Our story
The Same Corner Since 1946
Ballard has grown and changed around us. What hasn’t changed is who the neighborhood trusts with its pets.
Since 1946, this corner of 15th Ave NW has been where Ballard brings its pets. The name on the door has changed, and the medicine has been reinvented several times over.
What has stayed the same is the part that is hardest to buy: a neighbor can walk in with a sick dog and be known by name.
Family-Owned and Local
The Family Pet is owned by the family that runs it, and the people who work here look after the pets of the neighborhood they live and work in.
It shows up in ordinary ways. Your pet is treated according to what they need. We can tell you when something isn’t worth doing. We can spend the extra ten minutes. And when you call, the person who picks up can pull up your dog’s history and knows what they’re looking at.
Where We Stand on a Few Things
We do not declaw cats. It’s an amputation rather than a nail trim, and there are better answers. We’re happy to talk through all of them, and we’ve written up why we don’t declaw cats.
We anesthetize for dental work. The disease that matters is below the gum line, and it can’t be reached or even seen in an awake animal.
You get an estimate first. Before we start, in writing, with the options laid out, including the cheaper ones.
Everyone is welcome here. Whoever you are, whoever you love, and whatever your pet is like on a bad day.
The Barnyard Years
For about a decade, from 2011, The Family Pet ran a second practice out of the same building: Barnyard Pet Vet. It made farm calls across the city for Seattle’s backyard goats, sheep, and pigs, and brought them back to Ballard for surgery. It was a very Seattle thing to do, and it says something about a clinic that it took on animals most city practices would turn away.
Barnyard wound down around 2021. We do not treat livestock. If you have sheep, goats, or pigs, we’ll gladly point you toward a large-animal practice. But it’s part of the story of this practice, and worth remembering.
A New Chapter
In 2026 the practice became part of BEAMVetCare, a family-owned group of neighborhood practices in the Pacific Northwest. Same corner, same phone number, same commitment to being the sort of place where the medicine is good and nobody is a number.