Home - Little River Vet & Cattery

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Welcome to the Little River Veterinary Services & Cattery

Telephone 03 3251940

We are an independent Banks Peninsula owned and operated business providing vet services, animal health products and pet foods for all kinds of animals, as well as running a small boarding cattery, with comfortable units and a large exercise area for discerning cats from Christchurch, Akaroa and beyond. You can even book appointments or shop online. We are a member of the IndieVets collective group of independent, local owner operated vet clinics.

IndieVets

Our Vision

We aim to provide personal caring service for all creatures great and small. We believe prevention is better than cure, so we are proactive in offering primary health services; animal health planning for all species, targeted vaccination, internal and external parasite control programs, correct nutrition, de sexing, and prophylactic dental treatment among others. We also know the Peninsula is unique and isn’t comfortable with the “one size fits all” approach, so we try to be flexible in our thinking. We are a Christian business and strive to be ethical and honest.

LRVS motto animals

Hours

Little River: We are open weekdays 9 am till 5 pm (from 8.30 am for drop offs and collections, and non-prescription sales) and Saturday mornings 10 am till 12 noon. We also do farm and house calls. We provide an emergency service after hours for our clients.

Diamond Harbour: We are open weekday afternoons from 1 pm till 5 pm and Saturday mornings from 10am till 12 noon.

Our vet is in Akaroa on Tuesday afternoons, and Diamond Harbour on Monday and Thursday afternoons. House calls and large animal calls en route on these days are charged mileage at reduced rates. We can also deliver or drop off pet foods and animal health products along the way.

Saturday morning vet consults 10am - 12 noon alternate between Little River & Diamond Harbour.  Our online booking service will always let you know and for the next few months our schedule is as follows:

Little River Saturday morning vet consults March 30th, April 13th & 27th

Diamond Harbour Saturday morning vet consults March 23rd, April 6th & 20th 

On the Saturday mornings when our vet isn't at a particular clinic a vet nurse will be available.

Click here for your online portal to book appointments, view invoices, statements and vaccination records as well as update your and your animal's details. Helpful hint: If you are an existing customer setting up a new portal enter your name(s) exactly as they appear on our invoices or statements so the booking system is able to find you. Even If it doesn't, set up the portal anyway and make your booking. We'll merge it later with your existing account and feel free to remind us to do this if we forget!

Remote opinions

You can book a remote phone or video consult (use tele consult option if booking online). Please note for all remote veterinary opinions (phone/video/email/message) there may be a small charge.

facebookOur Team

Dr Paul Williams is our senior veterinarian. He qualified from Onderstepoort, Pretoria, in South Africa in 1991. He has worked as a mixed species practitioner on Banks Peninsula since 2005 and is proud to offer the people and animals of this very special part of the world a choice in veterinary service providers. Paul grew up on a peninsula, and so feels very much at home on this one. He enjoys the work and lifestyle here while serving the needs of his community.

Heather Williams has brought her formidable planning and business skills to the mix. She was practice manager for Paul’s Cape Town clinic as well as serving as chairperson, treasurer, secretary and member of many Little River community organizations. You can see some of her jewellery and hand woven scarves at the Little River Craft Station.

Jo Stuart has worked as receptionist, sales person, animal care giver and theatre assistant to mention just a few of her many veterinary roles on the Peninsula since 2004. She knows most of the veterinary clients, products and suppliers, so is a wealth of information and advice.

Dionne Fossey is an important member our team to help look after you and your animals. Dionne has many years' experience in the veterinary profession and many of you will know her from Little River's Challenge garage.

Sandy Meek, a registered veterinary nurse is running our Diamond Harbour clinic for us, and also helps out in Little River a few mornings a week. Sandy co-ordinates our puppy preschool and dog training classes.

Tara Sutherland, another qualified veterinary nurse and our specialist baby animal and bird rearer rejoined our team at the start of 2023. She's taken on a varied role helping in the clinic and with the cattery. Many of our facebook posts are hers too. She also runs the Little River Dogstay and provides large dog boarding facilities on Bayleys Rd.

We all live locally, serve locally and are active in our community. 

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Our Clinic

In 2014 we moved into our present clinic building, with lots of space, easy access and parking. We also upgraded our hospital and surgical facilities, and the cattery opened shortly afterwards.

We are proud to be able to offer the latest in anaesthetic and monitoring equipment to make our clinic as safe as we possibly can. We also carry a large range of Hills, Royal Canin, Orijen/Acana and BlackHawk cat and dog food at the clinics, as well as livestock and chicken feeds and really good value milk powders. We stock the BlackHawk working dog food formulated specifically for NZ conditions at great prices too.   

What we offer

  • Experienced and friendly staff

  •  24/7 Little River based service including large animal after hours emergencies and home visits. Small animal after hours cases need to be taken to the Christchurch After Hours Veterinary Centre (03 3661052, 146 Antigua St, Addington, Christchurch).

  •  Open till 5pm weekdays and 10am-12noon on Saturday mornings

  •  Regular visits around the Peninsula- free or shared mileage if you can work in with our programme

  •  Consistent, caring service from the same vet

  •  Competitive prices as our overheads are low

  •  Modern monitoring and anaesthetic equipment—for safest possible conditions

  •  Delivery around the Peninsula and online sales

  •  Worm and flea mail out programme

  •  Loyalty schemes for pet food

  •  Great deals for farm dog food

  •  Ear tags below recommended retail

  • In house laboratory provides immediate, accurate diagnosis for sick animals, and allows us to offer pre-anaesthetic and geriatric screening

  • Portable cattle ultrasound pregnancy scanning

  • Willing to share our veterinary skills, knowledge and resources

 Discounted Primary Health Care

Because we know how important these are to human and animal health we heavily subsidise

  •  De-sexing

  •  Vaccinations

  •  Prophylactic dental treatments

  •  De-wormers

  •  Flea treatments