Cat Friendly Clinic

Orchard Veterinary Centre are now registered as a Cat Friendly Clinic. We are aiming to be accredited by the International Cat Care Foundation and hoping to achieve a silver accreditation.

We feel our standards of cat care are at high level already but to achieve silver we have made a few changes to the structure of the waiting room and the use of rooms and products to help us achieve a higher standard of care.

We strongly believe in a stress free environment and handling for our furry kitties and are excited about these new changes and eventually having a silver status to the practice.

The changes we have made:

Waiting room

We have created a barrier between cats and dogs, having a cat only seating area, accompanied by a cat stand/shelving unit to perch our cat carriers on, alternatively they can use the chairs. We are educating the public that cats prefer to be high up, so if placed on higher ground this will create a stress free start to their visit to the vets.

Also accompanying the stands/chairs we have towels that are used to place over the car carriers to ensure a sneeze barrier and sight barrier between other cats and dogs.

Appointments

We also have introduced cat only appointments, on a Wednesday morning. Routine cat appointments can come to a cat only consulting morning creating stress free for both cats and owners. Please note however dogs will still be seen if it is an emergency.

Cat only procedure room

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer cat only consulting rooms due to the layout of the practice, so instead have created cat only appointments and a cat only procedure room. This room has mood lighting to aid keeping cats calmer and happier. It is mainly used for: blood tests, eye checks, blood pressures, examinations etc.

In this room we have ensured we have quiet cat clippers for clipping fur eg blood tests. It is a darker room with Feliway diffusers and towels to make the experience as stress free as possible.

Throughout our cats visits it’s important we ensure the cats are handled with no heavy restraint, we are quiet and treat them with respect. By ensuring the environment is quiet and calm before any procedures or examinations will only help our performance it will also create a positive, happy experience for the cat for their next visit.

Cat only ward

In our cattery – a cat only ward. We have hideaways/perches with comfy bedding and blankets and towels to go over the kennels to create a partial sight barrier. We have two different types of substrate for litter trays, several food types and bowls and toys.

 

We strive to create a happy, stress free environment for all our cats and like to create a home from home environment. Danielle Day RVN is our cat advocate and we will keep you updated on the progress of our accreditation.