First and foremost, we don’t have the exam rooms to accommodate in-person exams anymore. At the start of 2020, along with covid-19, another pandemic hit called Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease. We had to find a way to quarantine suspected cases from the rest of our clinic, so we used one of the rooms.

As the years have gone by, we have had to take another room for quarantining potential infectious diseases, as Avian Influenza peaked. And most recently, we had to retrofit a third to fit a CT Scanner inside.


This leaves us with ONE exam room left. That final exam room is reserved for complex consults, medication demos, and end of life appointments only.

Secondly, if we had to try and do all of our exams in this one room, we would only be able to take 6-8 appointments per day, rather than accommodating up to 20 in one day.

As our priority and purpose is animals, their care is what matters most to us. If we can’t see more than 8 pets in a day, that leaves far too many without care. Remaining a curbside practice allows us to see more pets and provide them with lifesaving care.

In most instances, we are NOT expecting you to wait for your pet to be seen. Our goal is to also improve convenience for you by allowing you to drop off your pet, then go about your day, go to work, run errands, etc. Know that many clients are coming from outside the Salt Lake Valley, often even out of state and are “stuck” in the area until we can provide care for their pet. It takes a tremendous amount of juggling to do so, but as long as you communicate any specific needs regarding your day, we will do everything we can to maximize convenience for each client.

We understand that this may not be right for everyone, but this is how we need to operate to be able to continue serving the exotic pets of Utah and its surrounding states.

Trust is very important to us, so if our policies are not right for you, then we invite you to seek veterinary care elsewhere, and there are absolutely no hard feelings. But if and when a time comes that we are the only available option (which has happened) our policies stand as set.

Please understand, these are our rules. We will not tolerate bullying, degradation, or rudeness from our clients regarding our curbside operations or any other subject. Our staff members are fully empowered to say something or call you out if you are conducting yourself in a manner unbecoming of a civilized adult.

Why are we still curbside?