Revel Vet, which bills itself as a small-animal veterinary practice, has opened to serve Queen Creek and the surrounding area with specialty care for dogs and cats.
Its owner, Dr. Scott Meyer, has a long history of small animal care, but also brings high-end equestrian veterinary care to Queen Creek with his associated practice called Desert Mountain Equine. And he brings a lot of experience.
“I worked on some Triple Crown horses and Kentucky Derby, Preakness, things like that,” said Meyer.
Meyer is using his experience from the Santa Anita Del Mar Hollywood Park racetrack in California to open Revel Vet, which also sees dogs and cats in addition to horses at the practice on 10 acres of land on Ellsworth Road, just down the street from the Horseshoe Park and Equestrian Centre.
Meyer turned an old house on the property into a clinic for dogs and cats, but he is in high demand as an equine vet – both at the brick-and-mortar location and as a mobile vet.
Having hired two vets to help him, the practice sees between 15 and 25 horses a day, many of which have specific needs.
“With horses, it has become so much more sports medicine oriented,” he said of the dramatic increase in the specialty end of the practice that has seen many technological advancements.
“When you’re spending tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or in the race horse world, millions of dollars on a horse, regenerative medicine has become so much more important where we can bring horses back from certain injuries,” Meyer said.
“And instead of going out to look for another $100,000 horse we can invest in regenerative medicine to help repair injuries and help bring them back to work.”
The injuries that are common in horses are not all that different from what human athletes sustain: arthritic joints, broken or chipped bones, tendon and ligament damage, and soft-tissue injuries and tears.
“Some of these tears we can identify them through advanced diagnostics,” Meyer said. “Whether it be radiography, ultrasound or MRI even, we can go and clean those up and then inject stem cells into those structures and have the body regenerate that tissue, which is stronger than it being just scar tissue.”
Stem cells do not speed up the rate of healing of an injury per se, but they are thought to improve the quality of the repair and reduce scar tissue formation. This is particularly important in injuries of equine tendons and ligaments.
Meyer said he feels especially fortunate to have worked on race horses in California because he learned so much about regenerative equine medicine, common in human medical treatments now, but not so much in veterinary practices, especially here.
“Coming to Arizona I felt like Arizona was behind a little bit in this technology and didn’t have that kind of resource or experience to bring regenerative medicine into the equine world to help repair some of these,” Meyer said.
“So, coming home into this community and being able to bring that with me has been really helpful in growing the practice and help clients with
their horses.”
There were other things that are different in Queen Creek, too.
“Just a better lifestyle for what fit our family,” said Meyer’s wife Julie Meyer. “Coming back and going into the grocery store and people actually say ‘hello’ and just a very family friendly feel, very country, very Arizona.
“There are so many folks out here that are ropers and reiners,” she said. “A ton of them are family and friends and it has been really fun to watch.”
Scott Meyer wants to build on that personal touch he feels Revel Vet
can offer in Queen Creek, and build a practice in which every pet-loving person feels “recognized, respected, and appreciated.”
The company motto is “to them, you are the best human ever,” he said. “But for every ‘best dog ever’ and ‘best cat ever’ you are the best human ever.”
Taking that mission a step further, Meyer said keeping his practice family=owned and personal might help address a problem that has been on the rise along with the growth of corporate owned veterinary medical care facilities across the state and in Arizona.
Veterinary medicine has the highest rate of suicide and depression among its professional staff. Meyer hopes having a more personalized approach can help change that, even if it means getting emergency calls on his cell phone at 2 a.m. for a sick horse.
“Having that human feel to it,” he said. “We care about our doctors. We care about our staff. We care about our clients. It circles back to having that personal view of the country doctor and relationships and we care. We don’t just care about making money. We care about people.”
About
Revel Vet
Address: 24754 S Ellsworth Rd, Queen Creek, AZ 85142
Phone (480) 701-8609
Desert Mountain Equine:
480-294-7403