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It's a three-day weekend, something's gonna go wrong. It never fails that while we are enjoying a nice after-normal business hours holiday weekend our vehicles, family members, or even our pets may have an emergency that we need to tend to.

That happened to me over the weekend it was my wife had a blowout on her vehicle, and when we got home one of our dogs was not feeling well and was not responding. I called our family veterinarian only to discover that A) he was closed and B) he was not going to be available until Tuesday.

I immediately went into complete panic mode as to what was I going to do? This poor furbaby was not feeling well was breathing heavily and was barely responsive. It was when I spoke with a friend that told me Abilene is one of the few cities in the state of Texas that has its own after-hours pet emergency veterinary clinic.

The Emergency Veterinarian Clinic in Abilene is only open from 5 PM until 8 AM when all other Vet clinics are closed.

San Angelo has one but it's only open during the week and until midnight. Abilene's emergency room for pets is open from 5 PM until 8 AM when all of our veterinarians have closed and gone home for the evening.

While there I was curious as to what kind of animals they treated and what all they could handle, emergency-wise. They only treat cats and dogs and what they can do is just about everything. Except do the normal things a veterinarian does like give vaccinations, micro-chipping, and spay-neuter.

While your veterinarian can take care of the normal stuff, they only handle emergencies, and they only do that after hours. While I took that as odd that they do not compete with the local vets. It's because the emergency room for our beloved furbabies is supported by several veterinarian clinics from Abilene.

And yes we are very fortunate to have one here in Abilene otherwise you will have to drive to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, or go to Austin, San Antonio, or Houston. As I mentioned above San Angelo has a similar one but it's limited to what it can handle and for shorter hours.

So say your prayers Big Country, and thank you, God, that the Key City has an Emergency Veterinary Clinic for our pets on Industrial Blvd.

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