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After more than a decade of providing walk-in veterinary care to Capitol Hill, Urban Animal will be transitioning to a co-op business model — the first of its kind in the nation. Drawing from 24 years of veterinary experience, founder Cherri Trusheim is responding to her observations of increasing corporatization and high levels of burnout within the industry.

“It is an emotionally taxing field to work in and sometimes the job lifespan isn’t too long,” Trusheim said. “We’re having a hard time finding veterinary professionals because corporate has come in and designed these jobs for them in a way that’s not sustainable.”

Trusheim’s vision for the cooperative emphasizes giving employees a say in how they provide veterinary care and other business decisions. The business will be owned by workers, which is different from other co-op models, where ownership falls on the consumers or producers of the product. Trusheim says there’s a lot of variance between each cooperative.

“For me, it was really that governance piece. Giving people a voice and not just giving them money,” Trusheim said. “Really having a voice at the table because burnout is, that feeling of overwhelm coupled with helplessness, you just don’t feel like there’s anything you can do to make it different.”

CHS reported here in September as Urban Animal announced its co-op plans. Started in 2012 at Broadway and Madison, Urban Animal has grown from its eventual E Thomas home to add downtown and West Seattle clinics. The E Thomas clinic’s expanded, taking over a neighboring cafe space in 2019 to add cat and dog-friendly entrances in addition to a host of upgrades. Urban Animal has grown to serve three areas of the city with the Capitol Hill clinic plus locations in South Lake Union and White Center.

Trusheim will remain in place as CEO as the cooperative launches with help from cooperative development partner The Cooperative Way. According to the announcement, Urban Animal is reorganizing as a limited cooperative association and Trusheim will gift a portion of the company “to seed it, with a goal over time to become a 100 percent employee-owned worker co-op.”

The change will make Urban Animal the nation’s first co-op veterinary practice, the organizations say.

To get the ball rolling, Trusheim will gift a small portion of the company to the co-op. The Cooperative Way, an organization that helps implement the model into businesses, will help teach business skills to a group of employees called “early adopters.” The group currently has over a dozen members, and according to the announcement, will teach other employees. Trusheim hopes that in around 10 years the co-op will own the majority of the business.

Employees are having their first meetings about implementation, but the process is still in its early stages, says Michael Light, a veterinarian at Urban Animal. He’s feeling excited about the transition and is part of the early adopters group. It will look similar to a private practice, he says, where the people working will be close to people making decisions.

“With a corporation, those higher ups, the people who ultimately have the say, are so far removed from what’s really going on in the hospital, there’s a disconnect there,” Light said. “I think in a corporate world you just kind of feel like a cog in the machine that’s not necessarily well-oiled.”

Mollyrose Dumm, Client Liaison at Urban Animal, says she’s happily anticipating the changes. Prior to Urban Animal, Dumm worked in emergency medicine, where she was on a bargaining committee for a union. The business was purchased by a corporate entity and eventually shut down.

“The changes were terrible. They were almost immediate and we had no power. We were the hospital that unionized and then got shut down because they couldn’t staff the hospital,” Dumm said. “They did not care about the family that we were, and they broke our hospital.”

Trusheim says the biggest barriers Urban Animal is facing is getting the word out and bringing in workers to meet high demand from pet owners. Last Saturday, she says the wait list reached 30 people. Dumm thinks the change will bring in others.

“I think the confidence that will give people is going to be intoxicating and then it’s going to be so much easier to attract other people,” Dumm said.

There is a small community of cooperatives on Capitol Hill, including Central Co-op and Liberty Bar. Trusheim is happy to be joining that group, and says she wants it to grow.

“I think if we can start giving people a voice they can start to have some optimism that things can look different,” Trusheim said.

While the changes are being made, the clinic and its employees will continue to provide care at its three locations around Seattle.

“Someone who’s in the private equity world… they could not in a million years comprehend why veterinary professionals do what they do. It’s just a love of dogs and cats and the human animal bond,” Trusheim said.

Urban Animal Capitol Hill is located at 909 E Thomas. You can learn more at urbananimalnw.com.

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.