One day before performing at a local park with her high school marching band, Dr. Nancy Vollmar heard a dog yelping in an adjacent parking lot. When she went over to investigate, she found a beagle that had his leg caught up in the handle of a car. Since no one else was moving to help, Dr. Vollmar took it upon herself to free the dog and make sure that he was okay. Ever since that fateful day, she’s known that veterinary medicine was her true calling!

Dr. Vollmar is from Toledo, Ohio, and began shadowing at her local veterinary clinic when she was still in high school. During her collegiate studies at the University of Toledo, she worked as an on-call veterinary assistant and volunteered at the Toledo Zoo before graduating with a degree in biology. After securing a job as a full-time zookeeper at the Baltimore Zoo, where she worked with everything from Kodiak bears, cougars, and jaguars to hyenas and prairie dogs, Dr. Vollmar was accepted to Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and received her DVM degree in 1990.

Outside of her interests in the veterinary field, Dr. Vollmar enjoys hiking, backpacking, cycling, snowshoeing, skiing, attending concerts, visiting museums, and spending time with her adopted cat, Morty.