DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM It's a family affair at the Feather and Fur Clinic in Kailua as Mark Caspers and his wife, Elaine Allwine, check two cats, Hukilau, left, and Timber, who are recovering from surgery.

Family vet business
is a rarity in Hawaii

Elaine Allwine and Mark Caspers
run Feather and Fur Clinic

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

She handles the business. He handles the medicine.

He treats birds. She takes care of cats.

It seems simple. Divide the labor accordingly.

But maybe it's not so simple. Elaine Allwine and Mark Caspers run one of the few husband-and-wife veterinary clinics in Hawaii, the Feather and Fur Clinic in Kailua.

Finding free time for each other is hard. "We generally don't see each other," said Caspers.

For some people, that may be rough. Caspers and Allwine view it as an advantage. As a tag team, they are running the business and raising two daughters, 8 and 10 years old. They view their staff and customers as family.

Caspers and Allwine are both 42 and have about 15 years of experience as vets. They met while studying at Ross University. She graduated in 1987; he graduated in 1988. Both worked in Miami, then he followed her to Hawaii, Caspers said.

As a couple, they acquired the Feather and Fur Clinic in the early 1990s. The business is at the Aikahi Park Shopping Center, behind the Safeway. While the clinic works primarily with cats and birds, most animals in need are welcome.

Twelve years after they took over, the clinic has doubled in size, the staff has tripled, revenues have grown, and the marriage is still intact.

"We still get along. We still talk. Our kids both want to be vets," said Allwine.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Mark Caspers, owner of the Feather and Fur Clinic in Kailua, holds a pueo that had to have its wing amputated. The owl flew into a car and Caspers is taking care of it until he can find it a proper home.

Husband-and-wife teams are unusual in veterinary medicine, said Eric Ako, of The Pet Doctor in Kahala, and executive vice president of the Hawaii Veterinary Medical Association. Of the 83 vet clinics statewide, Ako could think of only a couple clinics run by husband-and-wife vets, such as The Cat Clinic in Kapahulu.

Work-related tension is one deterrent, Ako said.

"You're in a stressful situation. You have to satisfy your clients. You have to keep that smile," Ako said. "It's hard not to take it home."

Vets find it hard to say no to pets. They still make house calls. They do things for free for people who can't pay their bills. "We're a cruddy businessman," Caspers said.

Delinquent payment is a huge problem in the field, Caspers said. Some people are facing tough economic times and consider rent to be more important than pets.

But the Feather and Fur Clinic chugged right along during Hawaii's economic doldrums. Caspers and Allwine built revenue in part by doing uncommon and advanced treatments. There's just a handful of bird doctors in Hawaii, and a portion of the clinic's bird business comes from the neighbor islands, Caspers said.

In the old days, a vet gave shots and checked for fleas, Caspers said. Today, the clinic can treat liver cancer and perform ultrasound and CT scans.

On a slow day, the clinic handles 10 pets. On a busy day, it's 50 pets. Feather and Fur is open every day of the week.

Caspers and Allwine acquired their own business because they wanted to run a clinic their own way. They wanted the staff to work like a team, not like a dictatorship. Caspers said he had worked for doctors who weren't personable.

"They were the prima donnas and you were junk," he said.

The two recruited personnel who, like them, wanted to treat people and their pets on a personal level.

That's important, considering that Feather and Fur's client base has grown from 1,200 clients to 9,000, most of whom live near the clinic in Kailua. Can you imagine memorizing all those pets' names?

"I find that to be the hardest thing, to keep that one-on-one" relationship, Caspers said.