After they count the cash register and prepare for the next day's appointments, team members at Cottonwood Animal Hospital in Ottawa, Kan., count the tails of boarding pets.

My own illness gave me a glimpse into the tough road to recovery the patients at our clinic face every day—and how my care can make a difference.

Need a new system to make sure callbacks happen? Joanne Bowman, RVT, a technician at Cottonwood Animal Hospital in Ottawa, Kan., uses plastic file baskets to hold each doctor's callback files in a central location.

You reach for the nail clippers and ? gone. Foiled again. It's anyone's guess whether they're stuffed in someone's scrub pocket or they've slithered underneath the counter in the lab again.