Seventy-six million cats live in U.S. homes. Only about one in three received veterinary care in 2025.
The compliance gap
According to the CATalyst Council's 2026 State of the Cat Report, roughly one in three cats received veterinary care last year. Dogs? Seven in ten. CatsOnly Veterinary Services, a feline-exclusive practice opening this fall in Aurora, Colorado, is betting the gap isn't demand. It's design.
"The gap isn't because cat parents care less," said Craig Wallace, co-founder and CEO. "It's because veterinary care has largely evolved around dogs. We built CatsOnly Veterinary Services to change that."
The practice's clinical direction is guided by a medical advisory board that includes Margie Scherk, DVM, DABVP (Feline Practice); Joshua A. Stern, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Cardiology); Ellen Carozza, LVT, VTS (CP-Feline); Amie Goodrich, DVM; and Mikel Delgado, PhD, CAAB, CCBC. The first hospital opens at Stanley Marketplace in Aurora, with a second Denver-area location planned for early 2027.
What the model actually changes
CatsOnly says its approach targets the friction points that keep cats out of clinics: the stress of veterinary visits, difficulties transporting cats in carriers, and uncertainty about treatment costs. The company didn't detail specific protocols in the announcement, but the premise is operational, every workflow decision starts with how cats experience the world, not how dogs do.
"We didn't set out to build another veterinary hospital," said Dr. Jason Epstein, chief veterinary officer. "We set out to build a model where every clinical decision begins with how cats experience the world and continues to support the bond they share with the people who love them."
The trade-off: species specialization limits caseload diversity. The bet: stress-reduction design pulls non-compliant cat owners back into regular care.
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What this is not
This is not the first feline-exclusive practice, cat-only clinics have existed for decades, often as solo-DVM or small-group operations. What's different here is the stated ambition: a multi-location model with a medical advisory board and a CEO talking about market gaps in the tens of millions. That signals a rollout plan, not a boutique.
The announcement also doesn't give the numbers that would let anyone model the economics: average transaction value, expected visit frequency, client acquisition cost, or the premium (if any) cat owners will pay for feline-specific care. Without those, the compliance gap is a market-sizing exercise, not a practice-level forecast.
Our read
We're watching the second location. If it opens on schedule in early 2027, the model is working well enough to replicate. If it doesn't, the friction they're solving for, visit stress, carrier transport, cost uncertainty, may be harder to monetize than the patient count suggests.
For DVMs running a mixed practice in a metro market, the question isn't whether to go feline-exclusive. It's whether the stress-reduction protocols CatsOnly is building around are things a general practice can adapt without limiting caseload. For associates considering feline specialization, this is a test case for whether deep species focus creates a viable career track outside mixed-animal or corporate groups.
And for any practice owner who's never tallied how many feline patients they see annually versus how many cats live within their ZIP code, this is the week to run that number. The gap is either opportunity or a signal that the barriers CatsOnly is naming are real enough to suppress demand in your market too.