In 2003, due to what must have been multiple glitches in grading software, Drs. O'Gan, Evans and Joyce all managed to graduate veterinary school from Texas A&M in the same class and obtain veterinary licences to practice in the state of Texas. Dr. Joyce went about her own business for the next five years obtaining more training and some extra letters behind her name, so we'll pick her up again later in this chronicle.

I just noticed I have a very authoritative narrating voice, considering I am a small ass. But, I digress...

Dr. O'Gan practiced in Boerne for one year, but finding it not a big enough town to contain his overwhelming hipster aesthetic, he moved to Austin in 2004 to open Austin Equine Associates. He officed out of his Spanish colonial cottage on west 30th street (told you he was a hipster) and started an ambulatory practice that quickly began to grow based on his high quality medicine and charm (their words, not mine. I suspect it had more to do with him just answering the phone when it rang, day or night).

In 2005, Dr. Evans, a native Austinite who had just served a decade sentence in the eastern half of Texas (Eight years in College Station and two years south of Houston) for a crime of "unwarranted ambition in life," was anxious to return home and join the Austin Equine team. That first year together, the two of them worked part time jobs on the side to make ends meet as they grew the practice. They even shared the same veterinary ambulatory vehicle, which makes sense to me since I maintain they still share a brain, each possessing only one half (sorry, mocking those two is a pastime of mine, and I have a lot of free time).

Austin Equine grew into a busy two doctor ambulatory equine practice between 2005 and 2008. They bought a second vehicle, grew the staff and officed out of any number of odd abodes – a small animal clinic, a guest house, a dining room / garage combination and finally a trailer. You knew they had trailer somewhere in their past.

In 2007 they decided, "hey this is going great, and in this economy we can't afford not to build a giant equine hospital!" So they signed their lives away (I mean really, what was that worth to anyone?!) and got a loan and built Austin Equine Hospital. I don't like to give them credit, but it's a pretty darn nice place.

The Hospital opened in September 2008, just as the bottom fell out of the world economy, making for a real easy and fun first year. But a couple of good things happened that year – they wooed Dr. Joyce away from Colorado State University (she left Ft. Collins for here? Well, there's no accounting for taste) and your beloved narrator, DJ the donkey, showed up. You see, I was born without a navicular bone and my punishment for that, apparently, is that my owner's are now Drs. O'Gan and Evans. They did get me a friend, Lucy, who I love. She loves me, too, and she mostly shows it by pinning her ears and kicking me when I talk to her. That girl, always joking around!

For the past decade plus, Lucy and I have lived at Austin Equine (hee-hawing loudly, starting roughly two hours before every breakfast and dinner) and watched them grow steadily. From year one of all three doctors mucking stalls at 6 am and everyone doing multiple jobs, to now, six doctors with 10 more staff members to boot. (To boot indeed, I'd like to kick them. WHERE IS MY DINNER?! Oh, it's only 2:15 pm, sorry.)

As much as it pains me to say it, I think they are pretty good veterinarians. I mean, I do have them on retainer as my personal doctors. But what really surprises me is that they have a clinic full of employees that they really care about and that their team actually seems to be happy to work here. That seems to be the most important thing to them. And how Austin Equine cares for it's employees shows in everything they do – how they treat the horses and how they talk to their owners and all that stuff (you know, stuff LIKE FEEDING THE RESIDENT DONKEYS! WHERE IS MY DINNER?)

These guys should be full of gratitude – that one fool with a dream, a Spanish colonial house and good hair could team up with another fool that barely escaped South Houston with his (limited) wits intact and, together, open a hospital in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (what?! Just because I'm a donkey doesn't mean I can't google things) and that they are making it. They better be grateful that they are surrounded by such an amazing group of people, starting with Dr. Joyce and me, and continuing through their most recent hire (WHO IS NOT HERE FEEDING ME YET! WE ARE BLOWING RIGHT THROUGH DINNER TIME! WHERE IS IT? Oh, sorry, it's 2:30), when they are obviously not deserving of such good company.

Well, they've also had a lot of good luck. I mean, what are the chances I would be born without a navicular bone?