Horses require routine dental exams as their teeth constantly grow and erupt throughout their lives. Exams and floats are needed to ensure that they do not have points that cause cheek and tongue ulcers, hooks that prevent proper chewing, fractured teeth, or abscesses.
Vaccination
Veterinary Ophthalmology
Eyes can pose many problems for animals, and we’re here to help! We have the ability to do thorough eye exams, stain for ulcers, and assess tear production. We also perform basic ocular surgeries including grid keratotomies, third eyelid flaps, enucleations, and more.
Nutritional Counseling
Comprehensive Examination
Routine exams are essential for maintaining happy and healthy animals! As dogs, cats, pocket pets, and birds are known to age more quickly than humans, we advise yearly check-ups, then semi-annual check-ups for our older patients. Many of our annual exams include essential vaccines that aid in preventing the onset and spread of disease in our pets and livestock. Please check out our vaccines link for more information!
After training extensively with Dr. Tim Holt and Lisa Herrick, Dr. Curtis Crawford now offers top of the line PAP (pulmonary arterial pressure) testing on heifers, bulls, and cows. This test helps to screen for a condition that many of our high altitude cattle are at risk for called High Mountain Disease, or brisket disease. This is a heritable condition of the arteries supplying the lungs which causes them to become thickened at high altitudes. This, in turn, causes excessive strain on the heart, which leads to subsequent heart failure and death. Screening for this trait helps to improve genetic selection and overall herd health for our high altitude cattle. Dr. Crawford offers testing year round either at the clinic or on the ranch.
Although I will always be a general practitioner, my medical interests lie in beef cattle, sheep and goats, and small animal orthopedics. Our practice has recently started using interlocking nails for long bone fractures in addition to the regular pins, wires and external skeletal fixation devices we have always had. I perform laparoscopic AI for sheep and goats and am pursuing bringing PAP testing capabilities to the practice.
Dr. Kayla Bentley has been an associate veterinarian with Alpine Veterinary Hospital since 2018 after receiving her doctorate in veterinary medicine from Texas A&M University. Her professional interests include ultrasonography, soft tissue surgery, and preventative medicine and she enjoys working on all species. Born and raised in Tyler, Texas, she has always had a love for the Colorado mountains. She and her husband have quickly come to the love the San Luis Valley with its rich sense of community and unique landscape. Her hobbies include all things outdoors such as hiking, fishing and hunting. She enjoys spending time with her 3 dogs and tending to her flock of chickens. Dr. Kayla Bentley
Small Animal Surgery
Dr. Jason Paine was raised in central Kansas on a small livestock operation. He grew up developing show goat and beef cattle herds while being heavily involved in 4-H and exhibiting livestock across the country. A graduate of the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine(Go Cats), he developed a passion for rural mixed animal medicine and enjoys working with animals of all sizes. During school, he spent several weeks on an veterinary exchange program in Belgium where he worked with dairy farms and Belgian Blue ranchers. His special veterinary interests include large animal medicine/surgery, reproduction and small animal surgery. Dr. Paine has always loved the mountains and enjoys tackling 14'ers, snowboarding, and exploring the many Colorado trails with his Australian Shepherd. jason paine
We have blood machines that help us to evaluate multiple parameters in our small and large animals including CBC and Blood Chemistries. A CBC, or Complete Blood Count, assesses the animal’s white blood cells (infection fighting cells), red blood cells (oxygen carrying cells), and platelets (clotting cells). The Chemistry panels help us to evaluate the health of multiple organ systems including the liver and kidney.
X-Ray
Dental Radiology
Our state of the art ultrasonographic dental machines allow us to perform high quality scaling, polishing, bonding, drilling, extractions, and more. The major key to our success at ensuring a healthy mouth is the use of our dental x-ray machine, which helps us to diagnose fractures, abscesses, dead teeth, retained teeth, and jaw abnormalities.