Founded by two Veterinarians, Dr. Anne Traas and Dr. Jacky May, to bring much needed information on veterinary care and behavioral topics to the public in easy to understand ways – for free. We also wanted to capture some of the amazing stories that all veterinarians and veterinary technicians tell at parties and around the dinner table. These stories of heroism and humor in their daily lives deserve to be shared with a larger audience.
The information on this site is not meant to be a substitute for prompt veterinary care but to guide pet owners in understanding what may be going on with their pets and help them seek the appropriate care and ask the right questions when speaking to their personal veterinarians.
Meet the founders
Dr. Anne Traas
Anne Traas, DVM, MS, DACT earned her Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and Bachelor of Science from the University of Minnesota. She also earned a Master of Science in translational research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and is a board certified specialist in Theriogenology (Animal Reproduction). She began her career as a practicing veterinarian in general companion animal care and later transitioned to drug development.
Dr. Traas has nearly 20 years of experience as a veterinarian and leader in clinical drug and vaccine development, including over a decade at Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) Animal Health. She now works for a startup biotech.
She is motivated by helping to bring the most modern medicines to pets. In her day job, she leads a team of veterinarians, scientists and clinical and regulatory specialists who drive clinical development of novel veterinary drugs. Check out Scout Bio to see how her company is working to bring single injection for life products to the market to treat chronic diseases like pain, diabetes and other long term illnesses in dogs and cats.
Dr Traas shares her life with her husband, son and daughter, 3 dogs and only one old cat. There was a time when she had more than 50 chickens, turkeys, a lizard, multiple dogs, and many many cats so she considers this is an improvement in her animal adoption problem.
Dr. Jacky May
Jacky May, DVM graduated from Mississippi State College of Veterinary Medicine a long long time ago. She has well over 20 years of private practice experience in companion animal medicine. During her decades of working with dogs and cats she developed strong interests in internal medicine, dermatology, and behavior consultations. She was fortunate enough to work in high quality semi-rural and urban centers which gave her a wide breadth and depth of experience.
In 2015 she left private practice in pursuit of new things to engage her mind and entered the animal health industry community. First she worked at Boehringer Ingelheim in companion animal vaccine development, and then moved into companion animal pharmaceutical development. Pharmaceutical development captured and held her interest with the rich opportunities to directly advance steps in the treatment of chronic diseases in companion animals. To bring improvement and relief to pets and their families remains a strong motivating force professionally in this different path.
Dr. May shares her home with her extended family and their pets as well as her own two older dogs and one very very active young cat.
History
The pandemic crisis and a staffing shortage that had been developing in the veterinary medical field, combined to produce serious difficulties for pet owners trying to arrange for veterinary care. Companion behaviorists were overloaded as well, and general practitioners were left with precious little time to try and assist the routine behavior problems that they had always handled on the ‘front lines’. Because of this, Dr. May and Dr. Traas made a commitment to try and offer high quality information to assist pet owners. Information to help inform the owners of their management and choices as they wait to move forward and engage an appointment with the proper professionals to provide more tailored medical and behavior advice.
Contributing Authors
Authors:
English