Vale Park Animal Hospital has been a staple in Valparaiso for many years. While Vale Park is known for its quality veterinary services for patients, the hospital has been deeply involved in giving back to the community for many years. The hospital works with many well-known local organizations and groups such as Valparaiso, Porter County, and State of Indiana K-9 police officers, the Viking Pup Program, United Way of Porter County, Lakeshore PAWS, and Midwest Beagle Rescue, Education, and Welfare (BREW).
Dr. Bill Donohue, best known by clients and team members as “Dr. Bill,” has been with Vale Park Animal Hospital since 2006. He focuses on internal medicine but has experience with oncology, dermatology, and overall wellness. He sees many pets come in through his exam rooms. One of the best parts of the job, though, is having a great community connection throughout the Region with various shelters and programs.
Dr. Bill discussed community service in detail and highlighted some of the most important parts of working with different organizations. More specifically, Vale Park Animal Hospital works with local governments to give back to the animals who serve our communities. For example, Vale Park works with many dogs of the Porter County police departments and Indiana State Police to ensure the health of K-9 officers, too.
“We provide discounted or free health care for the working dogs. We treat wounds, abrasions, broken teeth, things of that nature to get them fixed up,” said Dr. Bill. “We've also worked with some of the drug companies that supply medications for us, and those companies donate a year's worth of heartworm and flea-and-tick medication to the dogs, free of charge.”
Dr. Bill discussed the impact on the community of being able to partner with local police departments and drug companies to keep K-9 animals in good health.
“It's a great way for us to be able to give back to these officers and the K-9 officers who work so hard together to keep us safe and keep our communities safe,” said Dr. Bill. “It is a great team effort across the board, not only from all of us doctors here at Vale Park but also from the drug companies working with us to help out the police departments and the officers.”
Vale Park also gives back to the local schools through its involvement in Valparaiso Community Schools’ Viking Puppy Project. The Viking Puppy Project is an initiative to have therapy dogs available to serve students and staff in every Valparaiso school.
“I had a client that had a litter of purebred Golden Retriever puppies that were looking for homes. We got the pups adopted into the homes with leaders in the Valparaiso schools – principals, teachers, secretaries – that were able to take the dogs home to raise them as their own,” said Dr. Bill. “At the same time, they come into work every day, they help teach the kids, and they are that emotional support for the kids during school. We've been able to provide healthcare and work with drug companies to serve the service dogs.”
The program took a bit of a pause during the pandemic, but Vale Park continued to provide services for the Viking pups.
“We hope the program continues to prosper, take off from here, and be an example for other communities and other school corporations in the nation,” said Dr. Bill. “It's been very rewarding for the students, for the teachers and principals that are the handlers, and for us as a practice to be able to see how this has grown and see the outpouring of support for the program.”
One of the ways that Vale Park Animal Hospital and its team enjoys giving back as a group is through United Way of Porter County and its annual Day of Caring, the nonprofit’s most active volunteer day of the year that brings together teams from local businesses, municipalities, families, and more.
“We sponsor as well as participate in Day of Caring by sending some of our employees to go out into the community and help with their projects,” said Dr. Bill.
In addition to local, county, and state-wide services, Vale Park Animal Hospital also works closely Lakeshore PAWS, a dog rescue based in Valparaiso.
“We agreed to help provide basic health care to make sure the pups are healthy and make sure they're vaccinated,” said Dr. Bill. “We want to help get good, healthy dogs in the population and get them out of kill shelters to make sure that the pups have an opportunity to have a great home in a healthy environment to feel loved, maybe for the first time ever.”
Vale Park offers courtesy first exams to those who adopt from Lakeshore PAWS and has developed a program called the Fur-ever Rescue Program.
“We agreed to give owners vaccines for the lifetime of their pets as long as they own them. We've been able to help a lot of dogs out and help a lot of families out for checkups and vaccines, which keeps the pets up to date so they're healthy and the public health risk to members of the community is reduced. We probably see five to ten Fur-ever pets in a day.”
Vale Park also works with Lakeshore PAWS to keep overpopulation down in the Region by trapping stray cats and spaying and neutering them.
“This process gives the cats a better start. They are more adoptable by being spayed or neutered, being up-to-date on vaccines, and having a health checkup. They have everything they need to go home with the owners,” said Dr. Bill.
Vale Park and its partnership with Midwest BREW, a local rescue organization for beagles, is another example of the clinic’s care for animals in the area.
“We have a very good, long-standing client that has been involved with fostering through Midwest Beagle. She gets multiple foster dogs in a year,” said Dr. Bill. “This client brings in her fosters to do a first exam work-up to make sure that they're healthy, take a heartworm test, update vaccines, and treat any underlying health issues that we may see in these stray dogs or beagles that are pulled from other rescues.”
Just like the aforementioned shelters, Vale Park works with Midwest Beagles to ensure that the rescued animals are prepared to go home with their future owners.
“We work in hopes of making the pups healthier and making them better candidates for adoption,” said Dr. Bill. “They're up-to-date on vaccines, they're spayed and neutered, and they’re socialized.”
Dr. Jerry Rodenbarger of Vale Park also serves his community as he is on the Board of directors for the Purdue Veterinary Alumni Association and received the lifetime achievement award in vet med through the IVMA.
One way that you can give back to Vale Park Animal Hospital and its mission is to attend its open house on Saturday, August 28. The flyer attached here has more information about the event.
To learn more about Vale Park Animal Hospital, visit its website at valeparkah.com or its Facebook page for more details.
