PHOTO COURTESY OF PETS AFTER DARK

Howard Swimmer met his wife through his best friend, Dixie Ray. The Hungarian herding dog had a chipped tooth that needed to be fixed and Dr. Caroline Simard of Point Breeze Veterinary Clinic was up to the challenge.

Now the whole family, including new pup Mabel Z, are all smiles and wagging tails.

In January, the couple launched Pets After Dark to give fellow animal owners peace of mind when their furry pals get sick or injured in the middle of the night. Instead of Googling symptoms and hoping for the best, people can call from 7 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday.

Within minutes, the tele-health network connects subscribers, who pay a monthly fee, to their regular veterinarian or a colleague who knows their vet and has access to the animal’s medical summary. They then perform an audio or video evaluation and provide a recommendation. The service also guarantees an in-office appointment with the subscriber’s doggie doc the next business day.

There are 20 local vets on the roster with a new one added approximately every 10 days. The Fox Chapel residents hope to expand the network across Pennsylvania and, eventually, go nationwide.

This is an alternative service to existing pet emergency clinics in the region, such as Avets Specialty & Emergency Trauma Center in Monroeville and BluePearl Pet Hospital Pittsburgh North emergency services on Camp Horne Road in Ohio Township.

Simard-Swimmer, who has been practicing veterinary medicine for two decades, says the most common calls are about pre- and postoperative care and poisoning situations such as a dog getting into its owner’s medication or hidden chocolate stash. Some new pet owners call to make sure their puppy’s late-night case of the zoomies is normal behavior. Simard-Swimmer, who has a rambunctious Australian shepard at home, assures them that it is.

Born and raised in Montreal, Simard-Swimmer was encouraged to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a medical doctor for humans, but she found hospitals to be depressing. Caring for dogs and cats was, and continues to be, her passion.

Before moving to Pittsburgh, she worked at Montreal’s first 24-hour veterinary clinic and saw, firsthand, the lengths people go to to keep their pets healthy and happy.

“I know how it is to be so attached to a pet,” says Simard-Swimmer, who, during our interview was sporting a pair of paw print earrings. “I know how they feel. We don’t have kids, we have dogs.”

During the pandemic, when more people were adopting animals and working from home, there was a spike in pet ER visits and a higher demand for compassionate care. Folks were flocking to pet stores to seek veterinary advice and buying mail-order medications.

Simard-Swimmer says it’s an emotionally taxing profession that many people are leaving for less stressful occupations.

With Pets After Dark, which includes a blog and social media content about animals, she hopes to create a network of hope not only for animals, but for their human caregivers.

Several years ago, when the couple got married in a backyard ceremony broadcast to their family via Zoom, the justice of the peace stopped mid-sentence when he realized Simard-Swimmer was the vet who cared for his dying dog.

Having empathy, she says, is an important part of the profession. In that respect, people can learn a lot from animals.

“Dogs are the most empathetic souls,” she says. “They make you feel better.”