Anna Ginsky

MexiVet Express photo

MexiVet Express, a courier service that Anna Ginsky founded in 2018, ferries dozens of pets across the United States-Mexico border each week on behalf of owners seeking cheaper veterinary care.

Thomas and Loralee Kitts faced an excruciating decision. Their wire-haired dachshund, Gus, needed surgery for intervertebral disk disease, a painful and crippling spinal condition. Unable to afford the $12,000 quoted by a veterinarian in Portland, Oregon, where they live, the couple considered euthanasia.

"We were at a loss," Thomas Kitts said. "My wife and I were sitting there wondering, what the hell should we do? This is our little guy."

Loralee Kitts remembered hearing about people going to places like Mexico for less expensive medical care and wondered if such services were available for pets. She hopped online and within minutes, came across the website of Vet Voyage, a company that offers to fly pets in the United States to practices in Mexico City and back.

Intrigued, the Kittses gave the company a call. With that, they embarked on what appears to be an increasingly well-traveled path.

Amid the rising costs of veterinary care in many wealthy countries, popular medical tourism markets in places like Mexico and Turkey are expanding to encompass people's canine and feline companions. And, like with human medicine, that's raising questions about the consistency of the quality of care that pet owners might encounter in countries with different regulatory frameworks and training protocols.

A front-page headline in Britain's Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper last year blared that a "vet and a nose job" is available in Turkey for Western visitors. The report said a cosmetic surgery company there, Saluss Medical Group, offers budget package deals that include accommodation, sightseeing, treatment for pets and plastic surgery for their owners, including rhinoplasty.

A Saluss Medical representative told VIN News that although it offers a range of services, it doesn't actively market packages combining care for humans and pets. More than 60% of the pets treated at its seven-doctor veterinary practice are from Turkey; the rest flown in from places like mainland Europe, the Middle East and North America.

In Mexico, the market for veterinary tourism has been growing fast, judging by interviews with people who operate businesses there.

The premise is supported by data on movements across the Mexico border. Last year, 36,670 dogs were recorded entering Mexico from abroad, up from 32,869 in 2023, a rise of 11.6%, according to data provided to VIN News by the Mexican government. Growth has been steadily increasing each year since 2020, when just 14,257 foreign dogs entered — though numbers that year were reduced by border closures and lockdowns associated with the pandemic. In 2019, before the pandemic hit, the number was 18,533.

The extent to which the U.S. Trump administration's hardline approach to immigration and trade might affect Mexico's veterinary tourism market is, so far, difficult to determine. None of the businesses contacted by VIN News in recent weeks said they'd been hurt to date. All noted that their services involve relatively short stays and don't involve bulk goods traditionally targeted by trade tariffs.

Lower costs, more freedom — and more risk?

Tijuana is among the world's most visited border cities, in large part thanks to a thriving economy that caters to Americans seeking cheaper products and services, whether food, clothing, dentistry work, plastic surgery — or veterinary care.

"For a lot of Mexicans, Tijuana’s the land of opportunity," said Dr. Francisco Madrigal, a veterinarian who grew up there.

Madrigal established HospiVet, a companion animal practice in downtown Tijuana, six years ago as a one-doctor operation. Today, he employs up to eight veterinarians, including locums, and estimates that 70% to 80% of his clients live in California.

Madrigal used to work at another Tijuana practice, Vet Playas, which claims to be one of the city's biggest hospitals catering to foreigners. It employs 17 practitioners full-time, and about 80% of its clients come from the U.S., according to its manager, Ronald Richards. A businessman from Philadelphia, Richards co-founded the hospital 17 years ago as a single-doctor practice.

Vet Playas specializes in orthopedic surgery at prices that Richards says average one-third of those in the U.S. He offers the example of surgery to treat intervertebral disc disease. His practice charges about $3,500, including an initial examination, diagnostics with MRI, surgery and a multi-night hospital stay, which, Richards says, compares with around $10,000 and potentially more in the U.S.

The hospital also offers procedures including teeth cleaning and surgeries for tumor removal, blockages and hernias, he said.

Richards acknowledged that overcoming pet owners' concerns about the quality of care in Mexico is a key challenge. "We adhere to the same standards as they do in the U.S.," he maintained. "Our business is really Americanized, for lack of a better word. We have the best equipment here."

Three of the hospital's 17 practitioners are from Colombia; the other 14 from Mexico, most having studied veterinary medicine at the Autonomous University of Baja California, located in the nearby city of Mexicali. (Mexico has one U.S.-accredited veterinary school, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.)

Madrigal is among the Mexicali university's graduates. During his final year there, he externed at a couple of veterinary hospitals in California where, he said, he was exposed to a high level of care.

Madrigal believes pet owners are crossing the border from the U.S. not just for lower prices but for more personalized services from doctors who aren't as bound by corporate protocol or government regulations.

"In America, you have all the machines, all the toys, all the technology, all the new treatments," he said. "But you don't have as much freedom to do your job. That's what I found. And that's what Mexico represents to me. Freedom."

At the same time, he recognizes that greater freedoms can open doors for unscrupulous operators. "It's a two-edged sword, because it also allows a lot of people that don't have the best intentions to abuse that power sometimes. So that's the bad side."

Hospitals in Mexico also have to grapple with pet owners' fears for their own safety in cities that regularly rank among places with the world's highest murder rates. Madrigal and Richards maintain that concerns about safety are overblown, noting that the vast majority of violence in Tijuana is gang-on-gang.

Richards acknowledged, though, that the perception of danger is, nevertheless, a challenge. Another, he said, is people not wanting "the hassle of crossing the border."

Dr. Francisco Madrigal

Photo courtesy of Dr. Francisco Madrigal

Dr. Francisco Madrigal says 70% to 80% of the clients at his veterinary practice in Tijuana live in the United States.

A healthy coexistence?

Tijuana practice owners and couriers who transport pets across the border told VIN News they were under no illusions about the potential discontent their efforts might stir in the U.S.

"What I tell people is, 'Remember, it's a medical business, and you're going to get resistance when you tell your doctor there that you're coming here,' " Richards said. "Of course, just like me: I tell them it hurts my feelings if you leave me."

At the same time, most of the sources contacted by VIN News said they know of veterinarians in the U.S. who refer patients to Mexican clinics.

VIN News spoke to two veterinarians at different clinics in the U.S. who said they consider Mexico to be a viable option for some cash-strapped clients.

One is Dr. Laura Halsey, owner of a three-doctor practice in San Diego. "It's a complex issue, and not every case is going to be the same," she said. For instance, she noted that the travel time to Mexico would not be appropriate for patients that need fast intervention.

Standards of care in Mexico vary, just as they do among practices in the U.S., Halsey added. "You're not always comparing apples with apples. But I know we're going to have our liability insurance, and we're going to have our veterinary medical board inspecting places. The regulations will differ in different countries and so will your options as a client if things go wrong."

Occasionally, a client will have diagnostic work done south of the border, leaving Halsey to interpret the test.

"That can be something kind of straightforward, like a blood test, or it can be something that's a little bit complicated or requires more interpretation, like an ultrasound or other imaging," she said. "And there's always some concern that things could quite literally get lost in translation."

Asked if she's had to treat a patient that had received poor care in Mexico, Halsey recounted a recent case of a dog that had been incorrectly spayed there. It turned out the dog's ovaries were still in place. The patient had developed mammary cancer and needed a radical mastectomy in addition to a proper spay.

Still, Halsey and her colleagues will sometimes suggest clients visit specific Mexican clinics that they trust. "We usually cycle through a few other options first," she said. "Is there a nonprofit that can help? Is there a financial assistance organization that can help?"

Summing up her approach, she said: "If it's between the patient dying and trying care in Mexico, of course, I think it's an option on the table."

Madrigal, the practitioner in Tijuana, said he understands that some veterinarians in the U.S. might be concerned about the quality of care in Mexico, but asks that they give clinics like his the benefit of the doubt.

"I hope that they don't take it as a bad thing," he said. "I hope that they take it as us doing our best work. I've been blessed to learn from them, and have had a lot of good mentors from over there. At the end of the day, we are all in the same professional field."

Gus

Vet Voyage photo

Gus, a wire-haired dachshund from Portland, was successfully treated for intervertebral disk disease at a veterinary hospital in Mexico City.

By road or by air

The cross-border option is being facilitated by the emergence of courier services like MexiVet Express, founded in 2018 by a pet owner, Anna Ginsky. The business has 12 employees who van dozens of dogs and cats every week between San Diego and clinics in Tijuana.

The idea of the service occurred to Ginsky while she was sitting in the waiting room at Vet Playas, where she was a regular customer. Ginsky heard other pet owners extol the cheaper prices and grouse about the long wait. "When they say time is different in Mexico, they are not kidding," she told VIN News. At the clinic, she thought: "I bet some of these people would be happy to have someone do this for them, just to save their time."

She charges $125 to $250 for transportation service, depending on appointment length. Pets are picked up at various points in San Diego, typically outside a Starbucks cafe. Door-to-door service is available to those who pay a premium. All clients sign a liability waiver, should a pet go missing or its condition worsen.

Dawn Salisbury is one of MexiVet's loyal customers. Already a Vet Playas client, the dog lover came across Ginsky's business card during a visit there. In the five years since, Salisbury has used the service some 15 to 20 times to treat conditions ranging from ovarian cancer in a pit bull to a poisonous spider bite on a mastiff's paw.

"For anything major, we always call Anna," Salisbury said.

Ginsky believes that the quality of medicine in the hospitals she serves is high but noted that some forms of treatment are hard to find or are less desirable south of the border. "In Tijuana, you're not going to find radiation therapy, for instance," she said.

Customer service levels also differ. "The English usually isn't going to be perfect," Ginksy explained. "You're not going to get updates every three hours, and you're not going to get packets of information when your pet's just been discharged. So it's not all going to be tied up with a bow the way it will be in the U.S."

Vet Voyage, the company flying pets to Mexico City, is less established than MexiVet, having had only four patients to date — a pug, a Maltese and two dachshunds, one of them Gus from Oregon.

The company’s founder, Victor Lugo, said he’s focusing on intervertebral disk disease, charging $5,500 for an airfare and veterinary services that include an MRI, surgery, a hospital stay of three to four nights and physical therapy. He accepts only pets small enough to fit under the seat in front of him so that no one has to travel in cargo. Like Ginsky's, his clients must sign a liability waiver.

Lugo, who also exports decanter sets to the U.S., got the idea for the courier service while he was dating a veterinarian in Mexico City. "I realized there was a big opportunity," he said. "I especially looked into economic euthanasia. I feel like the people that contact me, I'm the last resort before putting their pet down."

Initially, the Kittses had reservations about handing Gus to a stranger, though they had a positive impression of Mexico from previous travels there. "We know how great the people are," Thomas Kitts said. "And when I met Victor at Portland airport, I felt really good. He kept us fully informed every step of the way. Any time I asked for an update, he responded with photos of Gus, the facilities and things like that."

Gus turned out to have two affected vertebral disks and needed extensive physiotherapy after his surgery. (Lugo looked after the dog during his rehabilitation in Mexico City). The treatment, which cost around $6,300 in total, including airfares, was successful. "When we met Gus at the airport, it was amazing," Thomas Kitts said. "Just to see the transformation."