About Us
Our Facility
We strive to make our facility comfortable for both you and your pet. While we have some of the latest technology and equipment, we have done our best to create an environment that minimizes the stress that our patients feel, as many are already undergoing a lot by the time they are brought to our hospital. This helps return them to your home sooner, and ultimately in a healthier and happier state.
Our Team
Our veterinarians are trained to make your pets’ health and safety our top priority. Our expertise allows us to treat your pet with the love and care we give our own, and we will work our hardest to send them home happy and healthy.
Our History
Animal Urgent Care was started by Dr. Liz O’Rourke in 2007, after recognizing a need for affordable emergency care for cats and dogs in the Arvada area. Liz opened the doors of AUC in a historic building on Indiana Street with the help of her family and a few dedicated team members. As the practice grew, Liz maintained a sense of family in a way that many emergency hospitals struggle with, a value that remains at our practice today. As we blossomed and became valued within the community, the demand for care at AUC pushed us to find a larger space for our patients and team. In December of 2018, we moved to a new hospital on the corner of 64th and Ward Road. Liz and her husband, Don, retired from AUC in 2019, but are in every nook, cranny, and intention of our practice. We look out for one another, we love our patients and clients, and we focus on the positivity of what we bring to the world.
Mental Wellness
In 2019, after years of work, Liz and Kate Parker set in motion an in-house therapy program for the team. Veterinary medicine has one of the highest suicide rates of any profession in the US, and we have only just begun to recognize this as a problem in the community. AUC offers free counseling to our team three days a week, an effort that has become celebrated and adopted by hospitals around the country. Without Liz’s gigantic heart, her generosity, tireless persistence, and selfless nature, none of this would have been possible.
If you would like more information on our therapy program or the history of AUC, please reach out to Kate at kate.parker@nva.com.
We are forever grateful for the Animal Assisted Therapy Programs of Colorado for their help in keeping our healers healthy. More about AATPC can be found here.
We are accredited through the American Animal Hospital Association
AAHA-accredited practices are at the heart of better care for pets and their people. They hold themselves to a higher standard (up to 900 higher standards, in fact). Pets are their passion, and keeping them healthy is their number-one priority. They strive to deliver excellent care for pets—because pets deserve nothing less.
AAHA is the only organization that accredits veterinary practices in the United States and Canada. Practices that choose to pursue accreditation are evaluated on stringent quality standards that encompass all aspects of veterinary medicine—from pain management and patient care to team training and medical recordkeeping—and are continuously updated to keep accredited practice teams at the forefront of the profession.