Vets’ Patients Are All Shapes and Sizes

A lot has changed over the years at the Conejo Valley Veterinary Clinic, which first opened for business in 1958.

Last month, a statue dedicated to one of the clinic’s founders, Robert Kind, was erected in front of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. The statue shows Kind leaning down to allow a young boy to use his stethoscope to hear a dog’s heartbeat.

The clinic now belongs to a new generation of veterinarians, who care for traditional pets as well as a new wave of animals in the Conejo Valley.

“It’s never the same day,” said Nancy Wohl, the clinic’s manager. “We see everything from mice to lions. We see elephants, bears--you name it.”

Part of the explanation for the eclectic mix is the movie industry. A number of animal trainers live in the Conejo Valley. When their animals get sick, many come to the Conejo Valley Veterinary Clinic or the vets go to them, said Wohl, who has been with the clinic for 25 years.

In the clinic’s early days, “it was mostly dairy and livestock, horses,” Wohl said. “As the area started to change and develop, we saw more small animals, more pets.”

Kind died two years ago, at the age of 64, and the last of his founding partners sold out last year.

Today, the clinic sees plenty of horses from the many ranches in the area. But most of the patients, Wohl said, are cats and dogs and other family pets.

The clinic has a roster of 10,000 clients and sees about 12,000 animals each year.

On a recent afternoon, Shelley Baltimore of Moorpark and her daughter, Haley, brought in the family’s pet tortoise, Olga, suffering from a cracked shell.

“The dog got her,” 9-year-old Haley said. “He chewed up her shell. I thought she was going to die.”

But veterinarian Sean McCormack was able to patch up the tortoise.