San Pedro Veterinary Service, PLC

04/19/2026

Trailer course seems like a success on this mildly warm day. Participants learned about hitch ratings and basic trailer inspections before getting the opportunity to head out on a closed course for some tight trailer turns, backing practice and learning curves. We hope everyone that attended took something away. This has been an investment of funds and time into making these participants safer when hauling.

Oh and we throw in a challenge on the backing with a front steer trailer option.

04/14/2026

Come join us Sunday for our trailer event where you too can have option to experience what your equine does during trailer rides. Bring a partner and swap out driving and riding on a closed course. Additional details on event page.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18i5Qs5upb/

04/13/2026

I want to take a moment on this Monday morning and express my gratitude towards my base clients. Thank you. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you for your patience.

I "closed" my books to new clients well over a year ago and years earlier stopped seeing non client emergencies. These were necessary changes to persevere the practice. It cost the ability to continue to grow but growth had outpaced quality and that was unacceptable. I have no intention to ever practice quantity medicine over quality medicine. Practicing exhausted is not healthy, compromises clinical judgment and does not benefit patient nor client.

I also filter clients. I have limited tolerance for certain behaviors. Clients that plan poorly and expect to be seen on an emergency base for non emergency things often do not remain clients. Lack of planning on client side does not constitute my emergency. When people do that it takes away from patients that are truly needing seen. I have a low emergency rate because of good preventive care by my clients and many have attended my free lectures to gain insight about early intervention. Not actively listening to medical advice is another way to be filtered out of service. I am often happy to discuss thoughts and explain why certain "other sourced" ideas are less than ideal based on modern science and why we need to look at the individual patient and not make blanket treatment protocols. And yes, I have my standard approaches based on decade of experience practicing in the area but all of these are starting points for the individual. I also filter out bad paying clients. Equine practice doesn't pay well to start with. Average profit margin in equine is 7%, that's 7k per 100k that's true profit. It doesn't take long when people skip out on bills to be running a practice grossing several hundred thousand and making nothing. The fastest way to be removed from my client base is to be disrespectful. I have no tolerance for anyone that does not have respect for my profession, my employees, and the safety of those in the working area. My life has more value than your untrained animal. Your life has more value than your untrained animal. Don't behave in such a way that it makes harder for me to provide quality care to all my patients and not just yours.

Now, I post this because there are a number of things going on behind the scenes. And I am failing in a few ways. I have struggled this year to be consistent with lectures. My travel schedule hasn't been clear. It was removed from being posted as I have had some trespassing issues while I was out of town when posted. I've been slow to return calls. I know I am not perfect, I never want to be. I want to be better tomorrow than today and that takes accountability. So unfortunately while I have as much going on as currently do, I am likely going to fall short on some fronts. My apologies. But again, this is why I am grateful for my client base. You all are major factor in my life decisions even though you'll never know what most of those are.

And for those that read this far, I am returning to school (online program) because I want to be better for you all. So starting soon I will be balancing classes, practice, teaching, and spending time with my wife. Thank you all for understanding and support on this adventure.

04/10/2026

04/07/2026

Join us Sunday April 19th at 9am for our April Education Event. Instead of standard lecture we are going to be looking at trailers. We are going to discuss connection types, hitch ratings, pre trip inspections, and yearly inspections. Going to demonstrate inspections. Welcome to bring truck and trailer and we will go over setup looking for safety issues, please no animals. We are also going to have closed course setup for those wanting to get hands on. You will be allowed to use own setup on the course as long as passes safety inspection. But we will also have both a bumper pull style trailer and a gooseneck style trailer available for those interested in trying maybe a different setup (licensed drivers only). You will be asked to do a pre trip inspections before proceeding onto course with any rig (yours or ours), we might just throw a curve ball and create an issue to be caught. A bonus to the course will be those that come with partner will have opportunity to experience what your animal experiences and ride in trailer as one drives and other rides before swapping positions. This is a new event for us, our goal is educating about trailer safety, we are not experts and do not know everything the intent is to make you better prepared for traveling with a trailer and animals. Similar events held in other parts of country typically are limited to certain number of participants and have fee associated. This is open to anyone interested, but all those wanting to use course must attend 9am lecture, no exceptions.

04/06/2026

Banana or full rocker shoe as some times they are called has their advantages. But these are advantages are often on the short term. The use of this style of shoeing is often more for diagnostics than for long-term use. It's a way to ask the horse what it wants... not tell the horse what it needs to adapt to. Thoughts?

04/03/2026

Thank you Dr Kartchner for your service to the community. We know your support and care of patients over the years will be missed. We appreciate the coverage you had provided for our patients and wish you luck in your new endeavor.

04/02/2026

As we prepare for our trailer safety event later in April, we have decided to invest in some aids. This is a hitch by Weigh Safe that measures the tongue weight of a trailer when on hitch. Tongue weight is important for a number of reasons. One major reason is too little or too much can lead to trailer swaying issues and potential accidents. Too much can also overload the ratings of the hitch components and fail. Every component of the hitch has a safe load limit. Most standard bumper hitch systems are rated at 5000lbs or less for total trailer weight and 500lbs for maximum tongue weight. This Weigh Safe hitch is rated at 12500lbs of trailer weight and 1500lbs of tongue weight. Part of our event will be looking at these ratings and making sure that everyone in attendance knows how to properly read ratings and checking those present. Equipment failure is a safety issue and having the proper equipment reduces the risks of failure. So we hope to see a number of people later in the month at the event.

03/31/2026

With fuel prices having increased substantially recently, we will be assessing a fuel surcharge to trip fees. We are electing to do it this way instead of raising the trip fees as we are hopeful that the fuel price increase is temporary. This allows us flexibility in covering this expense while adapting to daily price changes. It is an option to avoid this fee by hauling in. We thank everyone for your understanding.