Chelsea Veterinarians Thrive Post-Quarantine

While many New York industries have suffered greatly due to the pandemic in New York City — restaurants, small businesses, and tourism — animal hospitals and veterinarians have done surprisingly well.

When Dr. Simone McLaughlin, now Medical Director at Bond Vet in Chelsea, biked to work every day from her home in Chelsea in April, she was spooked by how deserted the streets were. She worked at the Bond Vet Upper West Side clinic at the time, and New York City was in the depths of the coronavirus shutdown. She hadn’t been able to see her dad or her sister, who also live in Chelsea, because she was an essential worker. There were people, or rather, animals, who needed her to show up every day.

At the time, it was just the “skeleton crew” in the office — McLaughlin, the receptionist, a nurse and an assistant — and Bond was only open for emergency pet services. McLaughlin worried about how long she and her husband (who is also a veterinarian, at Village Vet) would stay employed. At home, her children and her Rottweiler, Lincoln, depended on them. The seven o’clock cheer for health care and essential workers kept her going.

It looked bleak. But as soon as they were allowed to, pet parents from across the city came in floods. Bond Vet was one of many veterinarians whose business has thrived since the city began emerging from the shutdown.

McLaughlin thought she might lose her job, but there were in fact no layoffs at all. “We’re trying to get even more staff to meet to the demands of the neighborhood,” she said. At the Bond Chelsea location, which opened in August, the number of staff members has doubled.

“Kittens Everywhere”

During the quarantine, pet fostering and adoptions soared. Many foster and adoption organizations closed their applications to give themselves time to sort through what they had already received.

“I feel like in May was when we really started seeing just puppies, fosters, and adoptions and kittens everywhere,” said McLaughlin. “People are finding cats in their backyard that they’re rescuing. We’re almost busier than we were before the pandemic potentially.”

While stuck at home in quarantine, pet owners finally had the time they might not have had before to bring their pets in for their check-ups.

“It was definitely good to be able to offer those exams on these pets that might not have come in before the pandemic, because people just didn’t have the time,” she said. “We saw a lot of cats that hadn’t been to the vet, and clients were like, this seems like a good time to just make sure everything was fine. Sometimes we found a heart murmur or dental disease.”

More Stress

From the start of quarantine to the city reopening, pets are adjusting just like people are. Dr. Katja Lang, a veterinarian at Heart of Chelsea, has been seeing medical issues from cats experiencing more stress due to their owners being home all the time, and dogs with newly developed behavioral issues from separation anxiety as their humans go back to work.

Heart of Chelsea has three locations, two of which closed temporarily due to COVID. Now, Lang said, “We’re seeing a lot of new puppies, a lot of rescues. Every day is filled with new clients coming in with dogs and cats.”

While early in the pandemic these clinics were only available for pet emergencies, they are now performing routine surgeries and dental cleanings. Some other clinics in Manhattan closed temporarily or permanently. Petco’s veterinary services were closed during the pandemic and recently opened in August. Manhattan Cat Specialist on the Upper West Side has remained closed.

“We were just very available to people,” McLaughlin said. “They just were looking for a new clinic and we happened to show up.”

Bond Vet is still not allowing people inside the clinics, so the owners wait outside for their pets during visits.

“We just really have to build their trust, which is a lot, asking a client to trust us with their animals,” she said. “When they’ve never met us, in an environment they’ve never been in, I think showing them how safe we were being was the first part of earning their trust.”

“I can’t imagine we will slow down,” McLaughlin said. “If the pandemic didn’t slow us down, I can’t imagine what else will slow us down.”