Redstone Animal Hospital

Location & Areas We Serve

History

The Redstone story, as told by our owner, Laura Downie, DVM

I am a Colorado native and graduated from CSU in 2003. After vet school, I was eager to see something new and ended up doing an internship and working in a busy practice in New York City. I became accustomed to working 6 day weeks, and feeling the drive to pay off some of my school debts- I worked longer hours than I probably should have. After I had my daughter in 2009, I eagerly moved back to Colorado. After maternity leave, it was time to get back to work but my memories of private practice gave me pause. I loved the clients and the practice in New York, but I had also been working at an emergency hospital. I had really burned myself out, and I was scared of doing the same thing and missing out on my daughter growing up.

I ended up purchasing Redstone from Dr Hailey. He kindly carried some of the note as my bank thought it was a "risky venture" due to how slow the practice was at that time. Our kennel, My Pets Place, was much busier than the clinic and was the reason that I could make payroll for that first year. In the early days, it was so slow- I had a lot of trouble sleeping at night. I operated with one receptionist and one technician. But, I had time to dream! My vision was a practice where the employees take their job seriously, but not themselves too seriously! A practice where we could help shelter vets and work with our local shelter. A practice where the animal wasn't scared to come in and there was no "dragging the animal to the back", everything could be done with the client present. And our prices would be set at a competitive point so that everyone could afford us, while still delivering excellent medicine.

So, Redstone was born and I think we have stayed true to all of these visions. We have grown from a slow 1 Doctor practice to a busy 5 Doctor practice in the past 8 years.