A YORK vet has retired after 38 years of treating all creatures great and small.

Nic Howard, a senior veterinary surgeon, has worked for the past 33 years at Tower Veterinary Group, which was originally based purely in Fulford Road but subsequently expanded to operate at other surgeries across the city, including Acomb, Heworth, Haxby and Wigginton, and South Bank.

He said he qualified as a vet in 1981 after training in Edinburgh, and began his working life at a mixed practice in Driffield, where many of his patients were large farm animals such as cows, pigs and sheep.

He then moved to Tower in York in 1986, and was partner and director of the group from 1992 to 2018, during which time it had developed and received a Royal College accreditation.

He originally helped with the large animal caseload, but stepped back from this in 2012, since when he had worked solely in the small animal care field.

Nic said such patients ranged from cats and dogs to rabbits and guinea pigs, treating them for everything from cancer to dental problems, as well as neutering work.

He said treatments and diagnostic techniques had changed radically over the decades, with the animals now able to be sent for tests such as MRI scans at specialist centres which had sprung up all over the country.

“When I started out it was all James Herriot on the TV, and now it’s all Supervet,” he said. “It’s a bit like going to see the GP and being referred to a consultant now.”

He said there had been some amusing All Creatures Great and Small-style incidents over the years, such as the time he went out to treat a a male boar pig which appeared to have infertility problems. "The farmer rang me back the next day to say he wouldn’t leave the sows alone.”

On other occasions, he had been out to assist he RSPCA with animals that had been injured out in the countryside, such as a deer which had ended up in a ditch at the side of the road after being struck by a vehicle, and he had been lowered by firefighters into the ditch to treat it.

On one occasion, a man had come into the surgery to get his dogs vaccinated and had turned up, with books about vaccination in his hand. “Then he turned round and said: ‘Oh bugger it, I’ve forgotten the dogs!’ The whole surgery fell about.”

Nic said he had a strong interest in chronic medicine and holistic care, including homeopathy, and often found animals could be successfully treated without needing to resort to tablets.

Nic, who lives in Rufforth, said he might do a little locum work in his retirement but would continue bee keeping and taking his Border Collie, Minnie -who used to come into the surgery with him every day - out on walks.

The group said Nic had always striven to ensure it delivered first class care.