Overview:
Pet owners in Santa Monica now have several new resources to keep their animals healthy and happy. Palms and Paws Veterinary Center at 1655 9th Street celebrated their opening this weekend.
Pet owners in Santa Monica now have several new resources to keep their animals healthy and happy. Palms and Paws Veterinary Center at 1655 9th Street celebrated their recent opening this weekend with a ribbon cutting with the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce and the Santa Monica Veterinary Group recently took over the former Jones Animal Hospital at 1708 17th Street with plans to make facility improvements and upgrades.
Palms and Paws Veterinary Center Chief of Staff, COO, co-founder and veterinarian Kevin McEvilly said that he hopes the center will be an asset to the community through clinical services as well as education.
“We’re all so passionate about helping the community,” he said. “Our vision for the hospital is to empower people and advance the lives of pets, and empowering people is partially empowering clients– pet owners– with the information and knowledge needed to take better care of their furry family members.”
McEvilly said he and his partners, Jeffrey Nemoy and Lou Gatto, were intentional about choosing Santa Monica as their new home.
“Santa Monica might be one of the greatest communities in the whole world,” McEvilly said. “I think that this community is the perfect blend of a beautiful beach community as well as a thriving metropolitan area… there’s also a large potential for impact, there’s also a lot of animals in the community that need help.”
To maximize that impact, Palms and Paws set up shop across the street from the Santa Monica Animal Shelter. The center offers a wide variety of services including preventative care such as regular check ups and routine vaccines, primary care for illnesses and infections, diagnostics, geriatric care for older pets, surgical procedures and dentistry as well as urgent care, among others.
Palms and Paws adds to other veterinary services in the area including the Santa Monica Veterinary Group which recently opened under new ownership at the site of the former Jones Animal Hospital.
Christopher Berg, a veterinarian and one of the new owners, said that Kenneth Jones, who had been running the animal hospital since the eighties, was looking to transition into a less intensive role but wanted to keep the practice private and family owned. Berg and Omar Khalaf, another veterinarian specializing in urgent care, worked with Jones to form the Santa Monica Veterinary Group which opened its doors in October with Jones staying on part time.
“We wanted to help him maintain his legacy of providing affordable general practice and urgent care,” Berg said.
Along with the new name, Berg said they are in the process of “refreshing” the facility. So far, he said they’ve added state of the art equipment for surgery and dentistry as well as a new detailed ultrasound to use for internal medicine and cardiology consults. By the end of this year he said they expect to have completed updates to the building’s interior and improvements to the surgical suite.
The veterinary group also works with the Santa Monica Animal shelter and performs a large number of spaying and neutering procedures for their animals and Berg said he looks forward to working with other organizations to help care for the city’s pets.
Palms and Paws is currently accepting appointments and the Santa Monica Veterinary is open for appointments as well as walk in visits. VCA also recently opened and animal hospital at 2671 Main Street. For more information visit their websites:
Palms and Paws: https://www.palmspawsvet.com/
Santa Monica Veterinary Group: https://santamonicavet.com/
VCA Santa Monica Main Street Animal Hospital: https://vcahospitals.com/santa-monica-main-street