Veterinary Professional Reviewer – Amy Pike, DVM, DACVB, IAABC-CDBC

Dr. Pike has been caring for patients for well over 20 years. After graduating from Colorado State University in 2003, she was commissioned as a Captain in the US Army Veterinary Corps. There, she was the head veterinarian for her base’s small veterinary clinic, caring for 200 Customs and Border Protection horses, and 15 Military Working Dogs.

It was Dr. Pike’s experiences with Military Working Dogs struggling with PTSD after returning from deployment that originally piqued her interest in veterinary behavior. After leaving active duty, Dr. Pike was able to further her love for behavior as a civilian, by continuing her work with MWDs at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, DC.

As her love for behavior blossomed, she began her residency program. Under the mentorship of Dr. Debra Horwitz, Dr. Pike spent three years seeing behavior cases, taking additional college courses in psychology and advanced animal sciences, completing her research on thunderstorm phobias, and studying for the grueling two day board examination.

In October 2015, she became one of fewer than 100 Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorists in the world.

As a Veterinary Behaviorist, she has dedicated much of her time to improving education in the field. She has written various articles for professional veterinary journals such as Clinician’s Brief, Pet Quarterly, and The Team. She has been interviewed extensively for periodical magazines, online forums, podcasts, television, and newspapers. She is Fear Free Certified® and serves as a member of the Fear Free® Advisory Committee. She is an International Association of Animal Behavior Certified Animal Behavior Consultant. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Animal Welfare League of Arlington (Virginia), and the American College of Veterinary Behaviorist‘s Board of Regents, where she is Head of the Specialty Training Committee. Dr. Pike acts as an instructor for E-Training for Dogs, an online education program, is mentor to her own residents, (Robyn Hayes, DVM, Esther Eng, DVM, and Samara Nalla, DVM), was an editorial advisory member for American Veterinarian®, and continues to present at national and global veterinary conferences and symposiums throughout the year

Since moving to Northern Virginia in the summer of 2016, she’s been building a network of behavior resources. She is currently the co-owner of both Animal Behavior Wellness Center locations in Fairfax, VA and Richmond, VA. She sees pets with behavior disorders ranging from mild fears to extreme aggression, compulsive disorders, and panic disorders. With her extensive knowledge and caring nature, she has gathered a team of behavior professionals capable of tackling any behavior problem.

As her influence in the DC metropolitan area grows, she is working to expand prevention services with her support staff by providing socialization classes and patient handling workshops for other veterinary professionals.