Within a day of opening, San Luis Obispo’s newest round-the-clock vet hospital Cerro Alto Veterinary took care of a mix of 15 dogs, cats, and an egg-bound chicken.
“She was dealing with an egg that was stuck in her fallopian tube,” emergency vet Ethan McEnroe said. “We were able to sedate her, use some lubricant and gentle traction, and we were able to deliver the egg.”
McEnroe and his team are able to provide such care as the first and only local vet hospital in SLO County that offers advanced specialty services like cardiology, radiology, and surgery along with 24/7 emergency and critical care. Critical care, internal medicine, and medical oncology services are coming soon to the facility that opened on Sept. 16.
Cerro Alto vet hospital, founded by McEnroe and board-certified vet surgeon Joseph Raleigh, sits at 2640 Broad St.—the former Natural Healing Center cannabis dispensary once owned by cannabis kingpin Helios Dayspring.
“I like to joke and say that I made my mom really proud by buying a pot shop and a liquor store,” McEnroe said with a laugh.
McEnroe and Raleigh set out to serve a “noble purpose.” They started Cerro Alto as a central location for pet owners so that they don’t have to drive long distances to get medical help for their animals.
McEnroe told New Times that the service will fill a gap that’s been widening since the pandemic began.
“There is definitely unfortunately a trend that during COVID, there was a large amount of kind of corporate organizations, a lot of them had private equity backing, that saw the vet space as recession-proof because people still spent money on their pets during COVID and they stopped going on vacations,” McEnroe said. “There were people who don’t have the same value system as veterinarians or the people who got into this for the love of their pets and the ability to get back to their community, which is our ‘why.’”
The motivations behind multinational private equity-backed corporations are profit and shareholder distributions, McEnroe added.
Over the last few years, he said, the large practices that they purchased weren’t supported later, leading to mismanagement and closures. McEnroe added that one of them is the Metropolitan Animal Specialty Hospital in Hollywood, which had 40 doctors and around 120 staff members at its peak. It closed in April. Then a group of vets stepped in to acquire the hospital’s assets, keeping the facility running.
Cerro Alto vet hospital is unique because it’s family-owned. It helps that it’s open at all hours, too.
“I think one of the things that was really difficult for people in South County to do is they show up on the doorstep of a local emergency hospital and the doors would be closed,” he said. “They then would have to drive, very stressed, down to Orcutt or up to Atascadero Pet Center in order for them to get the care. So, having a local option that’s very nearby is going to be a lot better for them, especially in those cases that minutes and seconds matter, they’ll be able to get to our doorstep more quickly.”
While the hospital allows walk-ins for emergency situations, it practices a triage policy, meaning the most critical pet patients are taken care of first. The easiest way to get an appointment is to call (805) 457-8724.
Despite the nationwide shortage of vets, McEnroe—who also owns PetMed Urgent Care—said that his new hospital opened with seven doctors on staff. He’s also eager to work with pre-vet Cal Poly students who want to gain experience.
“We’re going to have those same students, four, five, six years later, coming back from vet school or coming back after their residency to be part of our specialty team or our emergency team,” McEnroe said. “We’re lucky that there is a group of people who see that this area is kind of California’s hidden gem.”
Fast fact
• Atascadero’s Friends of the Zoo will host a special screening of feature film Condor Canyon on at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 18 at Central Coast Zoo and Zoo Garden Event Center. Current zoo members must register to receive two complimentary tickets. Tickets cost $20 for nonmembers, and $10 for children 10 years old and under. Reserve spots at my805tix.com/e/zoomovie. ∆
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Autumn Arts Annual 2025.
It’s too bad those closers are directly related to Dr. McEnroe’s underhanded practice of undermining a beloved emergency hospital.
Nice puff piece. I live in SLO City and welcome this new vet.
But the Atascadero Pet Hospital, an established and fully staffed 24 hour veterinary and emergency care facility, already covers all of these services.