Last month, we got the terrifically sad news that our beloved vet, Dr. Chris Grover, would no longer be doing farm calls as of December 1. We were heartbroken.
Dr. Grover has been caring for the animals at Juniper Moon Farm from nearly 5 years. He was always willing to come out to the farm when an animal was in distress, and spent Lord knows how much time on the phone talking me through less pressing emergencies. He even made house calls to give all of the JMF dogs their yearly shots, sparing us the struggle of shoving three hundred pounds of writhing, car-sick dogs into the back of a station wagon.
It was Dr. G who broke the news that Daisy probably wasn’t bred, and who reassured us that Luna most definitely was. It was Gr. G. who drove out to the farm on his day off to put my sweet Buster down. I held Buster’s giant head in my lap, crying like a child while Dr. G did what needed to be done.
I suppose that the arrival of the vet a farm shouldn’t be a happy occasion, but Dr. Grover is such a calm, kind and reassuring man that we were always happy to see him. He treated the animals with a degree of kindness that I’ve rarely seen, talking gently to them and stroking them while he did what needed to be done. Once, out of the corner of my eye, I even saw him kiss one of the goat kids on the nose!
I completely understand why Dr. Grover is getting out of the large animal business. As he explained to Amy this week on his last visit, only 10% of his patients were farm animals but they represented 90% of his emergency calls. And, the fact is, most farmers can’t afford to spend a lot of money on a farm animal that may not make it. For that reason, vet who are willing to make a farm call are rather thin on the ground.
Vets like Chris Grover are one in a million. We will miss you, Dr. G.
