Rifle Vet Dr. John Green Closes 36-Year Practice

Rifle —It is easy to romanticize the small-town veterinarian, painting them as a stoic guardian against the wilds of the San Juan Mountains. But the reality of running a rural practice for three decades is far less heroic and far more exhausting. It is a grind of late nights, expensive equipment, and the constant, low-level anxiety of keeping the lights on while trying to save a cat with a broken leg.

For 36 years, Dr. John Green and his wife, Christa, have been the face of that grind at the Town and Country Veterinary Hospital in Rifle. Now, the doors are officially closing.

The Post Independent reports that the Greens are stepping away from the business they started in 1990. It wasn’t always a sure thing. John Green grew up on a ranch in Rifle, where the arrival of a veterinarian was a source of pure fascination for him, even if it was a source of financial dread for his parents. “My parents weren’t too happy about the vet coming, because it always meant an expensive visit,” Green recalled. That childhood curiosity led him to Fort Lewis College in Durango for his biology degree, and then to Colorado State University’s veterinary program. He joked about his high school reunion, where classmates boasted about their businesses while he admitted he had just finished school.

His path to the practice was winding. He worked at the Rifle Veterinary Hospital and later at the Remington Square Veterinary Hospital. It was during a summer break in 1983 that he met Christa, who was visiting family from California. Their aunt arranged a blind date, which quickly turned into a marriage just weeks before John’s graduation. They have been married for 43 years.

Christa’s role in the practice was foundational. She had an associate’s degree in art and was working toward a degree in early childhood development, joking that she wanted to be a preschool teacher because the kids would be shorter than her. As the business took shape, she became the bookkeeper and office manager. Her veterinary skills were learned on the job, through the repetitive, tactile work of prepping animals and holding them steady during procedures.

John Green ran a mixed practice, treating everything from cattle and sheep to dogs and cats. He even had a limit to his tolerance. “One time someone brought in a tarantula and I did have to say no to that one,” he said. His memory of his first major procedure is specific and visceral: an orthopedic surgery on a dog that had just given birth to seven puppies. The stakes were personal, immediate, and physical.

Now, after four decades of service, the routine is broken. The clinic is quiet. The animals are gone. What remains is the memory of the work — the sound of the exam table, the smell of antiseptic, the weight of a patient in your hands. The Town and Country Veterinary Hospital is closed, but the echo of its 36-year heartbeat still lingers in the air of Rifle.