Changes for the better

adds.

It’s clear that Richard is well on his way to achieving his goal but knows from experience that weight loss can be difficult to maintain.

“I will always have to go to class,” he says. “Food is a habit and an addiction and yet we all need it, there’s no avoiding it.”

This Christmas Richard and his family are out on Christmas Day. “That way we don’t buy in a lot of food and nibbles and there are no left-overs,” he says. It’s one of his top tips for surviving the festive season. LOOKING back over the last 12 months, it has been an interesting and exciting year at Donaldson’s Vets.

At the end of last year, we took over a practice in Sowerby Bridge from Mr and Mrs Dale, who were looking to retire from the rigours of practice ownership.

The team at Sowerby Bridge already shared our passion for compassionate and professional independent veterinary care and so there was an easy transition as they joined our existing team.

January saw refurbishment of the surgery at Sowerby Bridge, along with integration of the computer systems and a big investment in the in-house laboratory analysers at Sowerby Bridge to aid the speedy diagnosis of medical problems at Sowerby Bridge.

At the Maple Street Hospital, we have seen an increasing number of “key-hole” surgical procedures this year, including routine spey operations and more advanced diagnostics. I am now performing key-hole spey operations more frequently than conventional surgeries and I expect this trend to continue.

At the hospital, we have also seen an increase in the number of major orthopaedic cases we have been treating. Cases have come to us from our own surgeries but also from other neighbouring vet practices.

As always, all our surgeries have been busy treating all manor or animals.

As is always the case in veterinary practice, we have seen some very happy occasions and some sad occasions, but for me, there is always a pleasure from the relationship that is formed by working through problems with pets and owners and I have met some great characters (both animals and owners) this year.

Our dedicated team of vets, nurses and receptionists have worked tirelessly 24 hours per day, seven days a week throughout 2016 to serve our patients.

In the summer, we recruited three additional vets, Ellie, Olivia and Cordelia. All three have settled in to the Donaldson’s team really well and will be joined early in January by a further experienced vet, Hannah, who is returning to the UK after spending a season calving cows in New Zealand.

For me, the second half of the year has been dominated with preparations for the opening of our new surgery at Shepley.

With construction work starting on site in October, the surgery is really taking shape now. Juggling clinical work with contractors meetings has been a challenge over the last few months but the construction team, headed up by Eddie Dyson, have done an outstanding job and we can’t wait to unveil the new surgery.

So, with the finishing touches being added to the Shepley surgery ahead of opening at the end of January, along with a further roll-out of cutting-edge in-house laboratory equipment at Birchencliffe and Mirfield surgeries and the Maple Street Hospital, the start of 2017 looks to be as interesting and exciting at Donaldson’s Vets as 2016 has been.