{"id":820,"date":"2025-12-21T13:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T13:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/21\/endorsement-will-proposition-129-help-or-hurt-colorado-pets-and-their-vets-2\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T13:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T13:30:13","slug":"endorsement-will-proposition-129-help-or-hurt-colorado-pets-and-their-vets-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/21\/endorsement-will-proposition-129-help-or-hurt-colorado-pets-and-their-vets-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Endorsement: Will Proposition 129 help or hurt Colorado pets and their vets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve taken an animal to a veterinarian in Colorado recently, you know that medical care for pets isn\u2019t cheap. Even a routine checkup for vaccines, heartworm prevention, and diet recommendations can cost a couple of hundred dollars, and any medical procedure starts at $1,000 and can reach $10,000 quickly.<\/p>\n

A ballot measure could help or at least help prevent care from getting more expensive. Proposition 129<\/a> would create a master\u2019s degree program to train a new level of care provider between technicians and doctors \u2013 a veterinary professional associate or VPA \u2013 who could perform surgeries, provide care, and perform other important tasks.<\/p>\n

Most veterinarians work hard to keep their prices affordable, but the Denver Dumb Friends League<\/a> \u2013 one of the most trusted animal shelters in the state — and Colorado State University \u00a0\u2013 our agricultural higher education hub \u2013 have teamed up to find ways to keep prices down.<\/p>\n

The Dumb Friends League knows first-hand how many animals get surrendered or euthanized every year because a life-saving procedure is too expensive or an animal\u2019s quality of life has deteriorated too far and the surgery would cost thousands of dollars to repair ligaments or remove bone spurs.<\/p>\n

Colorado State University runs the state\u2019s largest veterinarian college and is fighting to keep the state supplied with enough doctorates of veterinarian medicine to meet demand.<\/p>\n

But Colorado is a pet-loving state, and there is a shortage of vets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So the Dumb Friends League brought us Proposition 129. It changes state law and directs the State Board of Veterinary Medicine to create a licensing process for a two-year master\u2019s program for veterinary professional associates. And CSU has drafted up a proposal to implement the master’s program.<\/p>\n

These VPAs once licensed by the state will be able to perform almost all of the same duties as a doctor of veterinary medicine under the doctor’s supervision.<\/p>\n

The language of the ballot measure limits the VPA’s work to what they were trained in school to do and what the licensed veterinarian assigns them to perform. The state board will create credentialing requirements for schools, and we urge them not to allow programs to be primarily conducted online. Physician assistants for human care — a master’s degree program — spend long hours in clinical care seeing patients and getting hands-on experience diagnosing and developing treatment plans. VPAs must get the same hands-on training with animals.<\/p>\n

There will be a licensing test and required ongoing professional development.<\/p>\n