It’s sad, but true, but Dr. Gary Sloniker, of the Spooner Vet Clinic since 1977 is hanging up his stethoscope and calling it quits after 40 years of treating cows and horses, dogs and cats and everything in between.
He grew up in Willard, Wisconsin where his dad managed a cheese factory. If you know your Wisconsin towns, you’ll be one of the few who knows that Willard is a lot east and a little south of Eau Claire; out in the boondocks. Even now its population is only 539.
He only lived there two years and then the family moved to Stetsonville, which was a little bigger, and they still lived in the country and his dad managed another cheese factory. He and his family lived over the factory and everyone was involved in the production of cheese from his mom and dad to his brother and him. The boy’s job was to box the forty pound blocks of cheese both morning and night that were sent out to various outlets. The job was unending because they made cheese seven days a week.
After graduating from high school in Medford, he knew one thing; he was not going into the cheese business.
Even though he can’t remember what he was researching, he was deeply in the “V” section of the World Book Encyclopedia when he came across the word veterinarian. As he read about the practice, it looked interesting and he decided that was something he might like to do.
No matter where they lived, the family always had a dog. One of them, ‘Pepper’, their black Lab was nine the same year as Gary and that was the year their dog was hit and killed. It affected him greatly. His best friend and trusted confidant was gone. It impacted him beyond what he realized then.
Even though the schooling to be a vet would run a full seven years, he was not deterred. Three years at River Falls completed his pre-vet degree and then on to the University of Minnesota, St. Paul for another four years. After River Falls he had to declare his emphasis, small, mixed or large animals? He chose large ones, cows to be exact.
The year he graduated, he started in Spooner with veteran veterinarian Forrest Thannum and Lloyd Foss who was down to working part-time looking to retire.
Eighty percent of their practice was large animals, horses, and dairy and beef cows. Their original building served mainly as an office where calls came in and the vets came in to equip their vehicles with the necessary medicines and tools as they left for the various farm visits.
Today it serves as Ventures and Just for the Birds but before 1991 it was the vet clinic and it was where Gary cut his teeth relying only on a good exam of the animal and their health history to make a diagnosis. Lab blood work back then had to be mailed to Phoenix and it took 5 days to get the results back. Now with the in-house lab, they can get the results in only 20 minutes.
In the early days, it was just the two vets in their 1,600 square foot building and all they had was a 2-way radio in their trucks and an office girl to take messages. Cindy Sloniker, Gary’s wife, became the receptionist and there’s where she spent 30 years, adding to her workload each year. “She was the one who kept us organized,” he says. “She took the burden off us. She went from the receptionist in 1979 to the pivotal person becoming the practice manager of the office and interior decorator of the new facility.
In 1986 they noted that thirty percent of their clients were coming from Hayward, so they opened a vet clinic there and doubled their business. There were four vets that worked, two in Spooner and one in Hayward and one working as a floater.
By 1999, their new facility, an impressive 8000 square foot building, was built to accommodate only small animals due to the fact that eighty percent of the large animal business had shrunk to only seven percent.
The new clinic was also heavy with valuable new equipment, putting high-tech at their fingertips. They also added a boarding facility. But their goal was still the same, “Now, or back then, there’s still nothing like saving the life of an animal,” he says.
Three vets and twenty four employees serve today’s ever-increasing clientele and the best advice this experienced vet can give is the two most important health concerns people need to have to extend their pet’s life to the fullest:
Most importantly is not having overweight pets.
“Over seventy five percent of medium to old dogs are overweight, which causes them to die early, often by two or more years. People know better than to have a fat pet, but the pets don’t know that they shouldn’t be fat and can’t watch their own weight.”
Another important health risk concerns the teeth. “Proper dental care, which includes teeth cleaning by a professional and brushing by their owners, can avoid heart and kidney disease is the second warning.”
Now that 40 years are coming to close at the end of this month, Gary knows already he’s going to miss the interaction he has with his staff and his clients. Every day he worked, he looked forward to the different cases he would see that day, but semi-retired already, he admits that sitting in his easy chair with his wife in hers, drinking coffee, having a daily devotional and then watching a bit of morning news has its advantages for eliminating morning stress and he looks forward to doing it every day.
His wife, Cindy who retired a few years ago, is looking forward to finding a place somewhere south for a few months each winter and he’s looking forward to Alaskan cruises. She wants to visit the Holy Land, and his jury is still out on that one.
He’s never been a handy-man, using the adage that “Only if it bleeds, can I fix it.”
They do already have a hobby farm where they’ve raised and sold steers and pigs for years and he’d like to expand that a little.
They’re members of the Faith Lutheran church where he is an elder, and he’s in the Lions Club as well as Chairman of the Credit Union. He’s anxious to add turkey hunting to his retirement to-do list, seeing he’s already an avid hunter and fisherman.
One would imagine that if it came to telling stories of past experiences on the job, his would be the ultimate in interesting.
One story he did share was when a five month old lab pup was brought in gagging badly. He always had a soft spot for labs and this one was in great distress.
After examining the pup’s belly, he felt something hard inside and decided to operate. They had recently purchased an X-ray machine, so he let the tech take a picture just out of curiosity, and none of them could believe what the hard lump was. But there it was, plan as could be, an eighteen inch ice fishing rod with its wooden handle, begunswallowed by the dog. This changed the treatment completely, now he simply put the dog to sleep, opened its mouth, saw the tip of the rod and reached down the dog’s throat and gently pulled it all out in one piece.
This act led to a spot in a contest in 2012 titled, “My Pet Ate What?” He won the national award and had his picture in their publication along with the dog. It was picked up by the National Geographic for Kids magazine and if it wasn’t for the x-ray photo that went along with the picture of the dog, no one would ever believe it.
The practice of veterinarian medicine has changed over the years from large animals to small and when Gary first began the practice it was mainly men, eighty percent in fact. Now the tables have turned completely and eighty percent of the vets are women.
Another thing that has changed is what the client expects. Years ago farmers would say, “Do your best.” This new generation wants positive results because of modern technology. Years ago the spokes in the animal’s health care wheel were the clients and the employees with the vet in the center. Now the spokes represent the vets and the employees with the client in the middle.
Times are changing, but it’s still about the animals large and small. They’re God’s creatures and He made them all.
Diane Dryden has been a feature writer for twelve years and is the author of two novels. Order your copy of the Accidental King of Clark Street and Double or Nothing on Foster Avenue today!
Last Update: Mar 17, 2017 9:41 am CDT
