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GIBSONVILLE — Nancy Hesters spent the past nine years doing relief work in High Point, Greensboro and Burlington, filling in when veterinarians took time off or were sick.

But Hesters decided she wanted to run her own practice and have continuity with her clients. In May, she opened Phoenix Animal Hospital.

“We already have a handful of clients where I know their name and their pets,” she said. “It’s one of the things that gives you a lot of job satisfaction.”

Clients may run into several of Hesters’ family members at the practice. Her husband helps with accounting and many other administrative aspects of the business. And Cooper, their adopted shih tzu, comes to work with Hesters.

She and her husband chose Gibsonville because they wanted to be close to family in Raleigh. Also, the demographics supported an office in the area. There were no vets in Gibsonville before her arrival.

“A lot of people in Gibsonville are happy,” she said.

They’re selling their house in Asheboro and plan to buy a home close to the practice.

“We are excited about moving here,” she said.

Hesters said her philosophy includes understanding that pets are members of the family and making sure clients know all of their options.

Also, “I feel like I’m pretty nonjudgemental about people and their decisions about their pet,” she said.

Hesters, who earned her veterinarian medicine degree from N.C. State, specializes in dogs and cats. She also will care for “pocket pets” such as rabbits, ferrets and guinea pigs. “I know how to address all the common things with those guys,” she said.

Hesters said what she enjoys most about her job is the satisfaction that comes with healing a sick pet. “When the pet is ill, and the owner is scared ... and when you fix them up and give them back,” Hesters said. “The tails wag when they’re going back.”

Phoenix Animal Hospital boards animals, as well.

“We want to be able to accommodate clients,” Hesters said.

Hesters, who grew up in Ohio, has lived in North Carolina for about 24 years.

Hesters said she gained a lot of perspective about animals and pets during two mission trips to Honduras, when she helped vaccinate and deworm many dogs, cats and livestock. She treated starving dogs that faced life expectancies of only a few years.

At one point, she performed surgery on a horse during a thunderstorm while fellow missions workers held a tarp above her and the horse. The owner had struck the animal with a machete, and the wound was infected.

Hesters had never put a horse under anesthesia before.

“The happiest moment of that whole week was when that horse stood up,” she said.

Contact Jamie Kennedy Jones at 449-4610 or jkennedy@news-record.com