Dr. Jack Gewarter, International Veterinarian

05/08/2025

I once found a dog sitting on my porch at 2 a.m., staring at the clinic door like he had an appointment — and a reason to stay alive.

There was no car in the gravel lot. No leash. No collar. Just a black-and-tan shepherd mix, thin as a rake handle, ribs playing peekaboo through a patchy coat, sitting like a statue two steps from my doormat.

It was February. The kind of Southern cold that doesn’t make headlines but seeps into your knees and reminds you you’re not young anymore. I’d gotten up for a glass of water. Saw him through the window. Thought it was my eyes playing tricks, like they do more often these days.

But he was real.

Didn’t bark. Didn’t growl. Didn’t move, even when I stepped outside in my boots and bathrobe.

“You lost, buddy?” I asked.

He looked at me, ears low, eyes higher. Not begging. Not pleading. Just waiting.

Like someone had told him I was the last door worth knocking on.

I opened the clinic and let him in.

He limped slightly. Left front paw. Didn’t seem urgent. But what struck me was how calm he was. Like he’d already made peace with whatever came next.

I scanned him for a chip. Nothing.

Set out a blanket. He curled up without a sound.

I should’ve gone back to bed.

Instead, I sat next to him on the floor, flashlight in one hand, fingers in his fur.

And for some reason — maybe the hour, maybe the silence — I started talking.

“You know,” I said, “there was a time I thought this job would get easier. You’d see enough loss, it’d bounce off like rain on tin.”

The dog blinked. Didn’t move.

“But it doesn’t. It soaks in. Fills you up.”

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I woke up still on the floor. Sunlight creeping through the frosted glass.

The dog was sitting again, this time by the exam table.

Like he was ready.

I named him Chet. No reason. Just fit.

We ran tests that morning. He had heartworms. A cracked molar. Scars under the fur like he’d lived two lifetimes and fought through both. Old BB pellets near the spine. Someone had used him like target practice once.

But his heart still beat. His tail still thumped.

He reminded me of the men I used to see at the VFW. Silent, weathered, never complaining. But if you looked close enough, you saw it — the things they’d carried. The things that never really left.

The phone rang. Appointments started. Life resumed.

But Chet stayed.

He didn’t leave that porch for the next six weeks.

Didn’t chase squirrels. Didn’t wander. Just sat — like a sentinel — watching me come and go, rain or shine, day or night.

He greeted every patient with a nod, like he’d taken the job seriously.

Clients started asking about him. Kids brought him treats. One man left a flannel blanket with a note that said, “For the veteran on duty.”

I let him inside when it got too cold.

But he always went back to the porch.

Like he was waiting for someone.

One night, I brought out a folding chair and sat beside him with a cup of coffee and my usual ache in the knees.

“You guarding me or the ghosts?” I asked.

He looked out into the night.

Didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

Three days later, a woman came in.

Mid-fifties. Worn coat. Hands that had known cold steering wheels and long hours.

She saw Chet through the window and froze.

“Where did you find that dog?” she asked.

I told her the story.

She sat down slow. Looked like someone had knocked the wind out of her.

“His name’s not Chet,” she said. “It’s Soldier.”

She pulled out her phone. Showed me a picture. Him as a younger dog. Brighter fur. Same eyes.

“He was my brother’s. Marine Corps. Came back from Afghanistan… wasn’t the same. Soldier was the only thing that kept him grounded. When my brother passed, Soldier ran off. That was three years ago.”

I nodded.

“He’s been waiting ever since,” I said.

She tried to take him.

He wouldn’t go.

Sat on the porch. Stared at her car.

Didn’t growl. Didn’t cower. Just wouldn’t move.

She cried.

“I guess he’s chosen,” she said.

I shook my head. “I think he already did. A long time ago.”

We compromised.

She visits him now. Brings him treats. Talks to him like she’s talking to her brother again. Says thank you every time.

He lets her scratch behind the ears.

But he still sleeps by the door.

Still watches the horizon like it might bring someone home.

That’s the thing about animals.

They carry grief in ways we can’t understand.

No drama. No words. Just loyalty that outlasts the loss.

Some folks say dogs don’t remember.

But I’ve seen the way they sit at graves. The way they stare at empty chairs. The way they wait at doors that haven’t opened in years.

Soldier — Chet — whatever name you give him — he remembered.

And he stayed.

The clinic’s fancier now. New coat of paint. Better insulation. An espresso machine someone gifted me last Christmas.

But Chet’s porch is the same.

Worn wood. Blanket on one side. Bowl on the other.

And him, in the middle — always watching.

He’s slower now.

Limp’s worse. Eyes a little cloudier.

But he still sits.

Still waits.

And sometimes, when I’m locking up at night, I sit beside him with a cup of coffee and ask the same old question.

“You guarding me or the ghosts?”

He doesn’t answer.

But I think I know.

Some of us move on.
Some of us wait.
And the truest love doesn’t follow time — it follows memory.
Even when it hurts.
Especially when it hurts.

05/08/2025

“He Died With His Head in My Hands. And I Still Hear the Way He Exhaled.”

Some sounds stay with you.

Not the barking or the whining. Not the frantic scrabble of claws on linoleum or the yelps in the exam room.

No. The ones that stay are quieter.

A final exhale. The click of a leash being unclipped one last time. The sound of a man whispering “goodbye, baby” like he used to tuck her in at night.

Those are the ones that follow you home.

I had a dog once. Just one.

His name was Murphy. A mutt with one floppy ear and a lopsided tail, built like a potato sack with legs. He showed up outside the clinic in ’89, limping, ribs showing, but tail thumping so hard it left marks on the wall.

He picked me, not the other way around. Sat on my boot and wouldn’t move.

I let him stay.

Murphy was the kind of dog that made you laugh even when you were elbow-deep in something awful. He’d steal your sandwich, fart during surgery, chase shadows like they owed him money. Clients loved him. Staff adored him. He had a way of making scared kids forget they were scared.

He was with me through three hurricanes, one divorce, and the time I broke my collarbone falling off a ladder trying to fix the clinic sign myself. He sat beside me on the porch through more sleepless nights than I can count. Never asked for anything but a pat and a piece of whatever was on my plate.

And when he got sick, he never let on.

Not until the shaking started. Not until he stopped eating. Not until he looked at me that one morning — really looked — and I knew.

I cleared the schedule that afternoon. Locked the doors. Turned off the phones. Sat on the floor with him, cradled that dumb lopsided head in my lap, and stayed until he was gone.

He died with his head in my hands.

And I still hear the way he exhaled.

People think vets get used to it. The loss. The goodbye. The soft breath leaving a beloved body.

We don’t.

What we do is learn how to carry it. How to keep showing up.

How to put on clean scrubs, smile at the receptionist, and say “Bring in the next one” while your chest still aches from the last.

I had a woman come in last month. Widow. Mid-seventies. Carried a Chihuahua wrapped in an old baby blanket.

“He’s seventeen,” she said. “He doesn’t eat much now, but he still likes sunbeams.”

We ran the tests. The tumors lit up the screen like Christmas.

She nodded before I said a word. Held him close. Said, “Let’s make it peaceful.”

And then she asked if she could stay in the room. Like that was a rare thing.

Of course she stayed.

Of course I knelt beside her, and we waited until he was ready.

When it was done, she looked at me with a shaky smile and said, “That was the kindest room I’ve been in since my husband passed.”

I didn’t know what to say. Just squeezed her hand and stayed a little longer.

Sometimes that’s the only thing you can give someone. Time. Stillness. Space to cry.

You learn things in this job that they don’t put in brochures.

Like how love clings to fur, and how grief smells like cedar and antiseptic.

Like how a child will ask, “Is he going to heaven?” while holding a leash they’ll never use again.

Like how many men cry into dog fur and say, “Don’t tell my wife I’m crying.”

I’ve seen teenagers skip prom to sit with a dying labrador. Seen truckers drive 400 miles just to say goodbye. Seen a homeless man offer me his last twenty so I’d help his limping mutt.

I didn’t take the twenty.

I wrapped the dog’s paw, gave him meds, and added an extra can of food.

He came back six weeks later. Dog healed. Man smiling. Said it was the first time in years someone helped without asking what he had.

Those moments — the quiet ones — are what stay with you.

They asked me to train a new grad last fall. Fresh out of school, nervous, eager, full of textbook knowledge and not a lick of gut instinct.

First week, we had to put down a shepherd with end-stage arthritis. Owner was an old Marine. Big hands, trembling lips.

The new kid rushed it. Prepped the shot, clipped the leg, all by the book.

I stopped him.

Told him, “Sit first.”

He blinked. “Sir?”

“Sit with them. Look the dog in the eye. Let the owner breathe.”

He sat. Awkwardly.

The old Marine looked at me and said, “Thank you.”

Afterward, the kid followed me outside. “Why’d you make me wait?”

I lit a cigarette and said, “Because if you’re gonna take a life, you damn well better respect the weight of it.”

He nodded.

Two weeks later, he stayed late to hand-feed a paralyzed dachshund. Didn’t ask for overtime. Just did it.

I think he’s gonna be alright.

The clinic has changed. Everything’s digital. We’ve got air purifiers and ergonomic stools and a lobby that smells like lavender instead of iodine.

But I still keep the same exam table.

Scratched. Dented. The corner’s chipped where Murphy used to chew.

They offered to replace it.

I said no.

It’s got memories in it. Scratches from a golden retriever who hated his nails clipped. A dent from when a mastiff leapt onto it too soon. Faint stains from a day I don’t like to remember, but I never want to forget.

That table has held more love and more loss than most churches.

And I’ll keep it until I go.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll do this.

Some days, my hands shake too much to draw a clean line.

Some days, I forget the name of a drug I used to prescribe in my sleep.

But then a teenager brings in her first cat — a scrawny tabby with fleas and attitude — and asks if I can help.

And I do.

And she smiles like I gave her the moon.

And I remember why I stayed.

The drawer’s fuller now.

More collars. More notes. A chewed-up tennis ball from Murphy. A photo of me, thirty years younger, with a girl and her St. Bernard puppy. The girl came back last year — married now — and said, “You treated Bernie when I was eight. He’s the reason I became a vet.”

I gave her the photo. Told her to add to the story.

She will.

Here’s what I know after four decades:

It doesn’t get easier.

But it gets richer.

Every scar, every goodbye, every “thank you” mumbled through tears — it adds up.

Not in charts. Not in earnings. Not in online reviews.

But in the invisible thread that connects one soul to another.

Man to dog. Woman to cat. Vet to both.

And if you do it right — if you stay when it’s hard, and care when it’s thankless — that thread never breaks.

It just gets stronger.

So when my time comes — when my hands are still for good and the clinic goes dark — I hope someone remembers me the way I remember Murphy.

Not for what I fixed.

But for how I stayed.

Until the end.

02/08/2025

Before we start, you should consider asking yourself, can dogs eat chicken bones? It is common for a family to finish their meal and glance down at the beggi...

02/08/2025

I once stitched up a dog’s throat with fishing line in the back of a pickup, while its owner held a flashlight in his mouth and cried like a child.

That was in ’79, maybe ’80. Just outside a little town near the Tennessee border. No clinic, no clean table, no anesthetic except moonshine. But the dog lived, and that man still sends me a Christmas card every year, even though the dog’s long gone and so is his wife.

I’ve been a vet for forty years. That’s four decades of blood under my nails and fur on my clothes. It used to be you fixed what you could with what you had — not what you could bill. Now I spend half my days explaining insurance codes and financing plans while someone’s beagle bleeds out in the next room.

I used to think this job was about saving lives. Now I know it’s about holding on to the pieces when they fall apart.

I started in ’85. Fresh out of the University of Georgia, still had hair, still had hope. My first clinic was a brick building off a gravel road with a roof that leaked when it rained. The phone was rotary, the fridge rattled, and the heater worked only when it damn well pleased. But folks came. Farmers, factory workers, retirees, even the occasional trucker with a pit bull riding shotgun.

They didn’t ask for much.

A shot here. A stitch there. Euthanasia when it was time — and we always knew when it was time. There was no debate, no guilt-shaming on social media, no “alternative protocols.” Just the quiet understanding between a person and their dog that the suffering had become too much. And they trusted me to carry the weight.

Some days I’d drive out in my old Chevy to a barn where a horse lay with a broken leg, or to a porch where an old hound hadn’t eaten in three days. I’d sit beside the owner, pass them the tissue, and wait. I never rushed it. Because back then, we held them as they left. Now people sign papers and ask if they can just “pick up the ashes next week.”

I remember the first time I had to put down a dog. A German shepherd named Rex. He’d been hit by a combine. The farmer, Walter Jennings, was a World War II vet, tough as barbed wire and twice as sharp. But when I told him Rex was beyond saving, his knees buckled. Right there in my exam room.

He didn’t say a word. Just nodded. And then — I’ll never forget this — he kissed Rex’s snout and whispered, “You done good, boy.” Then he turned to me and said, “Do it quick. Don’t make him wait.”

I did.

Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat on my front porch with a cigarette and stared at the stars until the sunrise. That’s when I realized this job wasn’t just about animals. It was about people. About the love they poured into something that would never live as long as they did.

Now it’s 2025. My hair’s white — what’s left of it. My hands don’t always cooperate. There’s a tremor that wasn’t there last spring. The clinic is still there, but now it’s got sleek white walls, subscription software, and some 28-year-old marketing guy telling me to film TikToks with my patients. I told him I’d rather neuter myself.

We used to use instinct. Now it’s all algorithms and liability forms.

A woman came in last week with a bulldog in respiratory failure. I said we’d need to intubate and keep him overnight. She pulled out her phone and asked if she could get a second opinion from an influencer she follows online. I just nodded. What else can you do?

Sometimes I think about retiring. Hell, I almost did during COVID. That was a nightmare — parking lot pickups, barking from behind closed doors, masks hiding the tears. Saying goodbye through car windows. No one got to hold them as they left.

That broke something in me.

But then I see a kid come in with a box full of kittens he found in his grandpa’s barn, and his eyes light up when I let him feed one. Or I patch up a golden retriever who got too close to a barbed fence, and the owner brings me a pecan pie the next day. Or an old man calls me just to say thank you — not for the treatment, but because I sat with him after his dog died and didn’t say a damn thing, just let the silence do the healing.

That’s why I stay.

Because despite all the changes — the apps, the forms, the lawsuits, the Google-diagnosing clients — one thing hasn’t changed.

People still love their animals like family.

And when that love is deep enough, it comes out in quiet ways. A trembling hand on a fur-covered flank. A whispered goodbye. A wallet emptied without question. A grown man breaking down in my office because his dog won’t live to see the fall.

No matter the year, the tech, the trends — that never changes.

A few months ago, a man walked in carrying a shoebox. Said he found a kitten near the railroad tracks. Mangled leg, fleas, ribs like piano keys. He looked like hell himself. Told me he’d just gotten out of prison, didn’t have a dime, but could I do anything?

I looked in that box. That kitten opened its eyes and meowed like it knew me. I nodded and said, “Leave him here. Come back Friday.”

We splinted the leg, fed him warm milk every two hours, named him Boomer. That man showed up Friday with a half-eaten apple pie and tears in his eyes. Said no one ever gave him something back without asking what he had first.

I told him animals don’t care what you did. Just how you hold them now.

Forty years.

Thousands of lives.

Some saved. Some not.

But all of them mattered.

I keep a drawer in my desk. Locked. No one touches it. Inside are old photos, thank-you notes, collars, and nametags. A milk bone from a border collie named Scout who saved a boy from drowning. A clay paw print from a cat that used to sleep on a gas station counter. A crayon drawing from a girl who said I was her hero because I helped her hamster breathe again.

I take it out sometimes, late at night, when the clinic’s dark and my hands are still.

And I remember.

I remember what it was like before all the screens. Before the apps. Before the clickbait cures and the credit checks.

Back when being a vet meant driving through mud at midnight because a cow was calving wrong and you were the only one they trusted.

Back when we stitched with fishing line and hope.

Back when we held them as they left — and we held their people, too.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s this:

You don’t get to save them all.

But you damn sure better try.

And when it’s time to say goodbye, you stay. You don’t flinch. You don’t rush. You kneel down, look them in the eyes, and you stay until their last breath leaves the room.

That’s the part no one trains you for. Not in vet school. Not in textbooks.

That’s the part that makes you human.

And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

25/05/2024

We're turning 40 and want YOU to celebrate with us! Please join us next Friday, May 31 for our 40th Birthday Open House. This is a family-friendly event, but pets should stay home since there will be a lot going on. 😀

New faces are welcome, even if you haven’t visited us before & would just like to see how a veterinary hospital works 'behind the scenes'!

We hope to see you next Friday!

30/11/2023

…And they’re off! ✈️ 🐾

Wishing our northern veterinary team (postponed from the fall due to wildfires) a safe journey as they visit multiple communities throughout Nunavut and NWT during their remote clinic visits. First up is Gjoa Haven, NU followed by Taloyoak, NU. Our team, comprised of VWB/VSF staff and volunteer veterinarians and veterinary technicians, is looking forward to making return trips to both communities where they will connect with local residents and animals, and maybe even get to see the northern lights! ❄️💫

26/01/2023

We rely on Aeroplan points to fly our vets and volunteers into places like remote areas of northern Canada, where the nearest vets are often a plane ride away. If you can spare any points, they will go a long way in helping our vet teams get to where they're needed most!

https://donatepoints.aircanada.com/charity/12

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The 14-metre-high cylindrical tank in Berlin, Germany held 1 million litres of water and housed 80 different species of fish before the burst.

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Newfoundland dogs originate from the island of Newfoundland, Canada. During the 18th and 19th centuries, this huge, intimidating-looking dog.

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The visitor has been named Coconut, or Coco for short.