12/08/2025
Cooley Veterinary Hospital is celebrating 40 years of service to Richmond and surrounding counties. We opened on August 7, 1985, as a Mixed Animal practice, open 5.5 days a week, on call 24/7, with a staff of Dr. Will Cooley, Paula Dunn, Brian Lancaster, and Mrs. Frances Cooley, our bookkeeper. In 1989, Dr. William McDuffie joined the practice and stayed on for 8 years. Dr. Russ Bailey joined for a couple of years. Dr. Amy Allen worked for a year. In 1999, Dr. Megan Mack joined the practice, and in 2016, Dr. Toni Raines returned to practice in Richmond County.
2020 and Covid stimulus money resulted in a significant increase in demand for veterinary services, which coincided with an emphasis on work-life balance in the younger veterinarians and a shift towards corporate ownership of veterinary practices. All of these factors have resulted in a severe shortage of veterinarians- especially in rural areas. Cooley Veterinary Hospital continues to provide Small Animal medicine and surgical services 6 days a week. Presently, Dr. Cooley is the only full-time doctor on staff, with an occasional relief veterinarian filling in. We are actively recruiting another veterinarian- as are almost all other practices in the country. We are in the planning stages of building a new, much larger practice in Marston, NC, with a target date of opening in June of 2029.
We are very grateful for our clientele and our staff members, past and present, who have contributed to our growth and success. We intend to remain privately owned and appreciative of our clients and staff for generations to follow. This area and its people have been a great fit for us, and we feel we are where God intended us to be to help his creatures. Thanks again to all the clients and staff who have been a part of this for the past 40 years and who are patient with us as we work through this, hopefully temporary, shortage of veterinarians.
