We simply do not know where the time goes! So much is happening at WBVC!

1. Kari, our AHT, is now a dog owner. “Siegfried” has entered her life. Kari is thrilled and her kitties are tolerant. To learn about “Sieg” follow his link to WBVC’s Blog. At the moment Kari is in Japan visiting family. She is travelling with her partner, Paul, and veterinarian Megan Atwood. Many of you will recall Megan, and her dog “Coffee”, as she worked at WBVC for a couple of years. Although members of the WBVC team disseminate to various locales they remain good friends and frequently gravitate back to the fold!
2. Dr. Sarah Rurak,  is also travelling…Sarah, and Ben, have gone off to explore Costa Rica. They were drawn by the opportunities for great birding and nature photography, not to forget sandy beaches and sunshine….something we have had too little of here in Vancouver. She is very excited to be able to spend a few days at a sloth sanctuary…no high speed photography required for that! She has already sent us some great photos. These can be viewed on our Facebook page, our Blog and our Pinterest page.
3. With Sarah and Kari away on adventures, those at the clinic are a bit like ducks in the water…paddling frantically under water and gliding along on the surface! It really hasn’t been all that hectic as Dr. Jess Robertson returned to help out while Sarah is away and Dr. Deb Iden is working as well. Some of you may have met Deb in the past couple of weeks. She is new to WBVC and is proving to be a valuable member of our team. She is married, with two young children, two and four years old, and is testing the waters of being a working Mom.
4. By now you have noticed the words Facebook, Blog and Pinterest!  Dr Janne Potter, our single digit keyboarder, is attempting to introduce WBVC to world of social media. This should be an interesting journey to follow:) WBVC hopes you will get involved and make our efforts worthwhile. WBVC can be “Liked”, on Facebook…we encourage you to post comments and upload photos of your furry family members. Pinterest is worth checking out. Once familiar with how it works you will pick up lots of ideas from the images, many of which link back to the source page. WBVC has a Pinterest page and we encourage you to sign up, and “Follow”, our Boards. The WBVC Blog is a work in progress…just feeling our away along…. but eventually we plan to make it a spot for people as well as pets. Leave “Comments” to give us an idea of what you think. WBVC has a Twitter feed that you can Follow @WBVet. If you want to get short clips about what is going on, Twitter is the media source for you! WBVC has a You Tube Channel. There isn’t much there yet ….so if you have a great a clip, email it to us and we will share it on our channel!
5. WBVC encourages you to post reviews on line. Apparently having reviews (preferably favourable ones) on line helps with “search engine optimization” for finding WBVC on line, and, feedback helps us serve you better! Sites such as Yelp and Vet Ratingz are suggested sites but we expect there are many others out there as well.
6. WBVC now provides a Pet Portal and we are very excited about this! What is a Pet Portal and why should you be interested? A Pet Portal gives you 24/7  access to your pet’s medical information. In addition it provides volumes of educational material pertaining to animals and their medical issues. It will allow you to request appointments and medication refills at your convenience, not just when WBVC is open for business. Scheduled reminders can now be sent by email as well as surface mail. Appointment reminders can be delivered by email or text message. To learn more about, and to sign up for, this great feature navigate to the Pet Portal Page or our website. Go to  http:// www.wbvc.bc.ca, click on the Entry Point tab and follow the Your Pet Portal link…or go directly to the Pet Portal page. This service is FREE to clients of WBVC.

To learn what is happening and be part of the TEAM….connect and interact with us online!

“LIKE” us…….on Facebook

“FOLLOW” us……on our Blog, Pinterest and Twitter

“REVIEW” us………….on Yelp and Vet Ratingz

Drs Potter, Rurak and Kutney are back from the WVC which was held at the Mandalay Bay Conference Center in Las Vegas Nevada. It is a huge conference with over 6,500 attendees from all over the world. Scientific sessions include most species and areas of diagnostics, medicine, surgery, nutrition and behaviour. This year many of the management sessions incorporated the use of social media. The exhibit hall is the size of a football field! So many topics, so many choices to be made…it is a candy store for veterinarians, technicians and business managers. If you couldn’t fit everything in during the live sessions many were videoed and shown on internal hotel TV channels to be viewed at your convenience. Although we don’t normally do reptiles at WBVC there were a great series of videoed lectures on various reptilian issues that kept us glued to the TV into the wee hours.

The social media sessions prompted us to give it a whirl. Soon we will be visible on FaceBook, Twitter, Google+ , Pinterest and You Tube. Once visible we will have to figure out how to drive these accounts! Any and all guidance and advice would be appreciated as we begin to navigate these new waters.

Hopefully clients will contribute and send us photos and videos of their furry family members.

We also came away with goodies from the exhibit hall. A new 1.5 mm endoscope will help with small pet intubation for surgery and allow us to look into tiny spaces. New management software will allow us to send out email reminders and text reminders for those who choose to do so. In addition clients will now be able to access the core of their pets’ medical history and reminders on line. Not only will this be interesting for some clients it will potentially directly benefit our patients. If you are out of town with your pet, or have need of out of hours emergency care while home, through your access the emergency veterinarian will be able to review your pets’ history and taylor treatment accordingly. We will need to have your email addresses and cell phone numbers on file to access these management features. Please contact us to ensure we have these numbers.

An extra benefit of the new software is access to a huge on line veterinary educational resource that will be available to clients.  Appropriate education information will automatically be attached to your pets’ on line files.

We are very excited about this and hope you will be too!

In our hearts forever:)         Get a tissue… then click the mouse over  to play!

WBVC thanks all of our generous clients, colleagues and suppliers for the wonderful goodies and cards brought to the clinic over the season. They warm our hearts and fill our tummies:)  Jill has assured us that no calories are associated with these goodies until after the New Year…then, and only then, will we have to pace ourselves and curb our indulgences. It would be great to have recipes for all the goodies so we could compile a “clinic cookbook”… feel free to submit them.  January will be declared “fruit and veggie month” as we try to shed the extra pounds.

WBVC made it through the holidays with having to manage only one case of chocolate toxicity. Thanks to chocolates with generous fillings this incidence was an upset not a disaster:)  Let it be a reminder that chocolate is toxic and can cause serious illness. Please remember to keep it away from hounds of discerning taste.

WBVC thanks all of our clients for entrusting us with the care of your pets in 2011.

We wish all of our pets, their family and friends a Wonderful, Happy and Healthy New Year

August 2011

We had been waiting months to meet her and early in August we did….Freddie Isaacs was born and Mandy became a Mom! The down side of this wondrous event is that WBVC is without Mandy while she assists Freddie in making her way in the world.

December 2011

Dr Robertson will be leaving WBVC in December. She has been a much valued member of our team. She is planning on a good rest, doing the things one just can’t make time for when working full time and in the spring taking on occasional veterinary locums. We will see her back at WBVC when a locum is required. This means Cita, Jess’s Mexican canine adoptee, will no longer be in the office every day. Cita will be greatly missed as she is the best behaved dog ever and she keeps all the others in line.

We have recently revamped our website…hopefully the glitches will be far and few between!

After much kerfuffle over the domain name registration account, today we’ve finally pushed the new site live. Enjoy!