Philosophy
At Northwest Equine we believe horses are more than just animals... With their enchanting personality, beauty, and free spirit they provide us with joy, love, companionship and loyalty often becoming intricate parts of our lives. Horses commonly become a "best friend", sharing secrets, special moments, and a sometimes not well understood connection. For all and so much more they endow us with they deserve no less than admiration, mutual love and dedication.
We are committed to offering 24 hours 7 days a week of the highest standards of veterinary medical care with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment and outstanding expertise accompanied by compassion, dedication and respect to our equine patients.
Our legacy is to continually improve horse’s welfare and to raise the standards of the veterinary medical profession.
Veterinarians
A native of Washington State, Dr. Latimer graduated from Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in 1988. After 2 years working in general practice, Dr. Latimer co-founded Northwest Equine Veterinary Associates initiating his career as an equine exclusive practitioner in 1990. The wide variety of cases from lamenesses, lacerations, colics, dystocias, dentistry, sick foals to the most unusual and complex cases provided him with an incredible broad medicine and surgery experience. In the last 14 years though, Dr. Latimer developed a special interest in sports medicine and advanced dentistry dedicating his time and efforts into furthering his knowledge and education into these fields. Through numerous conferences, trainings, individual studying and years of practice Dr. Latimer became an expert in advance lameness evaluations, tendon ultrasonography, and radiographic evaluation of bones and joints. Today due to his sports medicine expertise and renowned reputation he is highly requested by many accomplished equestrian professionals and routinely consults on pre-purchase evaluations of high level performance horses many being imported into the country. Along with his diagnostic skills, Dr. Latimer was one of the first veterinarians in the Northwest to introduce into the field cutting edge technologies such as Shockwave therapy, digital radiography, Stem Cell therapy, IRAP® and Platelet Rich Plasma for the diagnosis and treatment of equine sport related injuries. Along with these important lameness related developments, Dr. Latimer has been in the vanguard of advanced dentistry providing his patients with sophisticated power floating, composite restoration of cavities, orthodontic correction (braces), and periodontal treatment. Dr. Latimer is famous for his eagerness to share his knowledge and love to teach, he is one of the original veterinarians to participate in the WSU veterinary senior student preceptorship program. Dr. Latimer’s spare time is dedicated to his wife and three children, their two lively Jack Russell terriers and spending as many weeks as possible on their family ranch in Montana.
Dr. Rothschild is Board Certified by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) which means she is an Equine Internal Medicine Specialist. What this really signifies is that she absolutely loves to diagnose and treat sick horses especially colics, neurologic and ophthalmology cases, baby foals, diarrheas, metabolic and hormonal disturbances, (among many others in this field)! She obtained her Veterinarian degree in 1999 and pursued her advanced training at Washington State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Pullman from 2001 to 2007 after when she joined Northwest Equine Veterinary Associates. She grew up adoring horses and everything related to them and was involved for many years in horse show jumping, different rodeo modalities and 100-mile endurance training and riding. Dr. Rothschild is from European descent but grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. During her senior veterinary year she felt the need to further her education, which led her to embark in a wonderful one year journey of preceptorships and trainings at several renowned equine clinics through out the world. Some of those included the Equine Clinic of the Hannover Veterinary School in Germany, the Equine Artificial Insemination Center in Celle Germany, Rossdale & Partners in New Market England, Peter Cronau’s Equine Sports Medicine Clinic in Germany, the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at UC Davis California, among others. After obtaining her DVM degree in 1999 she moved to the United States and engaged in an equine internship program in a large private practice in Texas (Brazos Valley Equine) dedicated to equine sports medicine, internal medicine and reproduction. After nearly two years there she made the decision to specialize pursuing a 3-year equine internal medicine residency program at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. Dr. Rothschild became Board Certified and continued on with 3 extra years of research in equine piroplasmosis and vaccine development using molecular biology technology and genetic engineering. She has published many scientific, technical and book articles in the equine veterinary field. As mentioned above her major interests are sick horses in general but she also really enjoys equine breeding & reproduction and has practiced in that field for nearly 10 years. She is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, has a wonderful husband, 2 rescue dogs (Lua and Atash), 1 rescue horse (Bella Donna) and enjoys soccer, traveling, hiking, cooking Brazilian food, playing volleyball and ping-pong!
Read a selection of Dr. Rothschild’s published articles
Dr. Kennedy is a native of Spokane WA. She’s had a passion for horses 
from a young age and grew up riding horses within the eventing and hunter/jumper disciplines. Always passionate about equine veterinary medicine Dr. Kennedy graduated from Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in 2005. Soon after she pursued a one-year intensive training internship program at the renowned Bend Equine Medical Center in Bend, Oregon. There she was trained to handle most emergency situations such as colics, lacerations, traumas, neurologic cases, sick foals and general medicine. In 2006, upon conclusion of her internship program she returned to Washington and practiced equine medicine in Snohomish until joining NW Equine in December 2008. Dr. Kennedy’s interests include equine dentistry, ophthalmology, nutrition, and medicine cases. She is well known for her friendliness and easy going relationship with horse owners. She currently is riding and training her horse, Guinness and has a very sweet dog named Brodie.
Carol is the heart of Northwest Equine taking excellent care of the doctors, staff and clients. She was born and raised in the Seattle area, joining Northwest Equine in the Spring of 2000. Before that time, she spent 26 years working for a major public utility where she gained much experience in the areas of finance, human resources, customer service and public relations. Upon joining Northwest Equine Carol was able to implement many administrative and managerial upgrades that enabled the practice to grow into a modern, well run, first-class business. Carol and her husband Chris share their home in Maple Valley with their 2 horses, 2 dogs, 3 cats, 13 chickens and 2 ducks. Whenever time permits, they enjoy taking the horses for a trail ride, spending time camping (often taking the horses and dogs along too), or heading out in the boat for a day of fishing and setting pots for the elusive Dungeness crab!
Jessica was born in California but grew up locally here in Maple Valley WA. She took 3 years of Agriculture at Tahoma High School and has been around horses since she was a little girl. Jessica showed horses in 4-H for over 4 years and now enjoys Barrel racing. She also worked in a horse barn for over a year and is very experienced handling even the most difficult and fractious horses. She joined Northwest Equine in September 2007 initially working as a vet assistant and later moved into our office to manage our crazy appointment books and phones! Jessica owns 2 horses and a big Mastiff dog (Tucker). In her free time she likes to go 4-wheeling and of-course riding horses!
Katie was born in Burien WA and grew up in this same area. She graduated from Highline High School and from the Occupational Skills center majoring in Veterinary careers. Katie is very bright and ambitious and is currently attending the South Seattle Community College working towards applying to veterinary school in the near future. Katie has been involved in 4H since 2002 and continues showing and winning many prizes in open and Pinto shows with her 9 year old Arabian gelding Airamus. She also owns a cat named Gremlin and her main hobbies are ridding, snowmobiling, and camping. She joined Northwest Equine in July 2006 as a veterinary assistant and now due to her demanding educational commitments is mostly assisting in the office.
Patty was raised in the North Pole, Alaska. She did not grow up in a “horsey” environment, but was inexplicable drawn to horses at a very early age. She spent long hours filling note books with their images, which led to a lifelong love for fine art, and eventually a career at Northwest Equine. She finally adopted her first horse at the age of 27 (a surprise Christmas gift of her well-meaning husband), and for the past 16 years has been on the “Horses 101” learning curve. “You never really stop learning about something you truly love” she says. Patty joined Northwest Equine in 1999, and has been carefully trained as an assistant by the dedicated doctors and staff. Aside from becoming one of our most experienced and skilled assistants, she is contributes to the practice through her artwork, both illustrating the newsletters, and creating individual memorials for the many clients she has come to know over the years. Patty and her husband live in the foothills of the Cascades with their 2 cats, and 1 dog. They hope to add horses back to the family mix in the near future. In addition to fine art, Patty enjoys backyard astronomy, rock-hounding, poetry, and looking for Bigfoot!
Born in Astoria OR but raised in Washington since she was 4 years old, Tasha went to Tahoma and Peninsula High Schools. She has outstanding medical training having received her Medical Assistant Associate of Science degree from Renton Technical College in 2005. She has worked as a medical and small animal assistant but found her true calling working as an equine veterinary assistant. She joined Northwest Equine in February 2007 and is extremely motivated and driven currently pursuing a 2 year veterinary technician program to become a certified technician. Tasha trains, rides and shows Quarter Horses, is a “killer” pool player, has 2 horses, 2 cats, 2 dogs and 2 gold fishes!
Holly Hastings (Veterinary Assistant): 
Holly grew up in the area of Covington, WA. Her love for horses started the day of her 7th birthday when her parents bought her first pony. She participated in 4H for nearly 7 years and graduated from Kentlake Highschool in 2007. She worked in a small animal practice before joining Northwest Equine September 2008. Holly will soon be taking classes to be a certified technician. In her spare time she loves going for trail rides with her 8yr old Quarter horse and 1yr old border collie "Caddi", along with fishing, hunting, camping and most anything outdoorsy.