AFTER treating literally tens of thousands of local animals over more than three decades, popular local vet John Brennan is moving on.<\/p>\n
Dr Brennan recently sold the Ararat Veterinary Clinic to Dr Alexandra (Ali) Cuttler after 35 years treating local pets and livestock.<\/p>\n
Dr Brennan was schooled in Ararat and then trained as a vet at Melbourne University before heading out to work in mixed practices in Hamilton and Trafalgar in Gippsland.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter two years working in Gippsland I went overseas and I practiced in Taunton in Somerset in the UK and I also practiced in Oxfordshire. I was away for a year and when I came back to Australia, I worked in Sydney for one of the first vets to have a corporatised type practice and I guess he was the one who got me interested in running\u00a0 my own practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in touch with Dr Trevor Brown who was at the time the owner of this practice in Ararat and through those discussions, Trevor had indicated he wanted to move on to further educate his kids in Geelong and so the sale of the practice eventuated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ever since, Dr Brennan has attended to local animals for anything from broken bones, diseases, vaccinations, reproduction and all other ailments.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment I ultrasound pregnancy test over 10,000 cattle a year, in the clinic we see from 30 dogs and cats a day, plus exotics and of course sheep and horses. It\u2019s impossible to put a figure on how many,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Brennan said he has always regarded Ararat as home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the town, I was educated here, it\u2019s my local town and it\u2019s my home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJill and I were married soon after we started the practice and then started a family here. It\u2019s a great community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Brennan has seen and experienced\u00a0 a lot of changes in 35 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clinic has grown dramatically from a single vet clinic to six vets now. When we started, all of our records were handwritten on cards, we progressively have computerised and everything is fully computerised now. Radiology is now fully digitalised, we have our own laboratory for diagnostics and modern anaesthetic drugs improve the safety of surgical procedures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Communications has also changed from the early days where a two way radio was the only way of keeping contact while visiting farms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started with a little car with a pretty rudimentary radio in it which thanks to the effort of my father became quite a reliable means of communications when I was out on farm visits. In fact, it was often better coverage than a mobile thanks to his expertise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Brennan also invested in a second surgery in Beaufort, building new premises in Neill Street to service animals from the Pyrenees Shire.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrevor (Brown) had run the Beaufort practice in rooms that had been Clem Harris\u2019 pharmacy so we rented that. Beaufort was growing and we expanded the practice there as we started to employ additional vets and we built the current building in 1990,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Brennan said he will continue to work part time at the clinic, but his priority is to now spend more time with his wife Jill and family.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout her, apart from being my loving wife, she has been a tremendous support to running this place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a vet, I wasn\u2019t home much, and in the early years I was on call all the time, so now I would like to travel, visit family and friends, and get involved in community activities,\u201d Dr Brennan said.<\/p>\n
John and Jill Brennan have three children and two grandchildren, with more on the way.<\/p>\n
Dr Brennan said his exit from the business has come at the right time and he\u2019s delighted that Dr Cuttler wanted to take over the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe actually worked for us as a new graduate for three years back in about 2010 and has gone off and done other things and now she\u2019s in a position that I was 35 years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great generational change. The future of local animals is in good hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a great number of loyal, hard working and dedicated staff and I also want to thank the clients, the practice has been wonderfully supported by the people of Ararat and the surrounding districts and the farmers,\u201d Dr Brennan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AFTER treating literally tens of thousands of local animals over more than three decades, popular local vet John Brennan is moving on.
\nDr Brennan recently sold the Ararat Veterinary Clinic to Dr Alexandra (Ali) Cuttler after 35 years treating local pets and livestock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/IMG_5563-3-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-ea","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}