Speaker 1: This is later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast.
Speaker 1: More what you hear weekday afternoons on the Drive.
Speaker 2: Doctor Amy Addis is an award winning veterinarian and founder
Speaker 2: of City Pets, which for more than three decades has
Speaker 2: been the premier veterinary medical house call practice for dogs
Speaker 2: and cats. She's also the personal vet to the rich
Speaker 2: and famous, including Billie Joel, Paul McCartney, Steve Martin, and
Speaker 2: many more. She's written on a volume of lovely stories
Speaker 2: called Pets and the City, True Tales of Manhattan House
Speaker 2: called Veterinarian, Doctor Amy Addis. Good to have you along today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: So I think so many people think that celebrities call
Speaker 2: their vet and say, oh, dude, don't let my Moffi's
Speaker 2: feet touch anything, oh than Italian Corduall it's simply not done.
Speaker 2: Is that the case.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not My clients and those are the humans, including
Speaker 3: the celebrities that you mentioned. They're normal people who love
Speaker 3: their pets. And I have the privilege of getting to
Speaker 3: know the celebrities, the billionaires, the normal people. Everyone through
Speaker 3: a different lens, and that's the lens of someone who
Speaker 3: comes and helps care for their pets, and that just
Speaker 3: brings everybody down to the same common denominator. These wonderful
Speaker 3: celebrities you're just mentioned, they're people, and I get to
Speaker 3: meet them and be with them as normal people.
Speaker 2: When they first reach out to you, do you know
Speaker 2: or do they just make a phone call like anybody else's,
Speaker 2: Oh no, my dog's choking on something. What'll I do?
Speaker 3: You pretty much know? And that's helpful because I get
Speaker 3: to like get the woo who's out, you know, in advance.
Speaker 3: So when I arrive at their house, I'm completely professional
Speaker 3: and not star struck.
Speaker 2: So you go to them, not they to you.
Speaker 3: I go to them. I have a veterinary house called practice,
Speaker 3: and I just want to explain to your listeners that's
Speaker 3: from being a mobile veterinarian. A lot of people are
Speaker 3: familiar with mobile vat where you pull up in a
Speaker 3: van and the animal comes out to the van. I
Speaker 3: don't do that. We pull up and we bring all
Speaker 3: of our equipment up to our client's apartments, so we
Speaker 3: are literally working in the kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms,
Speaker 3: and believe it or not, bathrooms. I spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time in people's bathrooms because my cat clients aren't
Speaker 3: always My cat patients aren't always cooperative. So if you
Speaker 3: let a cat go on the living room coffee table
Speaker 3: in a seven room Park Avenue apartment, it could take
Speaker 3: you an hour to find it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know it all too well. I have to
Speaker 2: seal point Himalayans and they're very skittish, So yeah, you
Speaker 2: have to confine them as best you can exactly.
Speaker 3: And what I tell my cat people is your cat's
Speaker 3: not going to like me, but they'll like me more
Speaker 3: than the regular veterinarian that they have to go to
Speaker 3: in a carrier and sit in a waiting room with
Speaker 3: barking dogs.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, we're talking to doctor Amy Addas. Pets in
Speaker 2: the City is her book, True Tales of a Manhattan
Speaker 2: House called Veterinarian. You don't have to name names. I
Speaker 2: understand you have to protect your clients as well. But
Speaker 2: what was one of the more unusual calls that you
Speaker 2: had and how did you remedy it?
Speaker 3: The most unusual call I had was to go to
Speaker 3: the townhouse of a well known billionaire and give a
Speaker 3: Rabi's vaccine to a caricle lynx. And it's you're not
Speaker 3: familiar with what a characal lynx is it is actually
Speaker 3: a while it is not a domestic cat. Now, it
Speaker 3: is illegal to have these in New York City, So
Speaker 3: my first reaction was, I can't possibly do that. But
Speaker 3: the client had a permit for the cat, and they
Speaker 3: had a professional cat handler, and they were transporting it
Speaker 3: back to a location that was a more natural environment.
Speaker 3: And my job was to comply with USD and give
Speaker 3: this cat a Rabi's vaccine, which I did. But boy,
Speaker 3: that was an unusual experience.
Speaker 2: I should say, speaking of how to contain a cat,
Speaker 2: I can't imagine bigger than a domestic cat being held
Speaker 2: up in a New York Man East Side apartment.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, unfortunately this was a legal one where they
Speaker 3: had permission. But there are stories. Although I've never had
Speaker 3: the personal experience of people having wildcats in their apartments
Speaker 3: like tigers.
Speaker 2: You see some of these celebrities too, in their most
Speaker 2: casual Is there one particular instance that stands out in
Speaker 2: your memory of when you were answered the door in
Speaker 2: a bathrobe or other shall we say, unusual attire.
Speaker 3: So I've never had an experience of a celebrity starting
Speaker 3: the visit without appropriate clothing, but I did have a
Speaker 3: Share was my client, and she had a beautiful little
Speaker 3: rescue dog that she adopted when she was in Italy
Speaker 3: making tea with Mussolini, and I had taken care of
Speaker 3: this dog. She arrived in New York, she was heading
Speaker 3: back to California. She was in for a few days,
Speaker 3: and I had had multiple visits with her little dog, Pepo,
Speaker 3: but I hadn't met her yet, and I was so disappointed.
Speaker 3: So Pipo's treatment, and I tell all the details of
Speaker 3: this in the book, required an injection of a substance
Speaker 3: that stings when you give it. And on the first
Speaker 3: time I gave it, he was quite as can be.
Speaker 3: And on the second visit, when I gave it, he
Speaker 3: screamed bloody murder. And then Chaer came running in the room.
Speaker 3: She was wearing her bathrobe, she had her hair in curlers,
Speaker 3: she had white goop all over her face. It was fantastic,
Speaker 3: and she started yelling, who are you and what did
Speaker 3: you do to my dog? And when I explained, and
Speaker 3: I explained what I was treating and that this potentially
Speaker 3: could be contagious to humans, she opened up her bathrobe
Speaker 3: and her full nakedness said, do you think this could
Speaker 3: be related to what my dog has. It was not.
Speaker 3: She just had a little heat rash. But the point
Speaker 3: was we started out clothes. But in that instance I
Speaker 3: got an eye full of share and it reminded me
Speaker 3: I should go to the gym or off.
Speaker 2: Well, we're talking to doctor Amy Adas, Pets and the City.
Speaker 2: True Tales of Manhattan's House called Veterinarian. Did you, when
Speaker 2: you started out in veterinary schools say to yourself, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be the vet to the stars you watch?
Speaker 3: I did not, But when I started out in veterinary
Speaker 3: school I knew that it was the whole picture that
Speaker 3: I loved. It wasn't just I wanted to work with animals.
Speaker 3: I loved animals, I loved medicine. I loved interacting with people.
Speaker 3: So doing house calls was a perfect way for me
Speaker 3: to do all three of those things and use my
Speaker 3: abilities to the best. So a few things happened. My
Speaker 3: New York experience before starting the house called practice introduced
Speaker 3: me to some people. And this unique style of practice
Speaker 3: is very attractive to the boldface name crowd. So I
Speaker 3: think it just was a natural fit.
Speaker 2: And so you just started on your own and it
Speaker 2: grew into what it is now.
Speaker 3: So I started my veterinary career at a hospital called
Speaker 3: the Animal Medical Center. It's a wonderful teaching hospital with
Speaker 3: one hundred or so veterinarians in it. I went into
Speaker 3: small animal practice on Park Avenue and I worked there
Speaker 3: for four years before starting my house called practice. So
Speaker 3: there was a base before I started, But once I
Speaker 3: started house calls, it just grew exponentially because people love
Speaker 3: the concept.
Speaker 2: I imagine, so and then the word spread, and then
Speaker 2: more and more clients started talking about you and yeah,
Speaker 2: I know a person and they'll come right to your
Speaker 2: place and take care of you. So I imagine that
Speaker 2: you are often running.
Speaker 3: I think the thing that helped my practice the most
Speaker 3: when I first started out was while I was at
Speaker 3: someone's house and the phone would ring. They'd answer the
Speaker 3: phone and say, I can't talk to you right now,
Speaker 3: my vet is here, and then I would hear from
Speaker 3: the one sided conversation, Yes, my vet mixed house calls.
Speaker 3: I'll call you later and give you her number. So
Speaker 3: it was definitely word of mouth.
Speaker 2: Pets in the City is the book. It's the true
Speaker 2: tales of a Manhattan house called Veterinarian doctor Amy Addas
Speaker 2: is that veterinarian and founder of City Pets and the
Speaker 2: book is available everywhere you get your books. Thank you
Speaker 2: for joining us today and doctor thank you for the
Speaker 2: great book.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I enjoyed being here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Speaker 1: Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
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