Today we’d like to introduce you to Raymond Esparza
Hi Raymond, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am originally from San Antonio and I am a 2016 graduate from Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine. I spent the first 4 years of my veterinary career in NYC which included working for their city shelter, Animal Care Centers of NYC. I unexpectedly found myself back in San Antonio in 2020 and began providing veterinary relief services to local practices. I fell into relief work as I needed flexibility but passion has always been in shelter and community medicine as well as providing education to our clients and community in the basic preventive care for pets. I started our mobile vaccine clinic, Protect Your Pet, as a way to increase accessibility to preventive care as well as educate the community on preventable disease such as heartworms and parvovirus. My goal is to reduce barriers to services that may hinder our community from seeking out these services. These barriers may include things such as finances, logistics, scheduling or lack of veterinary knowledge.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, there have been a few struggles. Initially, our struggle was primarily finding locations to set-up as this involves obtaining permission from property management, because we set up in parking lots of local businesses. We also had a few staffing issues as my staff are all part-time and have their own full-time jobs while moonlighting for me. Now, I would say our main struggle is keeping up with the behind the scenes stuff like data entry, returning phone calls, etc. These things are taking up increasingly more of my time and I find it difficult to release tasks to others but I have been working on that.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Protect Your Pet?
We provide low cost preventive care services for dogs and cats including vaccines, microchips, heartworm testing and prevention, flea / tick prevention and nail trims. We also have a partnership with the City of San Antonio where we provide free vaccines and microchips to San Antonio residents on select days / times during the month.
I think what sets us apart in our industry is we are locally owned and operated and this helps me to really feel a good connection with the residents / clients we are serving.
I am most proud of the customer service and individual attention we provide. Despite our long days and working outside in whatever elements Texas decides to give us that day, we are always happy to help our clients and their pets with a smile on our face. We are happy to answer questions and provide advice as best we can. I have an incredible team that makes this all look very easy and I could not do this without them.
I want folks to know that we are here to help and provide services and information, even if you are not a client of ours. I want people to know that we have been operating for 2 years and have not raised prices at all (and I hope to keep it this way as long as possible), despite costs continuing to rise on our end.
What matters most to you?
What matters to me most is helping our community take care of their pets. I got into this profession because I love animals and each of those animals is attached to a human, one way or another. It is important to me that people have the resources they need in order to achieve these goals.
Pricing:
- Dog & Cat Vaccine packages starting at $40.
- Microchips $40
- Nail Trims $15
- Flea / Tick prevention starting at $15
- Heartworm prevention as low as $8/month
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.protectyourpettexas.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/protect.yourpet/profilecard/?igsh=YnpqeWpqeG41NGVu
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/protectyourpettexas?mibextid=LQQJ4d
