Veterinarian Overview
Sometimes life takes us to places that we never imagined. For Dr. Skupin, that trip has taken him from a childhood of working in the cotton fields of West Texas, to a career as a software engineer, and finally to a new animal hospital in Avery Ranch. In 1992, before he had ever considered a career in veterinary medicine, Dr. Skupin was traveling in Italy. On a hillside above Florence, he saw a veterinarian working with a colony of feral cats. He was struck both by the compassion she had for her half-wild patients, and the bonds that they had formed a community that they had carved out for themselves among a jumble of ruined buildings. At that moment, Dr. Skupin knew that he would do whatever it took to be able to experience the same thing.He climbed back on a plane, returned to Texas, and for the next five years took all the prerequisites for veterinary school at nights, and on the weekends, while still keeping his full-time job as a programmer. In 1998, Dr. Skupin was accepted at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M. Four years later, he returned to the Austin area to begin the career that he was meant to have.After working as an associate veterinarian, an emergency veterinarian, and a relief doctor throughout Travis and Williamson counties, Dr. Skupin opened Avery Ranch Animal Hospital in 2005. Since then, the hospital has grown from a small strip center storefront, into a beautiful new free-standing hospital.Throughout all these changes, Dr. Skupin has never forgotten his original goal to live and work in that magical place where human and animal relationships are formed.Beginning in 2011, Dr. Skupin began using Avery Ranch Animal Hospital as a base to carry out another work that he has become equally passionate about human and animal health in less-developed counties. Over the past four years, he has begun making trips to Northern India to work with migratory herdsmen in the Himalaya, teaching them how to improve both the health of their livestock, and the well-being of their families. In return, they have taught Dr. Skupin another dimension of the human-animal bond. And as a bonus, he now knows how to deal with a herd of angry water buffalo . . .Dr. Skupin has been married for 23 years, and has one daughter at Round Rock High School, and another daughter at Brentwood Christian Academy. His household also includes a Great Pyrenees named Max(whose vast drifts of white fur have been the end of more than one vacuum cleaner) and a Border Collie puppy named Tiberius.Dr. Skupin enjoys both fly fishing, and herding sheep with his constant companion, another Border Collie, named Gaius. He also teaches the junior high school Bible class at his church, and leads training sessions in veterinary ethics at Texas A&M University, for first-year veterinary students.
