Updates about our Providers and Hours

From CPT (Ret.) Jessi Ross, DVM CEVMM

Director of Veterinary Services

MCPAWS Veterinary Hospital

March 2023

To Our Community,

First, thank you for your continued support of MCPAWS and the MCPAWS Vet Hospital! The last few years have been full of successes, but also many challenges. We remain honored by the trust and confidence that you put in our team to provide care for your beloved pets. We want to update you on some exciting changes that are happening at both the shelter and veterinary hospital!

We are so proud to welcome two new full-time veterinarians to MCPAWS! Dr. Colleen Guilfoyle and Dr. Tetyana Gephart both joined our team this spring and we could not be happier to have them both. Dr. Gephart will be providing full-time care for patients year-round, and Dr. Guilfoyle will be full-time, but on a seasonal basis – offering extra support during the busy summer months. Also joining the team periodically, on a relief basis, are Drs. Allison Stout, Sarah Keller, and Lacy Redmond.

Access to quality veterinary care is a vital part of establishing the humane community we envision as an organization. With these critical additions to our staff, we can increase our capacity for providing routine care as well as same day urgent and emergency care appointments that our community so desperately needs! To that end, we will be open for routine and same-day appointments from 9am – 2pm on Saturdays during the summer months (June 3^rd to August 26^th)!

Please know that to ensure that the most urgent cases are always prioritized, same day calls will still be triaged and our ability to receive walk-in appointments is limited to true, life-threatening emergencies. However, with increased staffing, we expect that we will be able to see most of the calls we receive for same-day care much more quickly and our goal is to see you on the day you call! We are currently booking appointments for all doctors, so reach out now to get on the calendar.

Additional veterinary capacity has also allowed for significant expansion of the community spay/neuter program at our shelter location. During the summer, we’ll be doing spay/neuter surgeries two days each week and this year we’ve already provided 160 surgeries for owned animals (this is in addition to shelter animal surgeries)! Pricing is based on a sliding scale, so no one is denied an appointment due to cost. Providing access to these basic services is vital to preventing unplanned puppies and kittens, but also empowering families to care for their own beloved pets. None of this would be possible without the extra capacity offered by MVH and the dedication and expertise of our shelter medicine team. If you have a pet at home that needs to be spayed or neutered, please call the shelter for assistance!

It has certainly been a long road and a lot of hard work to build our organization to what it is today, but we’re so proud of what we’ve been able to do – together. Thank you for sticking with us along the way. We look forward to serving you and your pets in the future!

In Service,

CPT (Ret.) Jessi Ross, DVM, CEVMM
Director of Veterinary Services
MCPAWS Inc.

MCPAWS purchased the Donnelly Veterinary Hospital (DVH) and Long Valley Veterinary Clinic (LVVC) in February 2020. These two practices have been merged into one full-service, MCPAWS Veterinary Hospital, operating out of the Donnelly location: 8 Coho Lane. Similar to the MCPAWS Thrift Store, all net proceeds from the vet hospital will be used to fund operations and programs at the shelter.

There are several reasons why this is the right move for MCPAWS:

• • Expansion of existing programs. Adoption services alone will not address the pet overpopulation problem. The MCPAWS Veterinary Hospital will increase our capacity to offer vital owner support services, like low-cost spay/neuter surgeries, in a comprehensive manner, assuring the need is met and the number of unwanted litters in our community is greatly reduced.
  • Offer quality veterinary services for our community. The veterinarians that owned/operated LVVC and DVH wanted to retire. Should either of these veterinarians have decided to liquidate their business, our immediate area would be left without veterinary services. This opportunity allows MCPAWS to assure that local pet owners never find themselves without access to quality vet care for their beloved pets.
  • We are ready to take on this challenge. Thanks to our fantastic staff, volunteers, Board of Directors, donors, and our amazingly supportive community, MCPAWS is in a great position to take advantage of this new opportunity. We’ve engaged with legal professionals to ensure our nonprofit status is secure. Dr. Jessi Ross took over the role of director of veterinary services in 2022 and she, along with her excellent team, has ensured that the legacy of excellent, compassionate care for our clients has continued!