Before he was a doctor, with a staff of twelve licensed nurses and a visiting cardiologist, Alex Schechter was a boy in Franklin who wanted to be a dog.
Not just a veterinarian. He was three when he knew that. At five, he decided to become an animal.
He lived on the floor. He crawled. He barked. His parents called him Dog Boy.
By the time he was nine, he’d worn his parents down: they brought home a Bernese Mountain Dog, a creature who lived on the floor… right where Alex liked to be.
"I always loved animals," he says simply.
There's a particular kind of person who’s always known what they're meant to do. Schechter is that person. He went to Michigan, then Michigan State for his veterinary degree, then to New York City, where he trained in emergency medicine, then launched a concierge house-call practice. There, he saw people treat their animals as full members of the family. Like the dog he once saw flown to London for a heart valve replacement.
Alex understood.
COVID brought him home to the suburbs of Detroit, where he wanted something specific: to practice medicine where he grew up. He wanted to see clients at the grocery store, at the gym. “I want to run into people,” he says.
His clinic, Burrwood Veterinary, is people-friendly too. The walls are glass. A dog came in the morning of our conversation with heat stroke, critical, rushed straight to the back — and the owner watched everything through the glass. Watched five people working on his dog.
"He was part of that process," Schechter says. "And I think that eases people's minds. The alternative is imagination. And imagination in a waiting room is rarely kind.”
I understand. “You can't make up a story in your head if you're seeing what's happening right in front of you,” I say. He nods. It's the same instinct, he tells me, behind the five remote receptionists on staff: when you call, a human answers. "I don't want a critical situation," he says, "and you're trying to go through a menu to get ahold of someone."
Kids especially love the windows, he tells me. Whether they're witnessing vaccines and treats and a wagging tail, or stuff that's harder to watch, they press against the glass.
"Maybe we're sparking the next set of veterinarians," he adds, and I believe him. After all, he was once a kid pressing his nose against exactly this kind of world, trying to get closer.
I ask Alex how he builds trust with a frightened animal. "I always get on the floor at the beginning of the visit," he says, "as a sign of respect, to put them at ease." When they start taking treats from his hand, he knows he's in.
He’s long since had a dog of his own, a rescue named Cy. And Cy’s getting old. The dog’s been present for his engagement, his wedding, and the arrival of both his kids. “The human-animal bond,” he says, “brings so much joy, and pain — only because you've experienced so much joy."
Not long ago, a family came in with a Shih Tzu who was fourteen and declining. Schechter had the conversation he's learned to navigate with care: do you want to bring your child? Do they want to be involved? Is it too much for them?
The child came.
"He was crying," he recalls, "saying, 'I'm not ready to say goodbye.' This dog's probably older than him. He has never lived in a world where this dog wasn't there."
Alex falls silent.
"In those moments," he finally says, "you have to find comfort in the fact that you're helping them through this." He pauses. "That's what keeps you going."
Helping through endings. And beginnings. And the crisis moments nobody plans for.
He was three years old when he knew. He's been getting on the floor ever since.
Burrwood Veterinary (burwoodvet.com) is on 14 Mile Road in Royal Oak, just east of Woodward. They see dogs and cats for everything from wellness visits to urgent care, with same-day surgery, an in-house lab, and specialists who come to them, including a cardiologist and a mobile surgeon.
"…I think [the glass walls] ease people's minds. The alternative is imagination. And imagination in a waiting room is rarely kind.”