Dental disease is the most under-treated condition in British pets and the one where owners are most often shocked by the cost, so it is worth being plain about. A scale and polish under general anaesthetic starts at £320 including pre-anaesthetic bloods, intravenous fluids and monitoring. Extractions are charged by tooth and by difficulty, and we will ring you from the theatre before doing any we did not discuss. Everything is charted before and after and you get both charts. We anaesthetise for dentistry because the alternative — so-called anaesthetic-free scaling — cleans the visible crown and leaves the disease under the gum, which is where all of it that matters actually is.

Theo does most routine and a good deal of non-routine soft-tissue and orthopaedic surgery here: neutering, lump removals, cruciate repair, fracture work, exploratory laparotomy, cystotomy. Every anaesthetic has a dedicated nurse whose only job is the patient in front of her, which is not universal and is the single most important thing about a small practice doing surgery well. We refer when the case needs equipment we do not own or a surgeon who does that operation weekly rather than monthly — and we will tell you which of those two it is, because they are different reasons and one of them is about us.

Bea and the nursing team run free clinics for weight management, post-operative checks, nail and anal-gland work, dental hygiene coaching, puppy and kitten checks, and the long slow business of getting an anxious cat used to a carrier. They are genuinely free rather than free-with-a-product-attached, they run four afternoons a week, and they are the reason a good number of our clients never need to see a vet between annual visits. If a nurse finds something clinical she will bring a vet in there and then, and you will not be charged for that either.