Mixing Up Her Practice
After years of focusing solely on equine patients, today Dr. Christina Wagner is taking a mixed animal approach to her professional life.
“I do the bulk of the equine work at my practice and still enjoy lameness, dentistry and reproduction,” Wagner said. “However, I enjoy the variety a mixed animal practice provides.
“I prefer working for good, kind owners. It doesn’t matter to me what species it is.”
Wagner is a part owner of the Riverside Animal Clinic in Springfield, Minnesota. She joined the practice in 2014 before purchasing a share of the clinic two years later.
After moving from Iowa to Texas to Florida, Wagner is happy to be settled in Minnesota.
“I really enjoy the variety of services I’m able to provide at our clinic,” she said. “There is always something every day that requires me to learn or look something up.”
Riverside Animal Clinic has three different offices that Wagner and the clinic’s other doctors rotate through. She says the mixed animal practice sees a variety of dogs, cats, small rodents, cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, exotics, and even a few deer.
Her career today is much different than it was when she finished her DVM.
After graduation, Wagner completed an internship at Oakridge Equine Hospital in Oklahoma before joining Equine Sports Medicine and Surgery in Weatherford, Texas. There she was in the Racetrack division which saw her working on racing Quarter horses throughout the country.
After a brief stop at another equine facility, this time in Minnesota, she made the leap to the mixed animal practice at Riverside Animal Clinic.
Although her professional focus isn’t 100 percent on horses, Wagner still devotes a lot of her free time to the species. She assists a draft horse hitch team throughout the year.
“Driving horses is very different than riding horses and I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of not only learning how to drive but also the differences in issues commonly dealt with in driving horses,” she said.
Her interest in draft horse hitch teams began during her internship. After completing that year-long program, Wagner started attending shows and assisting Percheron hitch teams all across the country.
“It usually takes a decent size crew to care for and show that number of horses,” Wagner said. “I’ve been fortunate to travel all over the country, Canada and even South America through my involvement in the draft horse industry.
“I hope to some day own several Percheron mares to breed and market the foals.”