Small Animal

Veterinary Care — Small Animal

RCVS Accredited Small Animal Hospital

Providing high quality, 24 hour care for your pet

The small animal veterinary surgeons, David Blow, Craig Hunt, Martin Rudkin, Alison Pagett, Rosie Thorpe, Nicki Mansell, Tamsin Thomas, Sarah Bowley, Emma Jeddere-Fisher and Rachel Sharpe have over 137 years of small animal veterinary experience between them.  They are supported by Joleigh Booth (Head Nurse) and a large team of 21 experienced, fully qualified and trainee veterinary nurses.

The small animal department has a large reception with separate quiet waiting areas for Exotics, Rabbits and Cats.  There are 6 spacious consulting rooms, 3 large prep areas, 6 operating theatres and a wide range of species-specific hospitalisation facilities.

Small Animal Care

The vets have a wide range of surgical and medical interests, and use the latest equipment to diagnose problems and treat your pet.

  • We offer a 24 hour emergency out-of-hours service to our clients, and have a nurse on-site 24 hours a day.
  • All our patients are cared for on-site by our team, we do not send them to a distant out-of-hours service.

Hospitalisation facilities

The hospital has separate kennels, cattery, exotics and isolation wards.

  • The kennel room has 2 walk in kennels plus 17 cages of various sizes to cater for all sizes of dogs.
  • Cats are housed in a separate, quiet, cattery area with 8 cages, 2 of which can be opened up to double size to cater for larger cats, 2 cats together or just simply more space.
  • The pre-operative area has a walk in kennel plus plenty of caging (including 2 oxygen cages) to allow us to monitor animals as they come round from anaesthetic and an incubator for gently warming hypothermic or high risk patients.

‘Species-specific’ hospitalisation

  • There are two separate exotics wards, allowing predatory and prey species to be housed separately. Housing is available for rabbits and other small mammals.
  • There are a variety of different sized vivariums (with temperature, humidity and UV controls for reptiles), tortoise boxes and Perspex-fronted aviary caging. Large walk-in housing available for larger birds.
  • There is a separate isolation ward for housing pets with potentially infectious diseases.

More about small animal services and facilities

Out-of-hours Emergencies

  • We offer 24 hour emergency out of hours service for our clients
  • Only Chine House staff work out of hours, you will not see a vet or nurse from another practice
  • We have a nurse on-site 24 hours a day
  • Out of hours number is the same as our usual number 01509 812446
  • All our patients are cared for on-site by our team, we do not send them to a distant out-of-hours service

 

Please contact the surgery with any queries or to discuss your requirements, call the ‘Small Animals’ service on 01509 812446 or click to make an enquiry.

Visiting

  • Visits to the practice can be made by prior appointment
  • Some pets get very stressed in a practice situation and you may prefer for us to come to your home to examine your pet – please note this service is only available if we have staffing ability on the day.  Out of Hours home visits are not available.
  • Please be aware that there is a limit to what can be done in the home and in certain cases, a visit is not an appropriate option
  • Euthanasia can also be performed at home and some people prefer this option to that of bringing their pet to the practice – subject to staffing availability

 

Please contact the surgery with any queries or to discuss your requirements, call the ‘Small Animal’ service on 01509 812446 or click to make an enquiry.

Surgery

We have a 3 large prep areas where animals are anaesthetised and prepared for surgery.

 

There are 5 operating theatres (one for Exotics only) plus a dental theatre and Ultrasound room. We are equipped to perform a wide range surgical procedures plus orthopaedic operations from applying plates or external fixators, to repairing ruptured cruciate ligaments.

 

  • Facilities are available for advanced abdominal and thoracic surgery
  • All anaesthetised animals are monitored by a fully trained member of our nursing staff, using pulse oximetry and capnography where necessary

 

Please contact the surgery with any queries or to discuss your requirements, call the ‘Small Animals’ service on 01509 812446 or click to make an enquiry.

Ultrasonography

  • Ultrasound is used to image soft tissue structures. We have a state-of-the-art ultrasound scanner which is used to examine the abdominal and thoracic cavities. Information can be gained about the kidneys, liver, spleen, intestines, bladder and uterus
  • Colour flow ultrasound enables us to assess heart problems and investigates heart murmurs in detail
  • Pregnancy diagnosis can be performed from 30 days

 

Please contact the surgery with any queries or to discuss your requirements, call  01509 812446 or click to make an enquiry.

Endoscopy

Endoscopes allow us to visualise areas inside the body.

 

We have 4 endoscopes:

 

  • A 3mm flexible bronchoscope for looking inside the respiratory tract
  • An 8mm gastroscope for examining the gastrointestinal tract and used to remove oesophageal and some gastric foreign bodies
  • 1.9mm and 2.7mm rigid scopes — these are used to examine the nasal cavities of dogs and cats and to explore the body cavities of reptiles and birds

 

Please contact the surgery with any queries or to discuss your requirements, call the ‘Exotics’ service on 01509 812446 or click to make an enquiry.

Anaesthesia

  • We have multiple piped gas anaesthetic stations. All anaesthetics are continually monitored by one of our fully trained and experienced veterinary nurses
  • Pulse oximetry, capnography and automated ventilation are available where necessary
  • Blood pressure monitoring

 

Please contact the surgery with any queries or to discuss your requirements, call the ‘Small Animals’ service on 01509 812446 or click to make an enquiry.

In-house Laboratory

  • We run our own in-house lab, manned by two staff.
  • Dry and wet biochemistry machines are used for running in-house blood samples.
  • Most routine samples can be run in-house and results are normally available on the same day. Some more complex assays are sent away to external labs. However, our vets are able to interpret the results and advise on appropriate treatment.
  • We perform in-house cytology and can carry out culture and sensitivity on bacterial samples.
  • The practice laboratory is HBLB approved for the culture of clitoral and endometrial swabs for CEM, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

 

Please contact the surgery with any queries or to discuss your requirements, call the ‘Small Animal’ service on 01509 812446 or click to make an enquiry.

For more about Chine House Vets or to make an appointment…