Roxy, the tiny Yorkshire terrier, seemed just a little pleased with herself, leaving a prenatal appointment with X-ray that revealed a litter of five to six pups. Conan, the Irish wolfhound, seemed apprehensive, watching owner Tammy Morgenson hand his leash to a staffer at Brookside Animal Hospital.
Bill, one of two Brookside office cats, tried to look cool as he retreated from the 116-pound gentle canine giant.
It seemed like just another busy morning at Ogden's Brookside Animal Hospital, but it was a happy anniversary for the practice, which marked two years in a new building at Seventh Street and Wall Avenue, and half a century since the practice opened at its previous 12th Street facility.
Frank G. Markos is the senior vet, with 43 years in the practice.
"A lot has changed over the years," said Markos, 67. "It's a different world than when I started. But I never want to retire. I still enjoy the work."
Technology has improved by leaps and bounds, of course. Medical research has provided more and better tests, making it possible to run multiple tests in-house and get quick information for a faster diagnosis. The paper-choked office is now paper free. Even the X-ray machine is digital.
Pets tend to live longer, Markos said, due in part to medical advances, and in part due to increasing devotion from owners, who seem to treat pets more as family members than did previous generations.
And in a field that was once male-dominated, Markos finds himself sharing a practice with three female veterinarians, Kathryn M. Penrod, Stacey M. Henderson and Eleanor Jenson.
Penrod was a childhood friend of his daughters.
"They were in 4-H together, and I told her I would give her a job," Markos said. "She was a kennel tech as a teen, and I told her to come back after she finished Colorado State (where all of the practice's doctors earned their veterinary degrees). She had a job if she wanted it."
Of the students in the CSU veterinary program, 70 percent are female, Markos said. The hours are regular, and compatible with raising a family, he added.
Family-style practice
Conan padded from the reception area, toward the practice's treatment area, where he would be sedated so a metal pin could be removed from his leg.
"He broke his leg 11 weeks ago, and has had a great recovery," said Morgenson, of Marriott-Slaterville. "He slipped into an irrigation ditch and pulled in my teenager, who landed on top of him. The staff here has been wonderful with Conan."
New arrival Precious the cat was unhappy in her carrier, which was marked with a note warning technicians of the feline's razor claws.
"She got caught in a drain spout," said new owner Darlene Lake of Liberty. "When they cleaned the mud out, they thought she was dead, until she started moving." Lake and husband Mark adopted the black cat, who was in for neutering her owners hoped would mellow the cat's personality.
"She cries in my window all night, and she hides inside my box springs," said Lake, a longtime client of Brookside.
"For a good vet, I will go out of my way."
Precious was taken to a back waiting area before Easter and Moki bounded out of their exam room. The playful young golden retrievers, more perfectly plush than any toy store rendition, bounced through, barely noticing their admirers.
"They're just in for shots," said puppy lover Di Allison of Ogden. "They were born on Easter, so it's 12 weeks. We love Brookside. I've been coming here since 1976, when they were in the other building."
The old building had space for two vets, with two tiny exam rooms and a small surgery area. Areas for cows and horses hadn't been used for years, and interior traffic flow was poor, Markos said.
The new building has four examination rooms, and larger surgery areas. The facility has workspace for four doctors and a staff of 15, including receptionists, veterinary technicians and kennel technicians. The new hospital is 60 percent larger than the old one, Markos said.
Diverse patients
The front door opened, and two women struggled in with two long, heavy cages, cat traps, covered with white fabric to minimize trauma to the animals inside.
Nancy Card and Shaunna Goldberry are volunteers for No More Homeless Pets of Utah (www.utahpets.org/nmhcms/).
"They're two from a colony of 15 or 20, some feral, some friendly," Card said. "When people left their houses for the Ogden River Restoration Project, they left their cats, who formed a community and reproduced."
Goldberry traps the cats, who are brought to Brookside for health tests and neutering. Donors to No More Homeless Pets help fund the care for the cats, who, if healthy, are offered for adoption if friendly, or, if wild, ideally placed on farms or ranches as mousers. But not all cats can be saved.
"I'm actually allergic to cats, but I have a soft spot for them," Card said. "I adopted one and fixed one (paying for the surgery), and hope other people will do the same."
In the back, Markos was cleaning the teeth of a 10-year-old terrier mix named Shuka, who would also have an eyelid tumor surgically removed.
Each doctor does an average of three or four surgeries per day, many of them spays and neuters, but other surgeries more rare. The doctors pride themselves on being skilled surgeons in a time when many vets send clients to specialists for many procedures.
"I love surgery," said Penrod, a vet in the practice for more than a decade. "I knew from a young age I wanted to help animals. It's a fun job where I get to work with people and animals, and I've always really enjoyed the bond between humans and animals. I'm in a field I love that allows me to keep learning every day."
Animal calling
Henderson also knew from childhood that she wanted to work with animals.
"I first wanted to be a vet at 4 or 5," said Henderson, 29. "My family was in the dairy farm business, and I saw a calf being born, with my cousin assisting. And I said, 'Mom, is there such a thing as a doctor for animals?' and she said, 'Yes, it's called a veterinarian.' And I said 'Good, because if there wasn't one, I was going to be the first.'âÇ"
Henderson, who worked as a veterinary technician for Markos and Penrod, said her family has always patronized the practice.
"My whole family has brought animals to Brookside for multiple generations," she said. "In fact, I am a distant relative of Dr. Markos.'ââââ" She's the granddaughter of his cousin, she said.
"We're family," Markos confirmed. "But then, we all feel like family here."
Senior vet tech Ryan Bielik agrees.
"It's a great place to work, even if I am one of only three males that works here, and girls can't talk about beef jerky or flannel shirts," he joked. "It's a different job every day, and it's a great bunch of people to work with. I can't think of anyone who hasn't scooped poop or done whatever they could to help someone else."
And the family feeling includes clients as well, said Gloria and Harold Cederdahl, of Huntsville, who called about a rash bothering their dog Rocky, age 6.
"As long as we have lived here, Dr. Penrod took care of both our dogs," Gloria Cederdahl said. "D.T. was our standard poodle, and Brookside helped through difficult times. D.T. was 13, and he had a cancerous tumor on his spine that was causing a blockage in his rectum. Dr. Penrod said she could operate, but it would only give him a few more months. We took him home, and we brought him back in when we felt it was his time. He had suffered enough. It was not the easiest thing to do, but they were awesome.
"They took pictures of him, and they sent a sympathy card they had all signed. They sent a memorial with his ashes. He was a great dog. Our children are grown, and scattered across the country. Our dogs are our family, and Brookside has always taken better care of our dogs than some people get from human doctors. I have nothing but the highest regard for them."
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