When Your Pet’s Vet Is Owned by the Same Company That Ships Their Food: Why You Should Care

A message from the partners at Two Rivers Vet Hosp

The news broke today: Chewy, Inc. announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Modern Animal, a veterinary platform with 29 owned clinics and 24/7 virtual care capabilities. In Chewy’s own words, this acquisition represents an important strategic step in its evolution into a “fully integrated pet healthcare ecosystem.”

Maybe you saw the headline and kept scrolling. Your cat’s Churu is set up on autoship. Chewy has great prices and free delivery. Why should it matter to you that they now own some vet clinics?

It matters because this is not a single business deal. It is a trend — and it is coming for your wallet and your pet’s health.

The Chain Being Built

Chewy is already the dominant online retailer of pet food, supplies, and pharmacy products. Now it is purchasing veterinary clinics. The strategic logic is not subtle: Chewy describes the deal as expanding its ability to acquire and engage high-value pet parents, driving incremental growth across its core commerce business through increased retention, cross-category purchasing, and prescription adoption.

Read that again. The explicit goal of owning veterinary clinics is to sell more products. Your pet’s exam room becomes a gateway to a shopping cart. The veterinarian you trust becomes a link in a corporate supply chain.

This is vertical integration — one company controlling the food, the pharmacy, and now the doctor. We’ve watched this model play out in human medicine. Now it’s arrived in veterinary care, and it has been quietly for years. The Chewy–Modern Animal deal is just the latest, most visible example.

This Has Been Happening Quietly

Most pet owners have no idea how dramatically the veterinary landscape has already shifted. A decade ago, fewer than 10 percent of veterinary practices were corporate-owned. That number has now been turned on its head — estimates suggest anywhere between 25 and nearly 50 percent of all veterinary practices are now under corporate management, and 75 percent of specialty practices such as cardiology, oncology, and emergency services operate under large corporate and private equity umbrellas.

Here is what makes this especially hard to see: fewer than 15 percent of corporate consolidators put their brand on the practices they buy. Customers are often left in the dark — they have the illusion of still doing business with a local, independent practice, only to discover otherwise when they get a high vet bill.

The clinic may look exactly the same. The logo on the door hasn’t changed. But the priorities driving decisions inside that building have.

It’s Already Happening Here, In Fargo

This isn’t a coastal problem or something happening in cities far removed from the Red River Valley. We’ve watched it unfold in our own backyard.

Clinics we know. Colleagues we trained alongside, respect, and care about. Practices that have served this community for decades. One by one, many of them have sold to corporate consolidators — and honestly, we understand why. The buyout offers are significant, and after years of building something from nothing, that kind of financial security is hard to turn down.

The staff at those clinics often stays the same. The doctors you knew are still there. The front desk team still greets you by name. But what changes is invisible to you as a client: the internal pressures, the production targets, the decisions that get made in the back office by people who have never met your pet. The veterinarian you trust may still want to spend twenty extra minutes with your anxious dog — but the schedule may not allow it anymore. They may still want to offer you a lower-cost alternative — but the system may not reward that choice.

We don’t say this to criticize our colleagues who made those decisions. We say it because we think you deserve to know it’s happening here, quietly, in practices that still look and feel like the independent clinics they used to be.

Here’s What It Costs You

Veterinary costs surged by nearly 10 percent in just a single recent year — a rise many attribute directly to the influence of corporate ownership. That is not a coincidence. This ongoing consolidation has been accompanied by an increase in prices and complaints of declines in the quality of care. Veterinarians report pressure to upsell pet owners on unnecessary services and tests.

Inside corporate-owned clinics, the pressure flows downhill. Veterinarians report feeling pressure to generate revenue and see more clients per shift. Shorter appointments. More patients. Less time with your animal. Unchecked consolidation in veterinary medicine threatens to make pet ownership more expensive and less equitable, while reducing the diversity and independence of care providers.

When a corporation owns the food, the pharmacy, and the clinic, every recommendation your vet makes exists inside a system designed to maximize shareholder return — not your pet’s wellbeing. That is not a conspiracy theory. That is the explicit, stated business model.

What We Believe at Two Rivers

At Two Rivers Veterinary Hospital, we are independently owned and operated by veterinarians — people who chose this profession because we care about animals and the families who love them. Every decision we make is a medical decision, not one dictated by a corporate revenue target or a quarterly earnings call.

We choose medications, treatments, and referrals based on what your pet needs. We are not incentivized to prescribe products that generate downstream e-commerce revenue for a parent company. When we recommend a treatment, it is because your animal needs it — full stop.

We also believe in this community. We buy local when we can, support North Dakota businesses, and keep our dollars in West Fargo. The money you spend here stays here — it pays our team, supports our vendors, and reinvests in the training and tools that make us better doctors.

What You Can Do

You don’t have to give up your Chewy autoship tomorrow. But we’d ask you to think about where your veterinary care dollars go — and who benefits from them.

Ask your vet who owns the practice. It’s a fair question, and you deserve an honest answer.

Support independent clinics when you have the choice. Not because corporate medicine is always bad, but because a veterinary landscape with fewer independent voices means less competition, less accountability, and less leverage for you as a consumer.

Shop local when you’re able. Whether that’s your vet, your pet supply store, or your groomer — keeping those dollars in your community supports the people who live and work alongside you.

Veterinary care is only going to become less personal and more expensive as more corporations build these vertical chains. The thing being sacrificed at every step is the same: your pet’s individual care and your ability to afford it. The exam room should be a medical space, not a marketing funnel.

We are grateful every day for the trust you place in us. We don’t take it lightly — and we will never stop fighting to earn it.

— The Partners at Two Rivers Veterinary Hospital