Travelling vet makes kindest cut

Husband and wife team Alistar and Susan McKellow have seen a lot of New Zealand over the last eight years. They've also seen more cats and dogs than most vets would encounter in a lifetime.

The Gisborne couple spend 10 months of the year on the road, leaving their own cat in the care of friends, spaying cats and dogs as they go. They arrived in Kaitaia last week after a stint in the Bay of Islands, and will pack up again after surgery on Thursday and head for Auckland.

"We'll be travelling from Kaitaia to Invercargill this year," Mrs McKellow said, and they'll be adding to their impressive tally of 'patients' at every stop.

They completed their 20,000th procedure in Tauranga last month, every one of them performed in return for koha, or free, according to the owner's means and/or generosity. Poorer communities were more likely to give something in return than wealthier ones, Mr McKellow said, but no other place in the country came within cooee of Kaitaia.

The cost of keeping the caravan on the road is met in full by the RNZSPCA, via public donations, the organisation crediting the McKellows - who sold their veterinary practice before taking to the road - with making a major contribution to reducing the number of unwanted kittens and puppies. Mr McKellow said he was only scratching the surface, however, and that responsibility for de-sexing cats and dogs rested with the owner.

"If you've got a pet you should be taking it to your local vet to be de-sexed," he said.

"The trouble is a lot of people can't afford that. The major barrier to de-sexing pets is cost.

"You should think about that before you get a pet though. Think about your income and lifestyle, and what it's going to cost you. It's a responsibility thing."

Meanwhile the Kaitaia visit followed an established routine, cats going under the knife in the mornings, dogs in the afternoons.

One or two feline patients arrived with the snuffles and were turned way however - as with people, any kind of lung congestion added to the risk of anaesthesia, Mr McKellow said - and a few didn't keep their appointments.

The shaving of a leg, administering the anaesthetic and emptying the bladder seemed to take almost as long as spaying itself for tom cats, and even the females were done and dusted within around seven minutes.

The cats went home in pillow cases, standard procedure to eliminate their chances of escaping somewhere between theatre and the owner's cage, their incisions neatly closed with dissolving stitches and with the assurance that they would running on all six cylinders again by day's end.