My name’s Jack (the one on the right) and this my partner in life (and now business), Dr. Aaron Howerton. We met playing volleyball years ago. One thing led to the next and whaddayaknow? Here we are, playing the game of life together and opening a veterinary clinic in one of our favorite neighborhoods in Atlanta.

How did we get here?

Dr. Howerton has been in the vet-med field for 15 years, but his first gig out of vet school (University of Missouri, 2023) was at a high-volume general practice vet clinic in NE Atlanta. He was almost immediately dismayed by the corporate nature of the practice: it existed first and foremost as a business, doing what was necessary to make money above all else. Within his first two years at this clinic, the exam fee alone went from $80 to $110 and he went from seeing 12 minimum appts per day to seeing 22+. Prices — and the corporate mandate for more appointments per day — was continuing to rise, and practicing “good” medicine was getting increasingly difficult and feeling less and less possible.

And I, in my cush, start-up, work-from-home gig, listened to him day after day, growing in sympathy pain: for him, his team, but also for his patients and clients. At about 10,000 appointments in, I looked at him and said,