White Whiskers Aging Pet Care, which for five years has provided limited mobile veterinary services for senior cats and dogs across the greater Colorado Springs area, is putting down roots.

Husband-and-wife veterinary team Drs. Robert and Kelly Hutchison have opened their new White Whiskers pet rehabilitation facility in west-side Colorado Springs at 1625 W. Uintah St., Suite I.

With an emphasis on providing high-quality care, the 1,000-square-foot facility allowed the Hutchisons to expand their services outside of senior feline and canine care, though that will remain their focus, Robert said.

Before opening their own practice together, Robert had years of experience providing end-of-life services to pets across Colorado Springs. Kelly had worked for 10 years as a primary care vet, most recently working at Westside Animal Hospital where she established a reputation as “the old dog vet.”

Their brick-and-mortar space offers opportunities for healing exercise and other treatments for ailing cats and dogs of all ages. It includes spaces for services like veterinary medical acupuncture and exercise therapy on an underwater treadmill, for example.

Located within the same retail center as Uintah Pet Emergency Hospital and Wag N’ Wash Natural Pet Food & Grooming, the facility also serves as a home base for White Whiskers’ mobile team. They travel to pets’ homes and provide senior rehabilitation care, pain relief, mobility improvement and compassionate end-of-life services to aging cats and dogs.

White Whiskers will work with primary care veterinarians to supplement the treatments they provide for their patients, the Hutchisons said.

“We want them to look at us and see a partner,” Kelly Hutchison said. “… We want (primary care providers) to know that we’re here to support them.”

For example, White Whiskers can further support pet owners who are struggling emotionally while their cats and dogs are sick, injured or declining. Often, primary care veterinarians can’t spend as much time as they would like with each patient because of the number of clients they have.

As well, the White Whiskers team can reinforce the primary veterinarian’s care and can suggest and offer additional treatments.

“When we don’t bill for the diagnostics, but we recommend that the diagnostics be done, that client trusts that we purely have the best interest of that family in mind,” Robert said.

The Hutchisons are excited about the services they’re already offering, like the underwater treadmill that reduces joint stress while helping animals rebuild muscle strength, improve flexibility, relearn normal walking patterns, recover from surgery and more.

The seeds of the idea to open the pet rehab facility and operate their own underwater treadmill began taking hold a few years ago, when Kelly was caring for her patient Sydney, a senior border collie who was nearing the end of her life.

To get Sydney moving and keep her mobile, Kelly convinced the dog’s owner to take her to a pet rehabilitation facility in Falcon, just east of the Springs, where they could access an underwater treadmill.

“It was a lot,” she said, “but I’m convinced (Sydney) lived an extra year because not only was it a job (for her) — it was novel, mentally and cognitively — … (but) getting that regular activity, in warm water, with focus on appropriate gait, it keeps things looser. So we wanted to do it ourselves, but we didn’t have the time, and I’d let some of my treadmill training kind of lax a little bit because we were so busy doing (mobile pet care).”

Dani Waite, another local veterinarian who previously worked in small animal primary care in Colorado Springs and has provided pet rehabilitation for 12 years, helped bring their dream to fruition.

Waite is certified in veterinary medical acupuncture and also helps run the underwater treadmill therapy White Whiskers now provides. But more than that, she has an emotional connection with her human and animal clients.

“She built relationships like we do, and clients follow her and she connects emotionally. For all those reasons, we knew she was the right person to jump onboard and help us kind of turn this dream into a reality,” Kelly said.

Robert said the couple hopes to continue diversifying their services, eventually expanding their care and services to horses and birds.

“In those cases where we can provide that senior care, that same kind of consultation that we’ve developed for our dogs and cats and their owners, we’re looking to take it into other places as well, because we think it’s a model that really works,” Robert said.

As well as White Whiskers, the Hutchisons co-founded and operate a mobile vet service called the Roaming Veterinary Team with their colleague Ashley Miller, a provisional veterinary technician, to help pet owners maintain routine care for their animals.

White Whiskers will host a grand opening event on Saturday from 1-4 p.m. at the facility.

They will offer tours of the space along with local vendors and a raffle for the team’s angel fund, a donation pool that helps pet owners facing financial hardship pay for their pets’ medical care.