NATCHEZ — The dog may always seem to know when he’s headed to the veterinarian’s office, but will he know if the veterinarian is headed for him?

Dr. Tracey Breithaupt Peltier is testing that question with Southern Mobile Animal Care, a veterinary clinic operating on the premise that if you call her, she’ll “roll over.”

Peltier’s clinic — which caters to large and small animals — is located in a bus retrofitted to accommodate routine wellness exams, diagnostics, general surgery, parasite prevention and emergency services. She’s also got a truck with cabinets and folding trays in its bed for work with large animals in the field.

“Some of the pets I have seen get very nervous during that ride to a traditional vet’s office,” she said. “They get worked up and really on edge by the time they get there, and the feedback I’ve gotten from some of my customers is their pets do so much better with this because they don’t have that time to get worked up.”

Being able to go to clients also means that Peltier can allow people who have to euthanize an animal to say goodbye in the more intimate home environment rather than at a veterinarian’s office, she said.

“Because I’m mobile, I can work with people who work, and can meet them after work hours,” Peltier said. “I also have one client who doesn’t have a car of her own, so instead of her having to find a ride, to depend on somebody else if her pet needs something, I can go to her.”

A Natchez native, Peltier graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor’s degree in animal and dairy sciences.

She went on to receive her doctor of veterinary medicine from MSU in 2006, and worked as a veterinarian in a traditional practice on the Gulf Coast from then until last year, when she decided to move back to Adams County to be closer to her family.

While mobile practices are more common on the Coast, Peltier’s is the first in the Miss-Lou.

Stepping into the clinic, clients have to take two steps up before entering the space, which has a small seating area to the right of the steps.

To the left is an exam table, flanked on one side by a cabinet that holds an anesthesia machine. Across from the exam table is a small lab where Peltier can do blood work, and in the back of the bus is a space for X-ray work.

It’s an efficient space, but it is enough space to work.

“We’ve had some big dogs come in here — an English mastiff, a pitt bull, a big Rottweiler,” she said. “This is a hydraulic table, so we can lower it all the way down, they can step on it and then we can raise it back up.

“The Rottweiler almost reached the end of the table, but I was able to operate on him — to neuter him — right here.”

For more significant operations, Peltier said she makes referrals to brick and mortar practices around the area.

Peltier first wanted to become a veterinarian as a child, she said, an interest that was encouraged — perhaps unintentionally — by visits to local vet Dr. Debbie Guillory.

“I remember going to Dr. Guilllory’s office, and she probably fostered a lot of that,” Peltier said. “I’d come in and she’s say, ‘Drag that chair over her and look at this microscope.’”

She later worked in Gullory’s clinic before attending veterinary school.

Now, she’s taking that initial love she learned as a young person and looking to take it wherever her clinic can travel.

“Unfortunately, you can’t save every animal, but when you get to work on one, patch it up and get to send them back home, it is very rewarding,” she said.

While Peltier can’t take her clinic to Louisiana yet, she said she’s willing to meet clients from there on the Mississippi side of the river, and she wants to serve areas such as Crosby, Gloster, Meadville, Church Hill and Fayette that don’t have traditional veterinary practices.

Peltier also said she hopes to start mobile vaccine clinics as time progresses.

Southern Mobile Animal care can be reached by phone or text message at 601-660-0991, or by email at SouthernMobileAnimalCare@gmail.com.

The clinic can be found on facebook at facebook.com/southernmobileanimalcare.