California Daughter and veterinarian helps solve medical mysteries affecting her four-legged patients

It might be tempting to categorize all of Dr. Barbara Doty’s patients as furry. After all, she is a veterinarian who works exclusively on cats and dogs. But, to call all of her patients furry would be forgetting about Lucy, a border collie with a terrible skin condition that caused her to lose all her hair—and now it won’t grow back.

After being poked and prodded by other veterinarians, including a dermatologist, Lucy’s owner brought her to Dr. Doty at Villa Animal Hospital in Orange, Calif. As a general practitioner, Dr. Doty diagnoses and treats all types of medical conditions, from the mundane to the extremely rare.  She is hopeful that she’ll be able to help Lucy regain her “furry” status. 

“My job is a lot like solving a mystery,” said Dr. Doty, a member of Katuktu DAR Chapter, Tustin, Calif. “When a dog goes bald, there’s clearly something wrong, but what is it? Like a detective, I use the evidence, including 10 years of medical records, and critical thinking to figure it out.”

On any given day, Dr. Doty and her staff see about 30 four-legged patients. The most routine cases involve administering vaccines or cleaning a pet’s teeth. But she thrives on treating more complex conditions such as allergies, heart disease, bone infections and muscle atrophy.

“My goal is to cure the problem using every tool available, be it traditional or alternative,” she said.

Dr. Doty was in middle school when she decided to become a veterinarian. “It was the sixties in California, and we all wanted to save the world,” she said. “I decided I would save the animals.”

She moved to Idaho for college, where she met her husband, Tim, before attending veterinary school at the University of California–Davis. It was there that she honed her diagnostic skills.

“It prepared us to be critical thinkers, and in fact many of my classmates are the specialists or colleagues I consult with now on complex cases,” she said.

Outside of her busy practice, which she purchased in 2004, Dr. Doty is a tireless advocate for animals. She offers low-cost boarding for guide dogs and surgically sterilizes feral cats. Her family, which includes three now-grown children, has also raised four future guide dogs.

“My youngest son wanted a dog, but my husband and I were looking ahead to the future and weren’t sure we wanted a dog when our children were grown,” she said. “Dogs can live for 14 years. Raising a guide dog, on the other hand, is an 18-month commitment. So, he got to have dogs and do something awesome, but we don’t have an aging dog and can travel freely.”

Dr. Doty once spent much of her time off exercising and gardening, but a new passion has supplanted these hobbies—genealogy. As Chapter Registrar since 2015, Dr. Doty helps prospective members track down the missing links in their DAR applications. She even has a motto: “No prospective member left behind.”

As a result, she digs up old applications that were rejected and encourages those women to start over. She helps them by applying those same critical thinking skills she uses in her veterinary practice.

She joined the DAR with her mother, after bonding over genealogy and stories about their family history. “At the time, my dad was ill,” she said. “Genealogy gave us something other than his illness to talk about. Honestly, my interest was marginal at that time. My real interest was in supporting my mom.”

After joining more than a decade ago, her enthusiasm for all things DAR has blossomed. “I enjoy the women and the service we do together,” she said. “And as the mother of an Air Force major, I especially appreciate all of the work we do to support active military and veterans.”

 

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