Dr. Sara Austin is the founder of Austin Veterinary and the heart behind everything the practice has become. A proud graduate of the NC State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Austin has been practicing veterinary medicine for 16 years and has spent 14 of those years building Austin Vet from the ground up.
The story of Austin Veterinary is, in many ways, Dr. Austin's story. She started the practice in 2012 out of her back porch — a bold, humble beginning that grew steadily through the trust of a community she has come to love deeply. By 2014, she had grown enough to purchase a building on Lennoxville Road and welcomed Dr. Schmitt to the team. "The local support has been heartwarming," she says. "I can't imagine ever being anywhere else."
Dr. Austin's deepest professional passion is building lasting relationships with clients and their pets — the kind of bond that makes veterinary medicine more than a transaction. That same spirit extends into the community through Austin Veterinary Outreach and Rescue, an organization she founded around 2014 that provides low-cost wellness clinics, spay and neuter services, and rescue support for dogs and cats in the area.
At home, Dr. Austin shares her life with five Cardigan Welsh Corgis and one Great Pyrenees. She is an enthusiastic competitor in dog sports including barn hunt, rally, and lure coursing. When she's not at the clinic or on the sports field, you'll likely find her at the beach — swimming, paddle boarding, or walking the shoreline — or enjoying a music festival with her family. She is the proud mother of a son studying engineering at NC State, and an aunt to a nephew currently enrolled in the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine, carrying on the family's love of animal medicine into the next generation.
