For Northcenter's Animals, Dr. Landini Lends a Paw
Don’t be alarmed if upon entering Heal Veterinary Clinic, Lolita doesn’t say hello or check you in at first. You will catch her puttering around the reception area or staring into space, but you would be advised to wait for the actual receptionist, as despite her clean hospital whites, Lolita doesn’t work here. She’s a big, fluffy, lop-eared rabbit, one of several “house pets” at Heal Veterinary, along with loud-mouthed macaw Ralph and the cats, C.P. and Horchata.
For the past three years, Heal Veterinary has been more than a place for the pets of Northcenter to receive checkups and rabies shots. Its home on Rockwell Street near the western edge of Northcenter is a block-long “animal campus” - Heal Veterinary, animal shelter and training school Found and dog hotel Stay all connect to give Northcenter a comprehensive place for all the possible needs for their furry, scaly and feathered friends. And at the head of it all is Dr. Derrick Landini, a self-proclaimed “science geek” with a lifelong love of animals.
“I always wanted to be a vet,” Landini says. “I was really kind of a science geek. I ended up in high school meeting up with a coach, and his son was a veterinarian that owned a practice. I started working there during high school and got hooked.”
After working his way through veterinary school, Landini opened his first practice, Animal Ark, in Avondale. The team behind Stay, a neighborhood dog hotel, began bringing sick and injured pets over to Animal Ark. They had some extra space, and three years ago, “held the carrot out” and invited Landini to open a second office and co-brand with the other two businesses.
While other areas of the animal campus deal with everything from grooming and hydrotherapy to obedience training, Heal handles everything medical, and the days are long. Landini is sometimes on the grounds from for scheduled surgeries. Although Heal mostly sees cats and dogs, one of the hospital’s areas of expertise is in medical treatment for birds, reptiles and other small exotics, like kinkajous and hedgehogs (“No tigers,” Landini says with a laugh. “I tend to save those for the circus.”). In addition to seeing them as patients, Heal will also board cats and exotics as Stay mostly focuses on dogs.
Landini advises pet owners, dog owners in particular, to be aware of certain recurring health concerns. With the banks of the Chicago River nearby and some dogs loving a good run-around in the water or mud, he’s seen a few mud or wet-related problems. The most urgent of these concerns is the bacteria that lives in standing water, which the dog can accidentally ingest-some, like blastomycosis, are alsozoonotic, meaning they can spread from animal to human. Heal vaccinates for some of these conditions, but advises pet owners to still take some simple precautions to keep both pet and owner healthy.
“If your dog is running through the woods and going through the mud, make sure you rinse him off afterward,” he says. “Wipe their feet so they’re not ingesting any bacteria. Even that bacteria alone can cause upset stomachs and other minor problems.”
A tour of the Heal facilities reveals state-of-the-art technology, digital dental X-ray and radiography, and a team of six doctors who rotate between Heal and Animal Ark who regularly collaborate and share ideas. And in addition to the usual menagerie of in-house animals, there are the ones boarding for extended stays-the cats waiting on surgery, the iguana, the conure whose owners are on vacation-and, of course, the kittens.
When we visited Heal, there was a clowder* of tiny kittens the team had rescued. After weeks of medical examinations, bottle-feeding and letting them climb on the nurses, these little furballs are looking for forever homes. If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact the team on their website. Rescue a pet; make a friend for life.
*Yes, that’s really what a group of kittens is called. We checked.
