Wendy Walden knew she wanted to work with animals since she was young. She was surrounded by hamsters, rats, mice, dogs, rabbits, birds, cats, and guinea pigs growing up. People would always ask if she wanted to be a vet, but her answer was “no,” she wanted a job where animals wanted to come to see her. She fell in love with veterinary medicine after taking her first college biology class and working in a veterinary hospital the following summer. She realized that the patients appreciated the help they were receiving.
Wendy graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelor’s in Animal Science in 1998 and then her Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine in 2002. Her husband and she moved to Las Vegas so that he could finish his college degree. After he graduated in 2006, they moved to the Austin area, and she went to work at a wonderful hospital. She worked there for over a decade and served as the Medical Director for five years before leaving to pursue her dream of owning her own practice—Whitestone Animal Hospital.
Her favorite part of working in this profession is getting to know her clients and their pets. Watching families and pets grow is so rewarding. She has a passion for dentistry and preventative care. She also loves complicated internal medicine cases, pain management, and infectious disease workups. She is Fear Free trained and a member of the Association of Feline Practitioners. She also works for the Central Texas Rat Rescue and with two Wildlife Rehab groups. Acupuncture grabbed her interest during veterinary school, and she earned her certification to practice acupuncture from Colorado State University in 2004. She is currently taking courses in Integrative Herbal Medicine and is working to become Veterinary Rehabilitation Certified at the Canine Rehabilitation Institute, having finished her coursework in May 2024 and planning to finalize her certification with a 40-hour internship in the Fall of 2024.
When not at work, Wendy enjoys spending time with her husband Matt and their three kids Donovan, Cassidy, and Brinley. They also enjoy their animal family, which includes six Mini-Aussies, three cats, one prairie dog, a dozen fish, two pot belly pigs, and a dozen chickens [citation][3].