Pioneering Pet Care with Ready Vet Go’s Nic and Paul

Tell us more about Ready Vet Go and your roles in the company.

• We are a co-founded company started by Nic Saunders & Paul Cunningham. Nic, our Operations Manager, has a background in human nursing with over a decade of experience in the field of acquired brain injury, and with his Bachelor’s of Nursing & Bachelor’s of Paramedicine, Nic brings a huge amount of skill from the human ambulance world to Ready Vet Go. Paul, our Chief Veterinarian, has spent his entire professional career studying animal health & obtained his veterinary doctorate degree in the USA before moving to Australia. Combining both human & animal health expertise, Nic & Paul formed Ready Vet Go as a one-of-a-kind pet health care model.

• Ready Vet Go was created to fill an unfortunate gap that exists in pet health care: animals who need critical medical intervention either at home or at their daytime vet previously had no option for life-saving intervention & ambulance support. Pet owners in the Greater Melbourne area might be stuck in situations with a sick pet at home whom they cannot move or may have a critically ill pet who needs to go from their day vet to a 24-hour facility but can only do so safely with oxygen support & medical attention. That’s where our human-grade ambulance and highly-skilled vet team step in.

• The majority of pet emergencies happen after normal working hours, so we’ve created a model where our team can attend to pets at home or at their daytime vet where no other service can. We had to address the risk that our staff may be called to precarious or unsafe scenarios in the community, so we utilize a number of safety measures & tools to keep our team and the pets we care for safe while on the road.

• Our very first day of operation, we were called to assist a very sick dog at a local hospital who needed oxygen support to make her way home to be with the owner who had planned to perform humane euthanasia at home. We were asked to both transport her and provide end-of-life care services for the pet. While it was a very sad situation, it fulfilled two of the most important aspects of our service on day one: 1) providing ambulance & critical care support to pets and 2) helping owners with at-home euthanasia and providing a peaceful passing to a beloved pet.

• Our days typically start in the afternoon with pet owners & referring veterinarians making calls to our service.

  Owners often arrive home in the late afternoon to find their pets unwell & subsequently request a visit from us. We also deal with a large number of later afternoon & early evening pet ambulance transport from daytime vet practices to 24-hour veterinary hospitals across Melbourne. Somewhere before our standard shifts, we find time for the all-important, necessary evil of administrative work too, which is far less exciting than the work on the road.

Tell us the story about how you decided to start the business together.

• The idea for Ready Vet Go came about after many conversations about Paul’s experience working at a local emergency vet hospital and the number of situations where unwell pets would arrive at the hospital having gone without oxygen support or treatment of shock. Nic initially proposed the idea of starting a pet ambulance service, knowing just how beneficial these services are in the human health sector. Fast forward months later, and Ready Vet Go was born!

• We complement each other’s strengths & have a tremendous amount of respect for one another. Where one of us may be lacking in skill or insight, the other has that or is able to fill the gap in the business. We’re so very lucky to not only be each other’s favorite human on the planet, but we really do make a damn fine team.

• On a good spring or summer day, you’ll find us at our local community garden plot getting messy, doing some meditative weeding or admiring our veggie haul. We love all the natural beauty that Victoria has to offer and thrive on a getaway to do a bush walk or a big hike.

How did you first hear about CoWork Me, and what made you decide to join?

• We knew months after starting Ready Vet Go that it was time to move the office out of our dining room, & discovered CoWork Me during our Google searching. CoWork Me’s difference lies in its people – the legends who work behind the scenes to keep this place running made us feel instantly at home.