Dr. Charles Allen grew up on a dairy farm in rural New Hampshire. Coming from a family of veterinarians, his interest in animal medicine was a natural choice. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1973 and continued his education at Cornell University, earning his DVM in 1977. Chuck immediately started working in the Lowville area after graduation, spending 90% of his time practicing large animal medicine. He has been performing ACL surgeries in dogs since 1977 and designed a new extracapsular technique in 2003 that utilizes the patient's own tissues [citation].