Dr. Matt Carriker, Class of 2008, started filming and uploading videos of himself shooting guns to his “Demolition Ranch” YouTube channel as a hobby. However he soon realized that there was potential in monetizing his videos — a revelation that eventually led him to found “Vet Ranch,” a popular YouTube channel that uses its ad revenue to treat at-risk animals.
After graduating from A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Carriker saw an opportunity to put money generated from a YouTube channel toward a good cause. He combined his career as a veterinarian and success as an online video producer to create the Vet Ranch channel.
Carriker creates videos that show the stories of those at-risk animals from the time they are brought in to the vet to when they are completely healthy again. Carriker said most of the animals he features are from an organization called San Antonio Pets Alive, SAPA.
“What happens is someone will drop a dog off that they don’t want anymore at the pound,” Carriker said. “And there are just so many dogs in the city pound, and so they have to euthanize dogs that are not getting adopted. SAPA goes in and finds dogs that they think they can re-home, and pull them from the pound. If they have any health issues they try to fix them, and that’s where I came to them.”
Carriker practices veterinary medicine at Fair Oaks Ranch Veterinary, a facility just outside San Antonio in Boerne, Texas. Through the channel’s profits, Carriker is able to fund the surgery costs of the pets that he takes in from SAPA. After he treats the pets, Carriker said they are much more likely to find a new home.
“I’m good at fixing dogs, I’m not really good at finding them homes,” Carriker said. “That’s kind of their specialty. So we work really well together in that.”
Dr. Karri McCreary, Class of 2008, was recruited by Carriker to work with Vet Ranch in the Dallas area.
“We all hung out with the same group of friends in vet school when he was first doing Demolition Ranch,” McCreary said. “In fact, my son was in a video when he was about a year old with my husband, in the very early days of Demolition Ranch.”
In her time as a veterinarian, McCreary said the story of a dog named “Benji” stands out to her the most.
“For me just knowing the change that went into that dog, especially his mental state, just seeing him from the beginning to the end was huge for me,” McCreary said. “I would say that was the most moving to me, because emotionally he was a different animal.”
Even though Carriker has had TV companies approach him about show ideas, he is hesitant to stop the great work he is doing now.
“When a homeless dog has a broken leg and they are at a shelter that euthanizes they are up first to be euthanized for sure,” Carriker said. “They have no one looking out for them. So it’s cool that we can step in and be that person that will be the owner of that dog for a month until its all healed up and we can find it a home.”
