While packing the car for a family vacation early in his college years, Dave Tuminaro spotted a skunk in distress. The animal had gotten its head stuck inside an empty yogurt container while attempting to lick the carton clean. He sprang into action, hoping to free the distressed skunk without triggering its defensive spray. The creature was unwilling to cooperate, though, and raised its tail each time it heard the would-be rescuer approach.

“My dad was freaking out,” he remembered with a laugh. “He ran inside yelling that I was going to get sprayed by a skunk. It started to walk down just bumping along a fence. I stood at the corner of the fence, so as it approached . . . I was able to reach down and yank the thing off its head and then hide behind the fence. Then it kind of just walked between my legs and then walked off.”

That first animal rescue experience seemed to foretell Dr. Tuminaro’s future as a veterinarian on Martha’s Vineyard, an Island somewhat notorious for the pungent perfume of its black and white beasts.

In January of 2006, Dr. Tuminaro launched Caring for Animals, an Island veterinary practice known for the mobile clinic from which the vet works.

“I grew up wanting to be a vet, but then found out how many years of schooling it [required] and didn’t want to do it,” said Dr. Tuminaro. “But when I tried other things, there was nothing that really piqued my interest as much.” After college, while working odd jobs in retail and landscaping, he worked part-time as a veterinary technician, and knew that he had found his calling. He was accepted into a program at the Royal Veterinary College in England, and spent the next five years studying veterinary science and enjoying London.

“I’m actually very happy I went there. It gave me a chance to live in a foreign country, a big city, and . . . a lot of extra animal experience,” he said.

After five years abroad, Dr. Tuminaro returned to the states to join his longtime girlfriend at her home on the Vineyard.

“I technically moved here in [1998], although . . . I was only here in the summer and during my breaks because I was studying in England,” he said. “[But] coming here during breaks, I met a lot of other vets. While I was in vet school I actually worked a summer at Animal Health Care.”

After finishing veterinary school and passing his state and medical boards, he and his girlfriend married and settled on the Island. He worked two different part-time associate positions at Island animal hospitals, and then commuted off-Island to work at Cape Cod Veterinary Specialists, gaining valuable experience in emergency medicine. Still, the long hours and taxing commute motivated Dr. Tuminaro to look into starting his own practice.

“I came back here and started asking other vets how they would feel if I opened another practice. I wanted the general opinion, if it was going to basically feel like I was trying to steal their clientele, or there wasn’t enough business for another practice. But they were all very encouraging,” he said. Because there are no 24-hour animal hospitals on the Island, the vets were rotating on-call shifts for emergencies. “They were very excited to have another person share the emergency work,” he added.

Dr. Tuminaro decided to make his practice unique from others on the Island by purchasing a mobile veterinary unit to house his clinic. The mobile unit, which resembles a large recreation vehicle, allows him to make house calls with all of his materials on hand. Of the six Island veterinarians, he is the only one able to bring the clinic directly to the patient, rather than the other way around. Three or four days a week, he is assisted by technician Mary Surprenant, who also helps out during surgeries.

“I have pretty much everything you would find in a stationary [clinic],” he explained. This includes an area for anesthesia and surgery, a closet that doubles as a darkroom, and a portable x-ray machine. The cabinets and drawers hold necessary supplies, and he stores vaccines and antibiotics in the small built-in fridge. A pull-out scale and recovery kennel complete the highly functional — if not overly spacious — mobile hospital.

“It’s small but cozy,” explained Dr. Tuminaro.

The truck cab is typical of a large pickup, but a step through a small door behind the front seats reveals a comprehensive, compact clinic. The mobile unit allows Dr. Tuminaro to literally pull up to the front door of a client’s home to provide care for family pets. A dog or cat in need of surgery need never leave its front yard for medical care.

“Everything is sort of right at my fingertips. And it gives me a little more personal touch with the animal,” said the doctor.

The animals never really leave his sight, he explains, because he has no office to retreat to outside of the unit. If he needs to do paperwork after performing a surgery, he does so in the same room as his recovering patient.

Though the mobile clinic makes house calls more convenient, not all of his patients are able to fit in the limited space.

“I’ll see anything, from mice to horses,” he says of his animal clientele. “I always wanted to be James Herriot.” He estimates that about 85 per cent of his patients are domestic animals like dogs and cats, and 10 per cent horses. The other five per cent consists of a variety of animals: alpacas, pigs, birds, cows, and guinea pigs, to name a few.

On a recent sunny afternoon, Dr. Tuminaro had a single house call to make to tend to a horse that was slightly overdue for a routine check-up and rabies vaccine. Because of emergency calls, the vet was forced to reschedule the appointment twice; he wanted to make sure he was able to finally see his patient this time.

When he arrived at the small Chappaquiddick farm for the appointment, a leashed dog welcomed him with a few friendly barks. The dog is a patient as well, Dr. Tuminaro said, but today’s visit was reserved for the family’s larger pets.

The vet stepped carefully into a pasture occupied by four horses — two full-sized and two miniatures. His primary patient was a large Chestnut named Cruiser, whom he approached carefully, following his own advice: “They hate to be approached quickly, and I can understand that.”

He took the horse’s temperature to assess the animal’s overall health. “You don’t want to vaccinate a sick animal,” he explained. “You could make a weak animal even weaker.”

He administered the vaccine shots, careful not to startle the horse. When finished, Cruiser refused a wedge of apple proffered by the vet as a reward. The two miniature horses were happy to step in and oblige, and anyway now it was their turn. Belita and Salvador were new patients, so Dr. Tuminaro pulled out a small camera to snap photos of the horses to file with their records. He then ran through the same check-up routine with the small equine patients before vaccinating them.

He was at ease with the horses, and also with a large yellow dog lying in the front yard and a tiny Chihuahua that came running out of the house to greet him as he passed.

“There is no way I could be a specialist in everything, there is just too much to know,” he said. But he said the Island environment has been conducive to learning more about many different types of animals.

“There is not just a specialist 20 minutes away. Maybe a boat ride away, but that’s a boat ride away. [People] may not be able to go see that specialist. So you’re forced to see more things [working on the Island] . . . you’re doing a little bit of everything, which keeps it fresh and exciting,” he said.

“With this being a house call practice, I find it gives it a personal touch. You tend to get to know the people and the animals. I always wanted to live in a small town, but I liked the city atmosphere, and [the Vineyard] gives you both. The city sort of comes to you.”