PAWS Veterinary Health Centre

13/01/2025

With ongoing cold weather, we've been keeping an eye out for useful winter tips.
The RSPCA has a great number of blog posts on keeping animals safe this winter, including ideas for lending wildlife a helping hand!

Read our seasonal animal welfare advice for tips on keeping animals safe and happy during the winter.

11/01/2025

The recent January weather brought the topic of de-icer to mind for many of us, and where vets are concerned, de-icer is a real winter peril. It is highly toxic, causing kidney damage which can be severe and often fatal, and sadly it has a taste that is particularly tempting to cats.
This PDSA article is a great summary of the risks associated with anti-freeze, as well as offering additional advice on other 'winter perils'.

Our vets are here to help with their advice on how to keep your four-legged friends safe from de-icing dangers during the winter months.

09/01/2025

Each January many of us make new year's resolutions, often with varying degrees of success. However a common resolution is often to take up healthier habits or to drop unhealthy ones.

For many of our pets, resolutions such as "to lose weight" can literally be life-changing. Overweight animals often have shorter life expectancies and poorer quality of life and achieving even a small percentage weight loss can make an enormous difference to them.

The best starting point for a weight loss journey is determining an animals 'body condition score'. This will clarify just how near or far away they are from their 'ideal'.

This handy tool from Royal Canin helps owners determine for themselves what their cat or dogs' body condition score is. It also provides a range of weight loss tips and information for anyone setting out on a weight loss journey.

https://www.royalcanin.co.uk/body-condition-score/

Additionally our veterinary nurses at both PAWS and Whitestone Veterinary Clinic are passionate about weight management in pets. We provide FREE "Pet Health Counsellor" appointments to support pet owners all-year-round to help everyone stick to their new year's resolutions!

Body Condition Scoring is a tool to help you understand what is an ideal shape for your pet. Looking from above; how easily can you see the curve of their waist behind their ribs? What abdominal tuck can you see? Then, with a light touch and flat hands feel all over your pet’s body. With only gent...

07/01/2025

The BBC posted this great article about caring for pets in cold weather. Hopefully we don't have to make use of all the tips too much this winter!

Pets can need help to stay warm when wintry conditions arrive.

06/01/2025

Welcome Martin!

Adding a new vet to our team seemed a much better "twelfth night" gift than twelve drummers drumming, and today marks our new vet Martin's first day with us.

Asked to tell everyone a little bit about himself, he says:

"I'm Martin, joining the PAWS team after freshly graduating from Nottingham in December and moving from London. In my free time I enjoy rugby, football and training for my first powerlifting competition. I adore all things Animals, particularly taking my BFG German Shepherd, Tenzo, on cross country walks.

I eagerly anticipate starting my career with the PAWs family and meeting all your beloved furry ones! Please feel free to say hello whenever in practice, I look forward to meeting you this year!"

We know he'll fit in brilliantly and we look forward to supporting him as he starts his veterinary journey.

04/01/2025

PAWS & Whitestone Veterinary Clinic are proud members of XLVets, a group of Independent, Veterinary-owned practices, working together to share ideas, knowledge and skills in order to deliver the highest standards of animal health, care and welfare.

Recently Gemma, Rachel and Gabrielle visited from XLVets and couldn't resist posing in our Christmas grotto. They provide behind-the-scenes support to our entire team and are a valuable asset to our practices.

02/01/2025

Happy New Year to everyone from both PAWS Veterinary Health Centre & Whitestone Veterinary Clinic. Here's to a healthy and happy 2025.

Both clinics will be open as normal today following yesterday's bank holiday.

31/12/2024

With New Year just around the corner, our Christmas Elf has headed back on his travels and will hopefully be returning to us in about 11 months.

"Only 359 sleeps to go" he said!

(A reminder that PAWS and Whitestone Veterinary Clinic will close early today for New Years Eve. We are open until 1pm. From 12:30pm, details of our out-of-hours service will be available on our answerphone messages).

30/12/2024

Nurse Ali and her dog Ollie recently posed in our festive grotto. Even though it's after Christmas, he also made friends with our elf!

We hope every pet has enjoyed posing in our winter wonderland - it's been great to see so many animas getting into the festive spirit!

28/12/2024

Thank you to everyone who has been following the exploits of our Christmas Elf this December! We saved this one for after Christmas, as it is useful to raise a more serious point.

For many pets who come to the vets, it can be a stressful situation and all of our staff do our very best to help minimise that stress for every patient. However for some animals we do have to insist that they wear a muzzle to be able to safely carry out our examinations. We hope that requests to muzzle a pet are never a cause for offence; we are simply utilising personal protective equipment ('PPE') to protect all those involved, and also to prevent pets from being put at risk of biting, a behaviour that in itself can have serious consequences.

We do promise however, that unlike for our elf, all muzzles used will be fitted properly!

27/12/2024

Welcome back!

We hope everyone had a wonderful few days over Christmas.

Please note the following opening times for the next few days and across new year.

As ever, when both practices are closed, details of our out-of-hours service will be available by calling either 02476 384064 (PAWS) or 02476 343400 (WVC).

Friday 27th December: PAWS & WVC Open as normal.
Saturday 28th December: WVC Closed. PAWS Open 9:00am - 3:00pm.
Sunday 29th December: CLOSED

Monday 30th December: PAWS & WVC Open as normal.
New Year's Eve: PAWS & WVC Open until 1pm.
New Year's Day: CLOSED

Thursday 2nd January: PAWS & WVC Open as normal.
Friday 3rd January: PAWS & WVC Open as normal.

Please note, our normal opening times are 8:00am to 6:00pm at PAWS and 8:30am to 6:00pm for WVC.

We would like to remind all pet owners to check medication stocks carefully and remember to give our reception teams at least 24 hours notice for all repeat medication requests, particularly over the next few days when deliveries may be less frequent than normal.

24/12/2024

Happy Christmas Eve to everyone from PAWS and Whitestone Veterinary Clinic.

Both practices are open on the 24th until 1pm, with our phone lines diverting to our out-of-hours cover from 12:30pm.

We hope everyone has a lovely few days, and both clinics will re-open after the festive period 27th December.

Merry Christmas from all of us, including our elf!

23/12/2024

With the big day fast approaching, Misty & Jax are almost all the way through their advent calendars. Here's Mandy's photo from the start of December when they were waiting oh so patiently to open the first door! Merry Christmas to them both.

23/12/2024

After another weekend spent causing trouble up at Whitestone, our Elf looks like he's got himself into a spot of bother!

If he will swing on the Christmas lights, then there's was always a risk he'd end up hurt!

21/12/2024

We're really working our Christmas elf hard this year! We figured who better to help Whitestone bring their tree down from the loft and set it up?

If you want to pop into Whitestone and see his handywork (or of course go to PAWS and visit our pet grotto), then here's a reminder of our festive opening times:

Monday 23rd December: PAWS & WVC Open as normal.
Christmas Eve: PAWS & WVC Open until 1pm.
Christmas Day: CLOSED
Boxing Day: CLOSED
Friday 27th December: PAWS & WVC Open as normal.

The Elf even created himself a handy hammock to kick back after his hard day of work!