Good vets on St. Thomas or St. John

I have been taking my new puppy to Dr. Moore in Red Hook and I think he and his team are terrific. Red Hook is also where the ferry is located so if you lived on STJ, you could jet over to Red Hook, have your Lab looked at and be back to STJ not long after.

I'm sure there are vets on STJ as well, but Dr. Moore is my recommendation on STT.

Here is the veterinary situation on St. John: We have two. Not two veterinary practices; two vets. On the Cruz Bay side is Canines, Cats and Critters (Dr. Laura). There is also Dr. Jan Perkins, who is a mobile vet (makes house calls).

Understand that there is practically zero veterinary help on island when these docs are unavailable. If there is an emergency and CCC is closed (only open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays) and Dr. Jan is unavailable (she travels off island for a lot of the summer season), you will have to go to St. Thomas -- not a fun thing to do with an unwell animal. The ferries don't run overnight, either, so any middle-of-the-night emergency would have to wait until the 6 a.m. boat, unless you know someone who can take you.

Medicine on St. John is a difficult enough prospect for humans (did you know we don't usually have a doctor at our hospital overnight? If you need one, you have to go to St. Thomas). Veterinary medicine is about 10 to 20 years behind the States in terms of what is available here. Even though the vet I like best does a great job with the diagnostics and treatments that are available here, she simply doesn't have access to a lot of the technology that is currently available for animal care stateside.

Wow that is very good to know. Thank you for your advise.

There are plenty of prior discussions about traveling with pets. See the link below, which is a search of this forum for the words TRAVEL, PETS and 85 (as in: if it is predicted to be 85 F or higher at any of your stops, the airline won't allow your pet to travel via crate).

https://www.vimovingcenter.com/talk/search.php?4,search=travel+pets+85,author=,page=1,match_type=ALL,match_dates=0,match_forum=ALL,match_threads=0

I second Dr. Moore - both Mr. and Mrs. - They have the one in Red Hook and a shop in TuTu. My dogs love both of them.

Pamela

We have gone to Dr. Williamson, while he may be "old school", we have always been more than impressed. Once we brought in a stray dog that had apparently been kicked/beaten/hit, because of the obvious pain he was in when moved, walked and when picked up. Dr. Williamson saw him for FREE that day, gave him FREE pain relief and FREE antibiotics....with the understanding that if we wanted to continue further on with adoption and care, there would be a charge....sounds reasonable!. But, he did it for FREE!!
Our kitten that we found at Magens 2 months ago is actually spending the night at Dr. Williamson's because we had him neutered and declawed.....I don't even want to hear about how it may be inhumane.....but, the point being that Williamson cares enough about the animal to want to know that they are healing correctly, and comfortable enough during the night. Point said.

There are lots of great Vets out there, it just depends on how you relate to them........