Jenny Ward simply refuses to grow old😃
If you are from a family that has been part of the London Vet Clinic since the 1970s you already know that Jenny Ward sounds no different on the telephone now than she did then.
Jen grew up in West Kensington, near Andrew Carmichael’s Addison Avenue Veterinary Clinic. (There’s more about Andrew below.) When she joined the London Vet Clinic it was just the two of us, a veterinary surgeon and a veterinary nurse. In the 1980s, we moved the clinic to where it is now on York Street. Jen produced two daughters. I did the same, plus a son.
Jenny’s Italian Spinoni accompanied her to work, where they spent their days lazing in Reception. Families we see today have Spinoni because they fell in love with Jen’s.
Jenny continued to work full time from home after she moved to Herefordshire. You’ll hear her answering the telephone or following up your insurance queries or sending you updates on what we’re doing. Jen and I are, I’m sure, one of the few if not the only vet/nurse team, with over 50 years of service each, not just still working but still working together!
Jennifer Ward of Hereford, remains at the core of the London Vet Clinic. Happy 50th Anniversary Jen.
Preventative medicine means healthy diets for our companions
Do our cats and dogs realise how lucky they are? They have the good fortune to live with you, people who care for them, who want to ensure they have healthy and satisfying lives. The dogs and cats we see are never undernourished or malnourished. When we see problems, it’s the opposite. They’re overnourished! Many of the cats and dogs that visit us are heavier than is healthy for them to be. Some of them, if they were people, would be classified as clinically obese!
All corporate clinics have preventative health care plans or clubs that include preventative monthly internal and external parasite treatment and annual vaccinations.
At York Street we have a different definition of what preventative medicine means. We know that what’s really important for our dogs and cats is not over-treating for low risk parasites, or over-inoculating with long-acting vaccines, but better prevention of obesity, better prevention of mouth disease, reducing boredom, controlling age-related joint pain. In the coming months we will tell you more about how you can improve your companion’s well-being, starting next month with diet.
Andrew Carmichael was a unique vet
Andrew Carmichael was a London vet for over 50 years. You don’t expect over 500 people, more than 200 dogs and at least one, three legged cat, to stand in cold bleak rain for over an hour to show love and respect to their local vet but that’s what happened in February in Holland Park at Andrew’s funeral.
Andrew was an iconoclast. He loved good food and wine, his patients, blonds, disagreeing, shooting quail, driving vintage Volvos, surrounding himself with art and ephemera, evenings at the Chelsea Arts Club.
Look at this picture of one of our operating rooms at York Street. Everything’s on wheels so the floor can be disinfected. The walls are washable white so they too can routinely be disinfected. It’s all totally boring!
Now look at this picture of Andrew’s operating room at his Holland Park clinic. He had a muralist paint sunlit yellow and Mediterranean blue vistas of Capri and Tuscany on all the walls. When I first saw the murals I asked Andrew why he had gone to the trouble and expense to paint a room only he and Sarah his nurse visited. With a twinkle in his eyes he explained, “I’m happiest when I’m operating abroad.”
This is Tuscany. Capri is on the opposite wall.
