MINDEMOYA—Scott Veterinary Services and Central Manitoulin welcomed a new vet recently as Doctor Emma Gardner started practicing in Mindemoya at the end of January with Doctor Dale Scott.
Dr. Gardner was born and raised in Toronto and first came to the Island in 2005 when she spent the summer volunteering with Dr. Cathy Seabrook, formerly of the Island Animal Hospital. She explained that she has always loved animals and decided to become an animal doctor after she completed undergraduate work in religious studies and linguistics. “I knew I would always want to be around animals so I decided to be a vet,” she explained. “And I spent the externship part of my degree in 2009 with Dale.”
Dr. Gardner, who lives in Mindemoya, had only been on the job for two weeks when a dog, a black Lab and husky mix that had been caught in a beaver trap, was brought in to be euthanized. The bone of the dog’s leg was exposed all the way around its wrist and the owners neither wanted to pay for treatment nor to keep a three-legged dog.
“But I thought Eve was a sweet, gentle dog,” said Dr. Gardner, “so I talked to Dale and he had no problem so I did the amputation pro bono.” As she went on to explain, when a case like this arises a vet has to take off the entire leg or the dog will try to use its stump to walk or run on.
Dr. Gardner has been fostering the dog so far, but she has found a woman in Toronto who will take her in permanently. As Dr. Gardner explained, this woman only takes in special needs animals and she is very excited about training Eve to be a therapy dog. “She has five cats and recently had her dog euthanized,” Dr. Gardner remarked, “so she was looking for another dog.”
After Eve was brought into Dr. Scott’s practice another dog was brought in with the same problem, but these owners elected to pay for the amputation and keep their dog.
The Ministry of Natural Resources subsequently did an investigation into the trap line, which was on Birch Island, and removed all the traps.
