🇬🇧 What inspired you to become a veterinarian?
🩺As a child I had a passion for medicine, living in close contact with the doctors who worked in the office next to where I lived with my family. I have always been curious about the mechanisms that involve cellular reactions, their balance and the causes of their modifications. I have also always had a visceral passion for animals, the equation was medicine + animals = veterinary
🇬🇧 When and why did you decide to join Animal Heroes?
🦸 I’ve known the founder of Animal Heroes, Esther Kef and her wife Eleonora Orlandi for many years, so the collaboration happened spontaneously and naturally.
🇬🇧 What is the most rewarding part of your job? 🐾
Animals don’t speak but their way of expressing themselves and relating to me creates a kind of empathy that allows me to ‘tune in’ with them. This is the best aspect of my job, creating a relationship, a thin line that unites us and puts me in contact with their world.
When an animal enters the clinic he/she is already stressed, scared and almost always sick. As vets we try to make the patient as calm as possible.
One anecdote that I cherish is of a dog during my internship in a clinic in Milan.
The owner came with his dog, a shepherd mix. After the visit the dog had to undergo parenteral therapy with injections. The next day the owner returned with the dog and on the third day the dog showed up alone. I gave the injection and let the dog go. About half an hour later the owner arrived and apologised because he couldn’t find the dog. I said that his dog had already come by on his own, had the treatment and left. A little later we received a phone call from the owner from home saying that the dog was there peacefully. This has always made me reflect on the intelligence or reasoning ability that animals have.
🇬🇧 What are the most unusual animals you have treated?
The owners of my patients.😆
🇬🇧 What was one of the most challenging yet rewarding rescue missions you have been involved in?
Definitely, Animal Heroes’ mission in Turkey in Hatay after last year’s earthquake. Everything was dramatic beyond description. One of my most rewarding experiences was the recovery of a rescue dog who had fallen from a path in high mountains. He was recovered by helicopter and then transported to the clinic and operated on for a ruptured liver. The dog survived the fall of over thirty meters and after treatment continued to carry out his work as a rescue dog.
🇬🇧 Who is your biggest hero and why?
My inspiring muse, comparison, source of debate and clash but ultimately of security and linearity as well as sensitivity, my wife Eleonora.
