Since I was a little girl I had a great love for animals and wanted to be a veterinarian. Growing up I was raised vegetarian as my grandfather while living briefly in Malaysia (on his way emigrating from India to the United States) had witnessed a pig being slaughtered and vowed with my grandmother never again to eat land animals, thus passing on the practice of vegetarianism to my mother and her siblings. It was natural to me to be vegetarian because animals were my friends (and future patients!) and while attending University of California, Berkeley for my Bioresource Sciences degree I learned about the cruelties inflicted on egg-laying hens and dairy cows, so I decided to go vegan.

To my delight, I was accepted to UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine (as well as Cornell University) on my first application.  However, in vet school I faced many obstacles, including losing my older brother and only sibling after a long time being missing as well as being ostracized by some of my classmates for being vegan and supporting animal rights. In my sophomore year of vet school I served as President of the Student Animal Welfare Committe and helped organize a surgical training wetlab using ethical-source cadavers as a humane alternative to the terminal surgeries (in which healthy animals were anesthetized for surgeries they did not need and subequently killed, a very disturbing practice fraught with ethical concerns). These terminal surgeries were subsequently discontinued in the small animal surgical electives and replaced with a rotation during senior clinics in which needed surgeries were peformed on animals whose guardians could not afford the regular price with faculty supervision - a win, win for all concerned! During vet school I volunteered in Guatemala with an organization called Rural Area Veterinary Services providing surgery services such as spays and neuters for economically disadvantaged communities.

Despite all the challenges and obstacles I faced in vet school and beyond, I have not been one to give up easily as I felt a calling to pursue this career in veterinary medicine, not only to help individual animals who would be my patients, but also to be a better advocate for them on a larger scale. I graduated from UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in June of 2005 and began working at a 24 hour dog and cat hospital based in the San Fernando Valley, where I obtained valuable clinical experience treating dogs and cats, many with emergency and critical conditions requiring surgeries and hospitalization. After working there for 20 months, in 2007 I decided to take a course in veterinary acupuncture through the Chi Institute of Chinese Medicine and started a housecall practice for dogs and cats in the Los Angeles area. When saying goodbye to precious animal companions in the comfort of their homes, I would give guardians the option to donate the animal's remains to a willed body donation program at Western University College of Veterinary Medicine which has a reverence for life philosophy and has no terminal surgeries in their curriculum. In 2009 I joined efforts with animal advocates and fellow veterinarians to support banning the cruel practice of declawing cats in eight cities in California including Los Angeles, Culver City, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Burbank, a glorious victory for our feline friends which is documented beautifully in The Paw Project produced by Dr. Jennifer Conrad.  I also gave talks on veganism and how animal companions can be vegan, taught vegan cooking classes and hosted a radio podcast on animal issues. As the years went by, I continued my animal advocacy and vegan education efforts, serving on the Board of Directors of Red Rover as well as volunteering veterinary services locally and abroad.  In 2014, at the National Animal Rights Conference held in Los Angeles, I was honored and humbled to receive the Henry Spira Grassroots Animal Activist Award for my advocacy efforts.  For the past six years or so I have volunteered on a monthly basis providing needed veterinary services and donating supplements, herbs and medications for dogs and cats of homeless people in North Hollywood through an organization called Angel Hanz for the Homeless.  I also continued to seek out training in a variety of holistic modalities including Chinese herbs, ozone therapy, massage therapy, homeopathy, laser therapy, essential oils and animal chiropractic.  My goal has always been to be the best veterinarian I could be for the patients in my care, and to fulfill this obligation, I have spent considerable time and expense to learn as much as I could to do right by my patients and offer treatment methods which are both effective and gentle on their systems. I also educate pet parents about how best they can prevent health issues, providing advice on vaccine titer testing as well as appropriate nutrition planning with an emphasis on plant-based nutrition for dogs in particular.

In 2015 I founded a non-profit organization VAPA (Veterinary Association for the Protection of Animals), whose mission is to bring awareness to the benefits of a vegan lifestyle through vegan catered documentary screening events and encourage veterinary schools to adopt humane surgical teaching methods. VAPA has hosted over a dozen documentary screening events, featuring such films as The Game Changers, Forks Over Knives, Vegucated, Cowspiracy, Seaspiracy, Called To Rescue, Peaceable Kingdom, A Prayer for Compassion, and Eating Our Way To Extinction in multiple states. One veterinarian commented after attending a screening that she had never been asked how she felt about the way animals are treated prior to watching the film and subsequently adopted a vegan lifestyle. Countless other attendees have been educated about the ethical, environmental and health benefits of a vegan lifestyle while enjoying delicious, nutritious vegan food at these events. I have also mentored many pre-vet students either through volunteer mentorship opportunities or independent contractor assistance in my housecall practice. I am committed to doing what I can to help support pre-vet and vet students pursue this field without sacrificing their ethical beliefs in the process because I know the need for veterinarians and animal care professionals is real.

In 2021 in the wake of increasingly harsh lockdown policies being enacted in California, as I continued to work in California providing housecall services for dogs and cats, I obtained my Arizona veterinary license and poured the vast majority of my life savings into putting a down payment on a 2 acre property in Chino Valley, Arizona, a lovely rural town just north of Prescott, another charming small town an hour and a half north of Phoenix and the former capitol of Arizona. This property has a main house as well as a 768 square foot detached barn. For the past 18 months, I have been travelling back and forth every few weeks between California and Arizona, driving eight hours each way for half that time until I was able to purchase a used car for Arizona last summer and began flying back and forth. After a lot of research and soul searching, I realized I needed to convert the barn into a veterinary clinic so I could offer the full range of services I am capable to a community that is in need of these services - surgeries, dental procedures, x-rays, as well as outpatient services for patients whose guardians can't afford the expense of housecalls. In December of 2022 I began the process of applying for a use permit to convert the barn into a vet clinic from Yavapai County, Arizona and after much effort, in April of 2023 was granted that use permit, with unanimous approval from the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors. My intention is to continue to do housecalls in both states, as I have been for the past 18 months, while expanding my offerings in the Quad Cities Area (Chino Valley, Prescott, Prescott Valley, Dewey-Humboldt).

The expenses associated with hiring an architect, planner, contractors, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and advisors, ongoing mortgage expense as well as buying all the necessary veterinary supplies and equipment (surgery table, monitoring equipment, dental cleaning machine, wet treatment table, exam table, x-ray machine, computers, autoclave) to open a vet clinic are quite substantial. Any and all help towards realizing this dream of country vet clinic is appreciated beyond what words can adequately express and will in turn help the community at large and animals in need for years to come.

With sincere gratitude,

Armaiti May, DVM