Getting to Know Your Vet with Dr. Greer from Checkout Vet

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eight thirty eight thirteen ten WIBA and ask the Experts,
brought you by Checkout Veterinary. Brought twenty us this morning
from Checkout Veterinary is doctor Marty Greer, of course, recognized
as Veterinarian of the Year by Westminster Kennel Club. You
can learn more about doctor Greer and everyone at Checkout
Veterinary on their website checkout vet dot com. That's check

(00:22):
out vet dot com. Great data to start a new
relationship and get your pet on into checkout Vet. Don't
forget that first visit. It's free, that exam is free,
and give them a call. Six so eight three one
eight sixty seven hundred. That's three one eight sixty seven hundred.
Convenient location for Checkout Veterinary right at twenty seven to
ten Prairie Lakes Drive in sun Prairie, right near the interstate,

(00:42):
just off the highway, right in sun Pray. Again, very
convenient for you and your pet, and it's right for
doctor Greer and the other doctors. A big part of
Checkout Veterinary is making it convenient because doctor, I'm guessing,
the more convenient and the more information pet owners have,
the more frequently they get their pet in to see you,
and good morning by the way as.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, good thanks for having me on. So yeah, I
think that it's pretty important that people understand that, and
we're pretty transparent about our pricing. I was just in
the exam room two seconds ago talking to a client
about how to get the most bang for her buck
out of the lab work and the vaccines and the offices.
It's in the surgery and all those things, because we
can help structure those things to make it as cost

(01:24):
effective as possible. And the other thing I want to
say is on the first Sunday of May, which should
be May fourth, May the fourth be with you, we're
having our first from three to five in the afternoon,
our first meet the vet, so MTV meet the mat
at check out that so you can come in. We're
going to have wine and cheese and a beer and

(01:46):
so come in, get to see the place, get to
meet the doctors. I'll be there, one of the other
doctors will be there. And we want people to feel
really comfortable with coming in, understanding the business model, understanding
how the pet care looks to you and your pets,
so that you really feel like we are doing what
we are attempting to do, and I hope it comes through.
I hope it translates in what we're trying to do

(02:07):
is that we're trying to make this comfortable, affordable, accessible,
and you know, really convenient and really low stress for everybody.
So we're trying to hit all those marks. And we're
really pretty client and pet centric. A lot of that
clinics are kind of themselves centric, and we try really
hard to be the quintessential convenient and comfortable and fear

(02:32):
free and really you know, a fun, easy place for
you to be. And we're there seven days a week,
so we're well, we soon will be there seven days
a week. We'll be opening on Thursdays again, as soon
as we get our doctors all up to speed, because
we hired some that started three weeks ago, so they're
not quite there yet, but we're very close to being
there on Thursdays as well. So we're there all the
weekends and so Sunday afternoon, May fourth, from three to five,

(02:56):
you can bring your pet. You cannot bring your pet.
We're not going to schedule any appointment during that time period,
so you wouldn't come in for a visit, but you
would come in just to say Hi, look around, see
the place, Meet the staff and my staff. They're amazing
people that are really committed to the kind of care
that we expect to be the highest level of care
that we can provide you.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
It's a great opportunity. Again, mark that on your calendars
and we'll be reminding you as well. That's Monday. Excuse me,
not Monday, it's May the first. Meet the Vet from
three until five at Checkout Veterinarian Doctor. When you talk
about Checkout VET and the clinic literally designed from the
ground up, I know a lot of work went into

(03:38):
how exactly Checkout Veterinary and the clinic in Sun Prairie
was going to not only operate, but how it was
going to be conducive to low stress, less stress for
not only the pet but for pet parents as well.
And you guys really put a lot of work into
the end of the design of this. Let's talk a
little bit about the background of Checkout Veterinary and what

(04:00):
made you decide this is the way to go. And
I also feel like once people experience Checkout VET, they go,
why haven't we been doing this since the dawn of time?
Why then it always worked this way? It's a great
model and a great design, right.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, So James Harriet used to have you bring your
dogs into the practice, or if you had a cow,
he would drive your farm. Well, you know, that's still
the model a lot of people are using in veterinary medicine,
almost everybody is. But this is a completely different way
to look at it. And I was sitting in a
meeting one day. We'd already built the clinic in the
Myra with three garages, but we don't use them quite
the same way. We're not to drive in veterinary clinic

(04:34):
in the Myra. But it seems so obvious to me
sitting there that we're overbuilding veterinary clinics. We're building all
these big buildings that are duplicating all this stuff like
every it Like there's four clinics in Cembraaririe with X
ray machines. We don't need four clinics with X ray machines.
Don't you know there's several CT scanners in the city.
We don't need that many. What we need is access
to the care that you need for the eighty or

(04:57):
ninety percent of the care that your pet needs, which
is just going to be routine vaccinations, blood work exams
and the basic stuff the ear infection, the diarrhea of
the limping, the you know, the very basic stuff that
dogs and cats experience, the urinary truct infections, and we
can manage those very comfortably in a smaller setting with
less financial outlay. We can make it a little more

(05:20):
affordable and just make it a lot more convenient for people.
So it just seems to me that that made sense.
You know, every hospital doesn't need to have the ultimate
scanning equipment because you're using it so rarely. So let's
use our resources on the stuff that our pets need
most frequently and give you access on the weekend. Because

(05:42):
when do things go wrong, When does your dog, you know,
go out in the park and hurt their leg, or
when does your dog eat something that they're not supposed
to and come in with, you know, with something going on,
Those are the things that we need to give client
access to, not the high level which every now and
then in the lifetime pets need it. And no way
am I saying we don't need those. I'm saying we
don't need them duplicated as much.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
As we have, And that's what I mentioned. One of
the it's always Saturday and Sunday.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
It starts a weekend. It's always a holiday, like what
And that's the way kids are too, Like you know
your kids are always going to do something crazy on
a weekend. Yep.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, And that's and I know, obviously access and being there,
that's one of the great things about Checkout Veterinarian checkout
vet as well as the sister clinic check in Vet.
You can learn more online the website checkout vet dot com.
That's checkout vet dot com. Great day to start that
relationship at checkout vetters give them a call six so
eight three one eight sixty seven hundred. That's three one

(06:40):
eight sixty seven hundred. Don't forget that first visit, that
exam that is going to be free to you and doctor.
I think sometimes I was, I was, you know, texting
you before the show this morning, and I kind of
look around for thoughts and some of the ideas for
what we should talk about and what's kind of on
my mind as well. And I kept seeing people asking

(07:01):
about costs for pet ownership and what does it cost
for cat or a dog on average annually? And I
know one of the things that's really important at checkout
veterinary is transparency is really letting, as you were talking
about your experience with a patient just before the show
this morning, being very open about what things cost, and

(07:23):
of course also working hard to keep those costs down.
But I think pet owners and you know, talk about
really appreciating things. The design of checkout vet itself is great.
The website checkout vet dot com is also fantastic because
people can actually look and see what are the average
costs for procedures and typical treatments at checkout Veterinary, right, And.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I think that's really important. One of the things that
we've really worked hard to do is negotiate good pricing
on lab work. So in the spring and summer, when
many people are doing their heart room tests, if you
can combine the heart room tests with a stool sample,
so checking for a chestno parasie, which we see a
pretty high percentage of pets coming in with, if you
combine the heartworm tests and the fecal sample, so you

(08:06):
need to bring that along with you, then we can
then negotiate. We have negotiated a good price for a
CBC and a chemistry panel for the pet's lab work.
We're drawing blood works anyway for the heartworm test, so
we just draw a couple extra drops of blood. We've
put it in a tube. We send it to the
lab and we can get a CBC, which is a
blood count that's going to tell you red blood cell count,

(08:27):
white blood cell count, and platelet count. Those are the
cells you need. And then it runs a complete chemistry panel,
so as your pet showing signs of diabetes or kidney
problems or liver problems or electrolyte issues or anything that's
abnormal in there. And so for just a little over
one hundred dollars you can get not just the heartwroom
tests and the FeCO which normally run over one hundred each,
but you can also get the CBC in the chemistry.

(08:48):
But you have to bring this stool sample with you.
We can't have it. It has to be submitted to
the lab all in one package to get that pricing.
So it's really pretty simple. You know that morning of
your appointment, you just go out in the yard pick
up what you need to pick up bringing along. We
don't need like a ziplog gallon bagfull. We just need
a teaspoonful and if you bring that along, then we
can do the whole thing, and we can do it
for your dogs, for your cats, we can do it

(09:09):
for everybody that you want to test. And then you
don't have to run back and forth, and you don't
have to worry about these things. You're going to know
that your pet has normal lab work. It's also nice
even if you have a young pet, to know what
their baseline is, so six years from now you can
look back and say, well, over the last six years
we've seen the liver enzymes, they were normal, normal, normal,

(09:29):
and today they're high. We need to be checking into
this or something else that has changed, and then we
don't have to wonder what's normal for that pet, because
not every dog has exactly the same lab work. And
if we see trends or if we see changes, that
allows us the chance to do some early intervention. And
as we've talked about on previous shows, early intervention is
just the same for us as for a pet, is
that the earlier you make a diagnosis and good treatment

(09:52):
set up, the better the chances are of long term
good outcomes. So I think it's really important that people
know that it's not that expense to do that entire package.
It's just a little over one hundred dollars, which is
a really good deal because normally the heartwin test by
itself can be close to half or two thirds of that,
depending on you know, what the pricing is as the
vet clinic where you go, and if you end up

(10:14):
with an emergency situation, if you end up at an
emergency clinic over a weekend, or you know, something happens,
or you end up with the vet school or whatever happens,
You've got that lab work to fall back on and say, well,
this is what it looked like three months ago, what's
going on today. So it's really good information to.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Have and it's great to hear. And for folks that
that maybe are checking out the show for the first time,
welcome to the program. It's great to great to have you,
of course talking this morning with doctor Marty Greer of
Checkout Veterinary, the website checkout vet dot com that checkout
vet dot com and doctor it's great to hear as
mentioning what what I love hearing is, you know there

(10:54):
there is a lot of work that goes on behind
the scenes at Checkout Veterinary to to really make things
conducive for good pet care. And obviously, I think everybody
that shared interest is happy healthy, long living pets and
really finding ways to accomplish that some of this stuff
and we talk about, you know, you talk about different panels,
different testing, getting baselines and looking for other indicators that

(11:18):
may show illness. These type of these type of things,
if caught early most of the time, are very treatable
and far far less expensive to treat early on and
manage early on than if, gosh forbid, they become something
more serious that requires more significant intervention. Knowing the stuff
early and having a low hurdle to clear when it

(11:39):
comes to cost is really a huge benefit for pets
and their overall health, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oh yeah, oh yeah for sure. And the other thing
we try to work really hard with with clients when
we're in the practice is the rebates that we see
on the heartworm and flee and tech medications, and you
oftentimes can't get those if you purchase your medications online
from the on my pharmacies, but they allow the companies
to allow veterinarians to have access to better rebase. Then

(12:06):
you can get a few order from pet met or
Chewi or whoever, so we can provide those and if
you buy a year's worth of supplies, sometimes we get
rebas as high as seventy five dollars for those pet owners,
and they typically run those only in early spring, April,
May and June. So it's important again that you look
at your open your cabinet, check how many heartworm pills

(12:27):
or flee in tick medications you have left from last year,
whether it's a pill or an applicator. Figure out what
you should use in a year, because we do recommend
year round preventions for both the heartworm and the incestual
parasites and the flea and tick product. And that way
you can take a look see what you've got come in,
be equipped to know that and say, okay, well, if
I buy a year's worth, what is it going to

(12:47):
cost me a month? And you can very quickly figure
out that your monthly cost on those products will be
considerably less. So again we work pretty hard to try
and maximize your savings because we want you to be
able to provide all those things. We want you to
have annual blood works, we want you to have a
full year's worth of heartwormtuy and tick preventives. I had
somebody that asked me earlier this week about heartworm disease.

(13:10):
She has absolutely no idea how bad heartworm disease really was,
and that if you end up with it in your pad,
it can be a very significant life threatening disease. But
if it caught early again, we can treat it effectively
and have better outcomes. The same with inteslino parasites, the
same with lime disease. We see some dogs that go
from having a lime disease positive test to going into

(13:32):
kidney failures. Especially labradors and Golden Retrievers are at increased
risk that they developed these disorders that cause their kidneys
to fail, and that happens fast, like really fast. So
we're trying, you know, we're not trying to just line
our pockets for veterinarians to have fancy cars. That's not
my goal. My Google, I don't drive anything fancy. I

(13:56):
put logos on it, and so I have to drive
it forever now because it doesn't looked at good. Well,
you gotta wrap on your car. You better be driving.
That's a little wheels fall off. I'm like, guess, sir,
I sure will. So we want to make sure that
we're giving your pet the best care that we can,
and that means consistent care, long time medications that will
preventivelely in, chick in, the heartworm diseases, and all the

(14:18):
other stuff, so that you really have the best possible
outcome you can. Nobody comes to our practice with an
elderly dog or cat and says, yeah, I was ready
two years ago. Everybody wants more time, and that's what
we're trying to provide you is we're talking about their weight,
we're talking about their heat, We're talking about all the
things that you need to do so that we can
maximize the length of time that your pet can be

(14:39):
with you. And that's really important to us because we
know that's really important to you.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Talking this morning with doctor Marty Greer of Checkout Veterinary,
you can learn more online. I mentioned the website. I
really hope you get a chance to stop on over there,
checkout vet dot com. It's a great unders give good
understanding of they got a fantastically redesigned website, gives a
really good understanding of what makes Checkout Veterinary so unique
and understanding how it works. I got transparency is very important.

(15:04):
Pricing all that information available to you up at checkout
vet dot com. Of course that first visit that exam.
It is free to you and your pet. Again, they're
really easy to get you right at twenty seven to
ten Prairie Lakes Drive in Sun Prairie. That's right off
the highway, right near the interstate in some prairie. So
very convenient. If you're listening to the program this morning,
you are close to checkout Vet. We talked about the
design of the building. I'm going to guess the location

(15:27):
was no coincidence either, because no matter where you are,
it's a really convenient to get on in to see
to see the vets at checkout vet again. Learn more
online checkout vet dot com. Delphy number six so eight
three one eight sixty seven hundred. That's three one eight
sixty seven hundred. Well, consider your conversation with doctor Greer.
We will do that next as ask the experts with
Checkout Veterinary continues right here on thirteen ten doubuib A

(15:50):
eight fifty five thirteen ten wi b A and ask
the experts talking with doctor Marty Greer of Checkout Veterinary.
The website checkout vet dot com. That's checkout vet dot
great day to start that relationship out checkout Veterinary. I
can just pick up phone game a call six oh
eight three one eight sixty seven hundred. That's three one
eight sixty seven hundred. You can find the telephone number

(16:10):
as well as other information about Checkout Veterinary again, all
online at checkout vet dot com. That's checkout vet dot com.
Don't forget that first visit. It is free. That exam
is free at checkout Veterinary, your first one. There. And doctor,
we were talking, Oh, I was mentioned May May first.
Of course May the first. You've got the meet the
Vet event ting place. That's Thursday from three until five.

(16:32):
Of course we were all, well.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Fourth, it's on May fourth. Why did I say May
on Sunday? I am, I don't know it May fourth
be with you, remember that.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, that's a that's a Sunday. I am. I'm gonna
tell you something, doctor, I am. I am excited. And
I don't know why I'm getting my days man. I
think it was because it's a shortened week for me.
But you know, we were talking about about the importance
of getting your pennies. You get folks that maybe don't
have a pet yet that are interested in you know

(17:06):
we want to add a dog to the family and
meeting with a vet before they make that purchase, or
working with a vet, maybe somebody that they know to
find that right pet.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked that. Yes,
we are very engaged in that we work with a
lot of breeders, with a lot of rescues, with a
lot of other organizations shelters, and there's some really great
resources that we have that we can share with you
and we can help you with. I'll have clients call
and say, well, I think I want to get a Lienburger,
and Lienburgers are great dogs. But if you're eighty years old,

(17:38):
Eleienburger is going to be one hundred and twenty pounds
as an adult, that might not be your best choice
for your last dog. If you have children in the household,
or you work a lot of hours, or you've got,
you know, the possibility that you're going to be moving
and you may not own your own home in three years.
There's all these things that you need to think about
when you're taking the decision to own a pet. What

(17:59):
should you get from read side, What kind of characteristics
and traits do they have. There's some really good resources
out there I can direct people to. I'm happy to
give you the names of several breeders so that you
can go meet their breed of dogs. So if you
say I think I want to finish lap und or
I think I want an Ordainish British harm dog, I'm
going to say to you, well, let's meet one, because

(18:19):
if you've only seen them online, you haven't really been
in the room with one. You might want to meet
one before you make those decisions. And so we have
lots of good connections for people, and I can give
them some pretty good guidance on coke care, activity level,
indoor activity level, outdoors, How are they with kids? How
are they with strangers? Do you need to take them
to a dog class? Are you going to have to
find them a job? A lot of people talk about

(18:40):
a dog meeting a job. So are you going to
have to sign them up for agility classes or hurting
classes or scent work or something. And there's lots of
really fun stuff you can do, but let's make sure
that their lifestyle aligns with your lifestyle so that the
decision you make is a good one. And we don't
want you to end up with the wrong pet, ending
up with them going back to the breeder, going to
a shelter, ending up in places that really weren't what

(19:03):
you intended for Now, Unfortunately, sometimes unexpected things still happen,
but we can do our best to maximize the chance
of having that pet in your life for the next
fifteen or sixteen years. And that's really important again to
us and to the pet owners, is they don't want
to have a pet for a short period of time.
When they commit, they really want to commit that is
their forever home. I was at the airport on Tuesday

(19:25):
morning and there was a gentleman that was flying a
puppy for a buyer. His wife was a breeder and
she was flying the puppies standing in line in front
of me, and he said, yep, she's going to her
forever home. And that's the goal of every breeder, that's
the goal of every shelter and rescue, is to get
those dogs into a forever home, not into something that's temporary.
So make sure that you contact your veterinary clinic and
see if they have resources to help you with and

(19:47):
if they don't, please call us and help. Let us
help you find the right dog or the right cat,
or maybe it's not a dog or cat at all.
Maybe it's a rat, maybe it's a snake, maybe it's
a faret. I don't know because we haven't had the
co conversation yet, But there are lots of things that
you can find for resources that can help you get
the pet that's really going to meet your needs and
your expectations.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Rats are very much underappreciated pets. As somebody who's known
folks with rats over the years, they are. They are
cool little characters, that is for sure. As we talk
with doctor Marty Greer and talking about getting to know
getting to know the different breeds and different pets that
may be right for your lifestyle, what about getting to
know the right doctor, getting to know about Checkout Veterinary.
They've got a great opportunity for you coming up Sunday,

(20:28):
May fourth, Meet the Vet Vet. That event's going to
be taking place from three un till five at Checkout
Veterinary again, that's right at twenty seven to ten Prairie
Lakes Drive in sun Prayrie. You can learn more online
checkout vet dot com. That's checkout vet dot Com. Great
day to make that appointment. Start the relationship at checkout.
Veterinari I, who's pick up phone? Gimme a call six
so eight three one eight sixty seven hundred. That's three

(20:49):
one eight sixty seven hundred, Doctor Greer. It's always great
chatting with you. Thank you for taking the time this morning.
You have a fantastic day thanks to news is next
here on thirteen ten w ib A