No other area of veterinary medicine receives as much publicity as emergency care, especially when, for some reason, it isn't available. Because emergency care is what the public demands, many veterinarians find themselves accountable to clients 24 hours a day, with no time free for their personal life. Precisely because of the need for good veterinary care during non-practice hours and to alleviate the veterinarian's burden of always being on call, emergency animal clinics have recently become established across the country.