, a veterinary service unit in Kansas City, Mo. My early involvement provided the basis for the unit to become the premier veterinary detachment in the service, and I'm proud of that.
When I retired from the Army Reserve in 2003, I was chief of the Veterinary Corps for Mobilization and Reserve, coordinating the training and personnel placement of the 300 veterinarians and 1,100 enlisted personnel in the Army Reserves.
BT: Your military service also brought opportunities for community service.
VO: That's one of the things I liked best about it. During my tenure in the Vet Corps, I got to participate in humanitarian medical missions to El Salvador (vaccinating and de-worming livestock), Ecuador (increasing milk production), Bolivia (working to reduce malaria and rat populations in the Amazon), and Djibouti (working with goats and camels). Working with the local people and helping them have a better life was a source of great pleasure. All those missions were different, and all were fun.
BT: Talk about the emotional needs of pets that you mentioned earlier.
VO: Emotions were the reason we started our Puppy Day Out program. Periodically, owners were telling us that their puppies had become very aggressive and destructive at home. Often the owners were young and hard-working. They would get a new puppy but it would be left alone all day. By the time they got home, the dog wanted attention but they were just plain tired—too tired to interact with the puppy. Often the puppy would turn to being destructive or aggressive as a means to get attention. Negative attention was better than no attention.
So I asked one couple to bring their dog in for several days in a row. My own schnauzer roamed loose here, and the two dogs got to play together. Soon the owners reported that their pet was "a different dog." So I kept my eyes open for situations like that, and had people bring their puppies in to play. When they reached 6 months of age, we gave them a graduation certificate. That was the end of their Puppy Day Out. Many said that they had to come back. That led to a full-time day-care program. That was 30 years ago.
Here's what it's all about: Puppies learn to socialize between 6 and 12 weeks of age. If they don't get lots of time with people and animals at that age, they can become almost asocial—but if they're socialized early, they have those social skills for life.
BT: Your hospital is a small-animal practice specializing in companion animals.
VO: Yes, we probably work 99.9 percent with companion animals, primarily dogs and cats. But we've also served rabbits, birds, laboratory animals, and reptiles. Our most bizarre patients probably were a defanged rattlesnake and a coatimundi!
BT: Your hospital is the designated animal shelter for the City of Leawood. What does that mean?
VO: Lost or stray animals picked up by Leawood Animal Control officers are placed in "protective custody" with us. They're treated for injury if necessary, and cared for until their owners claim them or they are adopted by families seeking a pet. Injured and orphaned wild creatures—geese, squirrels, rabbits, possums, raccoons, and an occasional deer or beaver—are brought in for treatment, then released or placed in an animal sanctuary. Less than 5 percent are euthanized—generally only those that are very wild and destructive, or severely injured.
BT: You showed us your surgical room and explained that you function as a local referral veterinarian for medical, surgical, and dental cases.
VO: That's because many veterinarians don't do much surgery in their practices. Rather, they refer patients to the specialty clinics or to me. I enjoy doing surgery, especially soft-tissue surgery. I like the challenges that surgery presents. A few months ago, we got a stray kitten that had a badly deformed lip. I reconstructed his lip and he was adopted by a loving family. Today he is a happy, healthy cat and you would never know that he had reconstructive surgery.
BT: The services provided by State Line Animal Hospital include geriatric care. Our readers might be interested in the geriatrics of animals.
VO: Years ago, when a pet reached the age of 10 or 12 we would expect it to die. But we have found that there's a lot we can do to stave off old-age problems in animals. Doing annual blood tests from about age 7 can uncover early kidney and liver problems or other problems, and by starting preventive care early, we can slow the progress of those problems. Many years ago, if a pet developed a heart murmur it was dead within six months. Now it's not unusual for the pet to live at least another two years, so a murmur is no longer a death sentence. And there are far fewer heart problems because of better preventive dental care. Now it's not unusual for a dog to reach 15, 16, even 17 years of age. It's not that unusual for a cat to be 20 or older when it dies.
Many geriatric pets, like people, revert in their behaviors and need to be handled differently. They may sleep more; they may no longer be housebroken and need to be retrained to potty outside. They can develop senility and cognitive dysfunction, just like people. Some pet owners are willing to put up with those challenges, others are not.
BT: Have pet trends shifted over the years?
VO: There definitely are trends. Thirty years ago, everybody had German shepherds and Dobermans. If a Rin Tin Tin was out there, people wanted shepherds; if a Lassie was out there, they wanted collies. Now we're seeing a few German shepherds again, but I can't recall the last Doberman I saw. And today people are spending outrageous sums to buy specialty breeds, like Labradoodles, when they could get essentially the same great mixed-breed dog at the pound.
BT: Do people think about their pets differently than they did when you began your practice?
VO: Absolutely. When I first had my practice, many pet owners had grown up on farms. Their pets lived outside and ate table scraps. If they got sick, they were shot; the family knew that another stray animal would show up. So those owners were less likely to spend time and money on a sick or aging pet.
Now pets are very much a part of the family. Many people spend more money out-of-pocket for pet care than they spend on their own yearly health exams.
BT: Do you see any limit to what people should be willing to do for a pet?
VO: When clients are making decisions about an expensive treatment, we discuss the cost-benefit ratio. Will this expensive procedure, treatment, or surgery make a significant difference in the outcome for the animal? Often these decisions are just shades of gray, and they're very tough.
I will give my personal opinion, but I generally hold off until I'm asked for it. And I will tell clients if I feel strongly that they're making the wrong decision. People get emotionally tied to what's going on and sometimes can't make the wisest choice. The same is true of the decision about whether to euthanize a pet. I'll help clients understand what criteria they might want to look at. And I try to give them the information they need to make a good decision.
BT: What are some joys of being a family vet?
VO: It's a joy to save an animal with a problem. It's great to have diagnostic tools to solve a puzzle. It's wonderful to help a pet and thereby maybe help the owner's life.
People come in who've lost their spouse, and they tell me that the pet is the only thing left from that relationship. That makes it especially important to do what we can. One widowed client told me, "The only reason I fix breakfast for me is that I need to do it for my dog."
The human-animal bond is very powerful. People who have major surgery recover easier and quicker when they go home to a pet. Pets can be a reason to keep on living. A pet can mean returning at the end of the day to a house that's not empty, where someone is glad to see you.
Finally, it's wonderful to have clients who spend years with us and become our friends. I get to meet such great people. Practices tend to reflect the personality of the vet. A calm, friendly vet attracts friendly people, and they bring in their friendly friends!
BT: What are some challenges of being a family vet?
VO: Keeping up-to-date with all the changes in the field. The state requires 20 units of continuing education each year, but I get 50 to 80. In fact, I was just in Atlanta at a conference. There's so much technology to keep up with, but also there are changes in medical knowledge. For example, we were told for a long time that "dogs don't have strokes." I believed that, until I kept seeing dogs who didn't fit the picture of anything else but stroke. Now we know that they do have strokes. We even have blood glucose tests that pet owners can use at home to stay on top of a potential problem.
Another challenge is that so many clients have the Internet! They'll call me after I've made a diagnosis and they've researched it online, and they want to discuss what they found! That makes life interesting, and it means that I must stay ahead of everything, including what's out there on the Web.
BT: This March you participated as a race veterinarian during the Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska. Tell us about that!
VO: I had watched the Iditarod on television for years, and a friend of mine was a race vet. I was looking for something adventurous to do and he talked me into it. That was four years ago.
Vets have to apply, and my biggest detriment probably was my age. I had to convince the Iditarod officials that I was physically fit and could withstand the rigors of the job. That's because the vets are up at all hours, at times caring for dogs 24 hours straight; that can mean seeing 1,500 dogs in one day. But I try to stay in shape. I walk our dogs, run, lift weights, and work on my feet all day. With my work, it's nonstop go, go, go, all the time.
I left for Alaska on March 6 this year and was in Alaska for three weeks, paying my own way as a volunteer. Each year, depending on where we're stationed, we stay in tents, gyms, and town libraries and are on call around the clock. We work at one checkpoint until all the dogs pass through, then we're whisked to another checkpoint by small plane. I worked at four checkpoints this year.
The biggest problems the dogs encounter are diarrhea and lameness. In 2008, some of the dogs had heat strokes because temperature rose above zero degrees. This year the temps stayed at 30 to 40 below zero, so heat was not a problem.
I'm always happy to give presentations about the Iditarod to groups and classes.
BT: How long do you plan to stay in the practice?
VO: Some days I think, "I should have quit five years ago!" Some days I think, "This is so much fun!" It's easier to think about leaving since I have two partners. Dr. Cheri Jones has been with me for 18 years, and Dr. Sally Barchman has recently joined us to work part time.
I do want more time with our grandkids, and I want to travel. I hike parts of the Appalachian Trail a couple of times a year with my son-in-law and 10-year-old grandson. I want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for my 70th birthday, just two years away! And I want to go to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the Badlands.
