Katie visits a state-of-the-art animal hospital that cares for millions of pets each year.
If your dad needs a knee replacement, or your kid breaks her arm, you take them to a hospital. But what if the family member who needs help is your dog?
That’s a question NFL defensive back Logan Ryan and his wife Ashley needed to answer after their dog Leo got a leg infection in 2019. “We didn’t think he was going to make it,” remembers Ryan, who currently plays for the San Francisco 49ers. That’s when the couple rushed him to a BluePearl Pet Hospital in Franklin, TN, and thankfully Leo was saved. “Through great care, Leo went from [a fatal diagnosis] to walking out of there a week later.” The Ryans came to the right place: BluePearl is a specialty and emergency pet hospital owned by Mars, Incorporated; it has locations across the U.S., and provides top-of-the-line care for sick and injured pets.
“It’s the same thing you would find in human medicine,” says Dr. Pauline Bell, Chief Information Officer at BluePearl. So that means if your cat needs a CAT scan, this is the place to take him.
And BluePearl doesn’t just treat cats and dogs. “We see birds, turtles… we even had a fox here the other day,” says Dr. Bell. “Pets are family. They’re like our kids. So, if we’re able to keep families together for longer, that’s our goal.”
It’s been four years since the Ryans took Leo home from BluePearl, and he’s still an important part of their family today. He’s one of their four children (two of them dog, two of them human), but Logan and Ashley aren’t your standard pet owners. The couple met while studying at Rutgers, and immediately bonded over their love of dogs. “When Ashley and I got [our first dog], we started raising our pets like family members,” says Ryan. “They’re our kids.” This mutual love of animals led them to take things a step further, and form the Ryan Animal Rescue Foundation, which partners with animal-welfare organizations nationwide to promote adoption and provide financial and educational opportunities to better the lives of animals.
But no matter which NFL team you root for, caring for animals is a sentiment we can all get behind. “Fanbases don’t care who I play for,” says Ryan. “I’ve got a ton of different jerseys, but people root for us because I’m the dog guy.”
In the U.S., BluePearl Specialty & Emergency Hospital, Banfield Pet Hospital, and VCA Animal Hospitals are part of Mars Veterinary Health – a division of Mars Petcare and the world’s largest family-owned provider of veterinary care. 70,000 Associates across 3,000 veterinary clinics in more than 20 countries are dedicated to making A BETTER WORLD FOR PETS. Visit marsveterinary.com/people to learn more about Mars Veterinary Health’s efforts to increase equity, inclusion, and diversity (EI&D) in the veterinary profession.
