One of CPW’s longest supporting vet partners has sadly closed its doors after a 50 year history.

The Tasman Street Vet Centre has participated in our desexing programme for many years, and provided care for many of our foster cats in that time.

Practice manager Laura Kaan says there were two main reasons for the decision to close.

“We were impacted by Covid, and the building’s no longer meeting our needs.”

Originally privately owned and independent, the clinic was sold to National Vet Care, an Australian vet provider, four years ago. Six months ago, it was sold again to an even bigger chain, VetPartners.

The Tasman St clinic had around 1500 clients, some of whom will transfer to a sister clinic in Thorndon. Closing the clinic also means closing the cattery, Cats Cottage, an indoor-outdoor facility which could house up to 48 cats at once. They had been fully booked for Christmas, which was disappointing to their clients.

The clinic was housed in a turn of the century villa at the city end of Tasman Street. The property has already been sold, and it’s likely that most of the block will be demolished and replaced with apartment buildings.

“People have been bringing in flowers, chocolates, uber-eats,” says Laura. She waves to a vase of sweet-scented stock on the counter: “That’s our second lot of flowers.”

Laura says she and the team have enjoyed partnering with CPW, and they were pleased to have a practical way to give back to the community.

“We’re really sad we can’t continue to help supporting,” she says. “CPW has been an easy thing to support. Everyone’s a pleasure to deal with.”

She says desexing especially is something the team is passionate about, as “cats multiply very quickly” if they are not desexed.

CPW President Iona Anderson says Tasman St Vets were one of the earliest desexing clinics involved with CPW.

“Tasman St have done hundreds of desexing operations over the years, including 38 in the last year,” she says. “Their involvement as the Wellington-based desexing clinic has been instrumental in the development of the programme over the intervening years.”

She says that Tasman St Vets have also provided medical care for cats in the Care for Life foster programme, often going the extra mile, and genuinely caring about them.

“They have managed some very difficult foster cats over the years, in terms of the challenges in balancing cats’ medical needs with quality of life,” she says. “Always, always the vets’ communication with fosterers and CPW has shown huge empathy for both cats and fosterers. All of the clinic team established positive and caring relationships with their CPW clients over the years and we have felt well supported in all ways by their involvement.

“While we’re extremely sad to lose such a wonderful group of professionals from our community, we really appreciate all the hard work and effort they have put in to help CPW continue caring for our cats."