Urban Animal: Seattle’s Hip Veterinary Clinic

You’re staring at the photo booth in the lobby of Urban Animal, Capitol Hill’s newest veterinary practice. What’s that doing here? It’s the for-real, film-based, wait-four-minutes-for-slightly-wet-prints kind. The last one you saw was, probably, in a bar. But you are sober. And here for your pup’s checkup, for heaven’s sake.

Then, you look around. The lobby design—a word rarely used when describing a vet’s office—is straight out of Dwell, with retro office chairs, ceramic dog figurines and a large vintage color print of a mountain scene, to which a pointing Irish setter was added by local artist Joey Veltkamp. The décor isn’t the only unconventional thing about Urban Animal. In addition to establishing an all-walk-in, open-weekends schedule, practice owner Cherri Trusheim, D.V.M. (who designed the space with Seattle Junk Love’s Sarah Littlefield), says she’s fundamentally geared toward working with people on a budget, an approach that sometimes includes not pushing for costly interventions.

Your pup is healthy. You learn this in an examination room whose wallpaper—made especially for Urban Animal—is covered in rummage-sale pictures of people with their pets. On the way out, you stop in the photo booth with your best friend. Seeing the snapshots in that deeply familiar format, it all makes sense (photos $4; non-clients welcome).

Urban Animal, 1001 Broadway Ave., Suite 109; 206.329.5337; urbananimalnw.com