Freya

Photo by Katie Beebe

Freya, a reactive dog, was sedated by her owner, Katie Beebe, in preparation for a scheduled house call on July 29 from The Vets. But no one showed up. The company had ceased operations the week before without notice.

Jerrold Abber finished his shift as a veterinary technician on a recent Monday and returned to his home in Tampa, Florida, thinking nothing was amiss. Then, at 9:39 p.m., an email arrived from his employer, The Vets, a mobile veterinary services provider. The July 21 message said the company was furloughing its employees without pay, effective immediately.

Abber was astonished. "We had appointments the next day," he said. "It was crazy."

Three days later, Abber received a follow-up email saying his employment was officially terminated because the company was closing.

In Portland, Oregon, Katie Beebe was one of the clients left in the lurch. In preparation for a July 29 appointment for a nail clipping and anal gland expression on her two dogs, Beebe gave her anxious pet, Freya, pills to calm her, as instructed by The Vets. As the appointment time came and went, it dawned on Beebe that she'd medicated Freya for nothing. The veterinary team never arrived.

"They had been in contact with me ... confirming my appointment and that I would be sedating my reactive dog," she said. "It never occurred to me they would just not show for the appointment, so I proceeded with the sedation process. I'm still so upset about this."

Abber and Beebe are among former employees and customers who told the VIN News Service about their experiences with The Vets and their thoughts on what led to the company's abrupt end in operations. Together, the sources were critical of The Vets' scheduling system, inventory management, pricing and communication — apparent missteps that exacerbated pressure on its finances during a period of broader economic uncertainty that is weighing on businesses everywhere.

The Vets didn't answer detailed questions from VIN News about the criticisms or its reasons for closing. CEO Esben Mou provided only a brief statement suggesting that the situation is still unfolding.

"The Vets is currently exploring strategic options and is in ongoing discussions, so we are unable to comment at this time," he said by email on Aug. 11. "We will be sure to update you as and when there are new developments."

Judging from its website, The Vets operated in 28 locations in the United States, including the major cities of Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Tampa.

The company was founded by venture capitalists Daniel Sagis, Dori Fussmann and Shmuel Chafets in 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic confined people to their homes and led them to dote more on their pets, boosting demand for veterinary care. A so-called pandemic pet boom has since faded and visits to veterinarians, on average, have moderated across the U.S. and abroad.

The email to staff sent on July 21 and seen by VIN News indicates the company's investors had lost patience with its poor financial performance and pulled funding.

"Over the past several months, we have worked tirelessly to stabilize the business, restructure operations, and secure the investment needed to carry the company forward," the letter states. "Despite real progress — made possible by your incredible effort, dedication, and belief in our mission — we have not been able to secure the funding necessary to continue."

A key investor in The Vets, Target Global, a venture capital firm led by Chafets and headquartered in Berlin, did not respond to requests for comment.

Dr. Julie Roh, a veterinarian in Columbus, Ohio, and former The Vets employee, got the same email as Abber on the night of July 21 but, she said, some colleagues apparently didn't see or didn't receive the message.

"A technician told me she and a doctor had worked the whole next day without even realizing the company had shut down," Roh said.

The Vets appears to have kept a skeleton crew onboard to oversee its winding down, she said. Veterinarians have been asked to return expensive items like medical devices but have been allowed to keep or donate small items like deworming medication, bandages and gauzes. The company's brightly colored vans are being collected — at least in Roh's experience.

Struggles go back many months

Although staff were shocked by the sudden shutdown, those who talked to VIN News said they weren't entirely surprised by The Vets' closure.

Dr. Bryan Rensema, a veterinarian in Eugene, Oregon, suspected trouble was afoot when he left the company in April. Rensema had worked for an independent mobile practice that was acquired by rival BetterVet in 2022. Then, BetterVet was acquired by The Vets in October 2024.

"A lot of the BetterVet doctors started leaving after the merger with The Vets," Rensema said. "I even knew a couple of doctors that had worked for The Vets previously, and they were like … 'Yeah, I'm leaving,' " implying that their experiences with the company were poor.

To Roh, the Vets seemed like a fully fledged company when she joined in April 2024. But a few things seemed off. She immediately observed what she called "very strange financial decisions," for example, renting expensive coworking spaces for staff and giving veterinary team members five sets of an expensive brand of scrubs, each embroidered with their names.

One possible sign that The Vets was struggling dates back well over a year. Dr. Zach Mills told VIN News last month that he was hired as The Vets' vice president of medical performance in 2023 and left the company only nine months later because his department was eliminated.

VIN News could not ascertain how many people The Vets employed when it ceased operations. In October 2024, when it acquired BetterVet, The Vets said the combined entity had "more than 80 veterinary teams," each presumably with at least one veterinarian and one veterinary technician equipped with their own van. Rensema recalls there being perhaps 60 to 70 veterinarians when he left in April, plus at least one veterinary technician for each doctor and around 30 customer service representatives.

Two veterinarians whom The Vets shows on its website as members of its medical advisory board — Drs. Kathy Cooney and Marie Holowaychuk — told VIN News that they hadn't engaged with the company for about 18 months. Holowaychuck was frustrated because, she said, "I formally resigned from their medical advisory board due to a lack of communication and never received a response, despite multiple follow-up emails and attempts to connect with individuals in the company."

Roh recalled that around midyear in 2024, The Vets closed its operations without notice in three cities: Atlanta, Jacksonville and Miami. Layoffs continued, to the point that only a few operations managers remained this year. According to former employees, they were almost impossible to reach. 

And staff had plenty of questions.

Scheduling challenges and other shortcomings

Abber, the veterinary technician in Tampa, maintains that an inability to get its logistics quite right contributed to The Vets' demise.

“They just couldn't figure out a good scheduling system, which turned a lot of clients off, which then turned into a lot of bad reviews," he said.

Abber said the company tested a scheduling system in some locations that gave customers the choice of two appointment windows: a.m. or p.m. "People didn't like that," he said.

Roh recalled being allotted inadequate time to travel between appointments. "We'd be running 30 minutes to an hour late, and that would upset clients. There were times when we'd have to cancel our last appointment of the day because we were running so late," she said.

The company also stocked up on medication that wasn't in high demand or that could be bought online with a prescription, according to Abber. "Their inventory was a little messed up, because they were squandering all this product," he said. "I can't tell you how many products we would throw away because it wasn't selling, and the doctors weren't using it."

Roh, too, remembers seeing a lot of expired product going into the trash. "There were things like oxygen tanks as well," she said, explaining that it made little sense for her to carry those because her particular city didn't offer surgery or sedated procedures. Roh said The Vets also listed services on the website that not every location provided. For example, "They said all of us had ultrasound units, but our team didn't have one."

More broadly, the former employees share a sense that The Vets charged excessively for its services.

For each home visit, clients paid a $99 exam fee and a $199 travel fee. Medications and services such as vaccinations or minor surgery were charged separately, which is standard in veterinary practice. Pet owners had the option to purchase a 12-month wellness plan that was initially priced at $99 per month and recently rose to $109 per month. The plan encompassed a specified number of exam and travel fees.

BetterVet, before it was acquired by The Vets, charged an $89 travel fee, Rensema recalled. "I know we've had some inflation, but that huge jump in pricing, that was a big sticking point," he said. The Vets management appears to have agreed. A banner at the top of The Vets' website indicates it had cut its travel fees by "up to 50%," presumably recently.

Veterinarians could give clients a discount code on the travel fee, Rensema said, but doing so could be tedious. "The code would renew frequently, and it was controlled essentially by a reception team," he said. "I could be in the field and need a coupon, and I would have to spend 20 to 30 minutes getting ahold of someone so I could get this coupon code."

Overall, Rensema maintained, poor communication was the company's biggest failing. "Whether it was with the doctors or with the clients, the level of communication was just abysmal," he said.

Roh concurred, contending that senior managers, many without experience in veterinary medicine, wouldn't accept feedback.

"They were trialing weird things like cancellation fees and waiving prices on things we felt were inappropriate and not listening to our advice on what people were wanting and more prepared to pay for," she said. "There was a pretty severe disconnect."

Uncertainty over payments and refunds

With the company apparently out of business and minimally communicative at best, some former clients and employees worry that they or others could be left short-changed.

A person identifying themselves as a relief veterinarian who worked for The Vets posted on Aug. 5 to the social media platform Reddit that they hadn't been paid for a shift and that their multiple emails to managers had gone unanswered. The person invited VIN News to share the post but didn't respond to an interview request made via direct message.

A former veterinary technician for The Vets who had access to its payment system told VIN News that pet owners who had purchased wellness plans were still being charged monthly payments following the shutdown on July 21. The technician, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Eric, said management told staff on July 15 that the wellness plans were being eliminated. (Roh and Abber confirmed the same.)

Asked by staff whether payments would automatically stop, managers said they didn't know, according to Eric. He recommends that customers contact their banks to stop payments and/or request chargebacks on undelivered services.

Scot Brown, a customer in Orlando, Florida, was about seven months into a 12-month wellness plan when he tried to book an appointment on July 22, only to discover that he couldn't. Neither of his two pets had had a single visit yet.

"Now I'm dealing with my bank to figure out how to get any money back and also to try to block future charges," Brown said. "I essentially paid for nothing."

Beebe, the pet owner in Portland, Oregon, paid in full for two annual wellness plans, one for each of her dogs, to reap a 10% discount compared with paying each month for a year. The price was $2,198. For that, she had received one visit for each pet. Beebe said the company refunded her $348 on Aug. 11, an amount she called "laughable." It eventually replied to her multiple e-mails requesting her dogs' medical records

To warn others about the company's sudden closure, Beebe left a review on The Vets' official Facebook page. A woman who commented on her post, Beebe said, maintained that the company had taken a payment from her after July 21. The Vets' official Facebook page appears to have since been deactivated.