Integrative Veterinarian · Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Oklahoma State University, 1990

The case that changed how he practices

Dr. Brad Roach graduated from Oklahoma State University with his DVM in 1990 and opened Best Friends Animal Clinic in Shawnee, Oklahoma not long after. For the first nine years he practiced the way he'd been trained to practice.

Then, in the late 1990s, a case stopped him. A dog came in with joint pain. The standard answer was a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. The drug worked on the pain and tore up the animal's digestive system doing it. Standard of care, straight out of the book, and the patient ended up worse off.

He didn't accept that as the end of the conversation. He went looking for something better.

Building the toolbox

He started with homotoxicology, and the pattern held: the pharmaceutical answer was often not the best answer available. So he kept going. He trained at the Chi Institute in veterinary acupuncture supported by Chinese herbal medicine, then completed veterinary chiropractic training. Somewhere in there the practice stopped being a conventional clinic with a few extras bolted on and became something else entirely.

Today his practice runs acupuncture, chiropractic care, Chinese herbs, laser therapy, platelet-rich plasma and stem cell therapies, fecal transplant, prolotherapy, prolozone and ozone therapy, gold bead implantation, biopuncture, photonic therapy, essential oils, homeopathy, thermographic imaging and gait analysis. He is licensed to practice in Oklahoma and California, and holds membership in the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Oklahoma Veterinary Medical Association, the Central Oklahoma Veterinary Medical Association and the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association.

The point of a toolbox that size is simple. He almost never has to tell an owner there's nothing left to try.

Where nutrition comes in

Most of what walks through his exam room traces back to what's in the bowl. The skin. The gut. The coat. The stiffness. The dog that can't hold weight no matter how much food goes in front of it.

Diet is not the part of the plan he gets to after the interesting work is done. For a lot of his patients it is the plan, and the therapies are what buy the body time while the diet does its job.

That's where his work and ours overlap. We formulate on evidence and publish what we find, including the first Canine Health Biomarker Study. He works in a clinic where the outcome either shows up at the follow-up appointment or it doesn't. Neither of us has much use for a claim nobody can back up.

The practice today

Dr. Roach opened Holistic Pet Care Center of Oklahoma as a second location to serve the Oklahoma City area, and demand kept outrunning the space. Dr. Karen Anderson joined the team in 2023, after integrative care pulled her own dog through an autoimmune disease and showed her the kind of medicine she wanted to practice. Dr. Casey Marshall joined in 2024, having been around the clinic since her undergraduate years.

In 2024 both practices were consolidated into one remodeled building at 801 N Air Depot Blvd in Midwest City, which opened its doors on January 16, 2025.

Clients now drive in from Texas, Arkansas, Colorado and New York. That says less about the practice than it does about how few options exist. Dr. Roach's answer to that problem is to teach. He works with other veterinarians on folding integrative tools into conventional practices, on the argument that a vet who picks up even one or two of them changes outcomes for their patients.

Areas of focus

Veterinary acupuncture · Animal chiropractic · Chinese herbal medicine · Regenerative and stem cell therapy · Platelet-rich plasma · Ozone and prolozone therapy · Prolotherapy · Laser therapy · Fecal microbiota transplant · Gut health · Pain and mobility · Skin, coat and allergy · Nutrition and supplementation · Cancer support care · Senior and end-of-life care

Where to find him

Holistic Pet Care Center of Oklahoma 801 N Air Depot Blvd, Midwest City, OK 73110 (405) 605-6675 · Monday through Friday, 7:30am to 5:30pm holisticpetcarecenter.com

Dr. Roach is a Rogue Veterinary Partner. Rogue products are available through his practice.