More Room for Dogs and Cats and Cows

Farm animals aren’t a big part of the clientele at Country Companions Veterinary Services, but veterinarian Kim McClure Brinton DVM said they do require more space.

That’s why Country Companions is moving out of its present location on Amity Road (Route 63) in Bethany and up to the corner of Old Amity Road and Meyers Road sometime next month.

McClure Brinton said the new location, a house she is converting into a veterinary clinic, will double the size of her facilities, from about 2,000 square feet to 4,000. That will give them more exam rooms for cats and dogs and other small pets, and a bigger treatment area for llamas, sheep, cows, goats and other large farm animals.

Country Companions treats most animals except horses, which is a specialty, she said. "We do a little bit of everything, which is how we got involved with the cow."

The "cow" was Wanda, formerly known as Ferdinand or Waldo until local animal control officials got a closer look at her and determined she wasn’t a bull after all.

Wanda was the celebrated "cow on the run," hiding out with a herd of deer on a patch of woods near Gulf Pond in Milford since last summer. McClure Brinton donated her expertise when Wanda was finally corralled in December in the backyard of some sympathetic homeowners in the neighborhood.

The cow apparently escaped from a farm in Orange. Her former owners said they didn’t want her back.

Good news for Wanda watchers: McClure Brinton, who has been keeping an eye on Wanda at her new home on a farm in Oxford, said she’s doing fine, happily palling around with other bovines.

"The last time I was up there, she fit right in," she said. "I think it’s a good place for her."

McClure Brinton’s husband, Will, is a Realtor, registrar of voters and Bethany’s official town historian.

She said she was born and raised in Bethany, and always wanted to be a veterinarian ever since she was a girl in the 4H Club and shadowed Dr. Arnold Carey at the Bethany Veterinary Hospital for a day.

"It was a natural progression for me, being able to work with what I like to do," she said.

After graduating from the University of Connecticut in 1989, she got her veterinary degree from Auburn University in 1993.

McClure Brinton is excited about Country Companions’ new clinic. Not only will it be more spacious, it will also employ "green" technology, including geothermal heat, a propane backup generator, a recycling dumpster and a paperless, computerized office records system.

Her associate veterinarians are Elisa M. Ermilio DVM and Tracy L. Johnson DVM.

The new facility will also provide enough expanded classroom space for the educational pet and farm animal education workshops taught by Johnson.

Last year, a workshop on raising backyard chickens had to be moved to town hall when 80 people showed up. McClure Brinton said there was only room for 50 at Country Companions’ present space.

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