MEET YOUR VETERINARY CARE TEAM

Dr. Karen Allen

Dr. Allen graduated from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon in 1995, after completing a Zoology degree at University of Alberta and Bamfield Marine Station. She has been working in the veterinary industry in Canada for over twenty five years in private practice and as the National Medical Director for VetStrategy, and each day she is still awed by the resilience and tenacity of her patients and the compassion and dedication of her clients.

Dr. Allen is grateful for every opportunity to build relationships with her clients and their families and is dedicated to educating pet owners and offering veterinary care that is tailored to each individual pet and their family. Her goal is to enrich the lives of both the animals and the people in her community by offering volunteer programs, kids veterinary camps, educational seminars and of course by offering veterinary care to companion animals, farm pets, stray animals, surrendered animals and wildlife. Veterinary medicine has been an amazing journey for Dr. Allen, which has brought her a tremendous amount of joy, and she is enjoying continuing her career close to home with her family, friends and neighbours close by.

Dr. Dani Montoya

Dr. Dani joined our practise in the spring of 2017. She graduated from the University of Calgary with her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Dani finished high school in Wales where she discovered her love of sheep and other small ruminants. She grew up on an acreage outside of Edmonton riding horses and playing with animals of all types and is happy to return home to practise. Dani decided at the age of four she wanted to be a veterinarian, although at that time she specifically wanted to be a space veterinarian looking after dogs and monkeys on their interstellar journey! Dani is very happy to be at a practise that allows her to work with companion animals and hobby farm pets and loves the variety of her day to day work. You will rarely catch Dani without a big smile on her face - she loves what she does and we appreciate her enthusiasm and skill on our team!

Ashley Ouellette, RVT

We love hiring local people to staff our practise and Ashley was the perfect fit for us! She grew up on an acreage in the Ardrossan area and has always wanted to work with animals. This led her to look into the veterinary world. She took the Animal Health Program at NAIT and graduated in 2008. She began working at Park Veterinary Clinic while still in school in 2007 and continued there after graduation. There she gained experience working with dogs, cats and small exotic pets. In 2016 she took a break from work to start her own family. She now lives on a small acreage with her family, their dogs and a few cats. Ashley missed working with animals and has recently started working part time at Hastings Lake Animal Hospital to help us out on surgery days and Saturdays. She looks forward to getting back into the veterinary world and helping everyone with all their pet’s needs! Ashley is our go to girl for some of our toughest customers - yes, you know who you are my four-legged red flagged friends! Ashley's calm, unflappable demeanour allows her to very successfully work with some of our trickiest dogs who would otherwise be difficult for us to care for.

Trina Broen, RVT

Trina is another local girl and in fact, she and her partner live just a stone's throw from the clinic. She started with us in the summer of 2020 - in the midst of the pandemic which took a lot of courage to change jobs during that period. Trina has a tiny little Chihuahua and a great big German Shepherd! Trina works full time so she's the friendly caring voice you hear checking up on your pets after their visit with us. Trina is enjoying learning about all our farm pet species that we work with and has fully embraced the culture of our practise. We hope she stays with us a long, long time! Now we just have to get her and Brandon to move to a farm so we can get her going with goats and chickens.... :)

Trista Kadatz, RVT

Trista is joining us with many years of experience as an RVT, having started her career in 2003. Trista is our Monday RVT with Trina and has a wealth of experience with most species but is especially fond of her bunnies! She raises sheep, fancy chickens and pet bunnies on their farm. Throw in a few horses, a Great Dane, a Schnauzer and some Devon Rex cats and Trista has a full compliment of critters to keep her busy. Trista was born and raised locally and now she and her husband are raising their children in our community. Before she joined our practise she volunteered every year with our Ministik Farm Cat Spay/Neuter Clinic - so we always knew we loved her! She's a great fit for our practise and has amazing clinical skills as a technician. You can always tell when Trista is on shift because things get placed in high spots where the rest of us mortals can't reach!

Shae Hipkin, RVT

Shae is a local farm town girl from Strathcona County. She graduated in 2020 from Lakeland College as a Registered Veterinary Technician. Shae started with us in January 2022 and has enjoyed meeting all the amazing clients and their furry companions.

She grew up bottle feeding red angus calves who once big and strong enough, were able to join her parent’s herd. Shae loves everything and anything horse, spending most of her time trail riding in the summer with friends! Her pride and joy is Gracie, her golden retriever. Gracie loves agility and a good puddle to splash into as well. Oh and who could forget about her four cats; Batman, Zack, Cricket and Nova. Shae, having been raised with animals all her life, loves anything furry!

She really enjoys the interesting cases and of course vaccine visits for both puppies and kittens! She is the lead for our HLAH E-Store so if you have any questions or are wanting different products please let her know.

Krista Peters, Receptionist/Veterinary Assistant

Krista joined us in 2019 after deciding to leave her first profession as a hair stylist and salon owner. She decided to take a leap of faith and do what she loved so took some online retraining in veterinary medical assisting and sent her resume out to see what would happen.

Fortunately we were able to snap her up and she has been an absolute gem. Krista is super creative and crafty, loves all our little patients and keeps thing running tickity-boo up front for us. I know this will come as a shock...but veterinarians are not known for our skills in organizing the frontend! lol!

Krista and her husband recently bought a little local farm and have fully embraced farm life with their young son. Her facebook posts are heartwarming, hilarious and always endearing showcasing her adorable son, baby alpacas, goats, dogs and the amazing projects her husband builds for her farm pets! (We are all jealous!)

Samantha Whalen, Receptionist

Sam has a bachelor's degree in human psychology, but during her entire university career spent her free time fostering kittens for a local rescue - and only accidentally adopted a couple. She was born and raised on an acreage east of Sherwood Park where she stayed until the spring of 2020, when she, her big ham of a Great Dane, senior blocky-headed mixed breed dog, two sassy cats, and very-tolerant-of-pet-hair husband moved to the west end of Edmonton. After being a client of Dr. Dani and Dr. Karen's while living rurally, she decided she couldn't stay away so came to work at the clinic in reception, part time, in the spring of 2021. Sam loves keeping in touch with all kinds of animals (and their people!) at the clinic, and has a particularly soft spot for pigs.

Nova-Leigh Van Engelen, Veterinary Medical Assistant

Nova-Leigh volunteered at the clinic in 2019, in 2020 she attended Lakeland College in Vermillion where she completed and received her Veterinary Medical Assistant Certificate. Nova complements the clinic as a multi asker who helps with front end reception and with assisting in the care of animals. She has three dogs Huckleberry who is a handsome senior Dalmatian, Holly a schnauzer cross who was a rescue from Mexico and Finn her newest member who is a Yorkshire Terrier. She has a love for all animals except she prefers to keep her distance from spiders. As Nova-Leigh always has an interest in animals of all kinds, currently she is researching and setting up an enclosure to purchase a Crested Gecko in the near future.

Dandelion, Clinic Cat

Dandelion has happily retired to Dr. Allen's house effective December 2020. She was tired of being blamed for Beaker's inappropriate urination habits and also completely disgusted with having to eat Beaker's diet food. She is her usual svelte, busy self at Dr. Allen's and has settled in perfectly. She is a big fan of the PetSafe Automatic litterbox - much to our surprise! And happily eats NON-DIET Royal Canin GI Moderate Calorie canned and Royal Canin Calm dry kibble.

Beaker, Clinic Cat in Training ... he will always be 'in training' status! lol!

Update 2022: 

Beaker has retired from clinic cat life and found an amazing home with one of our clients and Beaker's new brother is a Bassett Hound named Lewis.  

Beaker was born in the clinic - his mama was a stray who was brought in by a client and that very evening she had her kittens in the clinic. Beaker tried a pet home but the dog wanted to eat him so he tried to live with Dr. Karen...but...Beaker's dirty secret is that he's not 100% on the litterbox. Soooo....he's training to be a clinic cat where the odd accident isn't that big of a deal. You'll see him lounging around in reception looking for cuddles meeting new friends. He happily leaps into clients' cars for snuggles - whether he's invited or not - and thinks curbside service is his own personal social club. He's a die-hard antimasker much to our chagrin.

Beaker is chronically on a diet - watch for his new diet club coming in 2021 - Beaker's Big Boned Cats Club :)

Beaker is not a fan of any of the litterboxes but if he had to choose one he likes the Pidan Studio Snow House Igloo litterbox with Cat Attract Litter please and thank-you. He eats Royal Canin Satiety Canned three times daily - no kibble for our chubby chicken. Overweight = No Kibble. Beaker would prefer to weigh 8kg, we have set a very achievable goal of 5kg for him. He thinks we're crazy...