Alexis Soutter, DVM  

I don’t remember a time when my heart was not owned by animals. First, it was the cats that populated the house when I was born; there are pictures of me as a toddler, sitting with them in the sun. My mother lost me one afternoon when I was maybe two or three and panicked, only to find me at the neighbor’s, petting their horse through the fence. The day I learned there were such things as doctors for animals, I came home and announced to my father that that’s what I was going to do when I grew up.

I have been without a doubt very fortunate that I was able to make that happen. It wasn’t an easy road, but it was, and continues to be, a fun and rewarding one. It has frequently taken me in directions I would not have foreseen, whether that was raising orphaned squirrels for the local Nature Center or training dogs and horses and learning how to reinforce good behavior (and finding the patience to work through the bad). It has not always been easy. Matters of life and death never are, and at its core that’s what medicine really is. Yet I am also able to see the best of humanity every day: the love we develop for the furry souls who take over our homes and hearts. All of the skills I picked up along the way, all of the hard lessons and the joyful times, have helped to shape not just the way I practice veterinary medicine, but the way I see the world as well.