Catalina Island gets an animal hospital

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Santa Catalina Island’s first full-scale veterinary clinic has sailed across 22 miles of ocean by barge and been trucked to its new home in Avalon, where it will serve about 2,400 clients a year, everything from dogs and cats to horses and endangered foxes.

The 1,487-square-foot Animal Hospital of Catalina arrived in three modules, which were assembled Thursday on a Metropole Avenue site where the public laundry and dry-cleaning building once stood.

‘I watched it float into harbor, a wonderful sight,’ said Richard Denney, the island’s only veterinarian for 3½ years. ‘I’ve been fighting for such a facility for the longest time.’

An open house is scheduled for Valentine’s Day, when visitors will be able to explore the facility, which is handicapped-accessible and features a surgery suite and a 32-by-14-foot waiting room.

In the meantime, Denney and his wife, Anney, will continue working in their 310-square-foot office, tending to the health of the island’s pets and wildlife.

‘We do it all in this tiny space,’ Anney said. ‘The doctor gets called out to dart bison in the wilds so that we can catch up with them. Foxes come in with a range of problems, from fox bites to injuries from getting hit by cars.’

The facility was funded by a consortium of donors led by the Offield Family Foundation. Others included business owners such as Jerry Dunn of Buoys and Gulls and Tim McCullough of Reyn Spooner, who donated proceeds from the sale of ‘Going to Catalina’ shirts. The Avalon Rotary Club hosted a fundraising dinner that raised $15,000; the Humane Society of Catalina and the Rotary separately raised $50,000.

The Catalina Island Conservancy bought the $140,000 building and is donating landscaping with native plants.

‘We’re still pinching ourselves,’ Anney said. ‘We really thought the veterinary medical board was going to shut us down. But the island rallied behind us.’

— Louis Sahagun