Vet on the Corner owners to 'bow wow out' after decades of hard work

David and Sue Hopper, owners of Vet on the Corner on Dog Kennel Lane, have announced they are retiring and are set to hand over the reins before the end of the year.

David decided on a veterinary career when he was just eight years old after he witnessed some other children injuring a bird:

"I wanted to be a vet or an archaeologist, but I couldn't decide to start with, but I really wanted to look after animals as I couldn't help that bird that day, and I wanted to learn how to help animals and make them better, and that's where it all began really.”

David, originally from Alnwick in Northumberland, remembered meeting the Duke of Northumberland when singing in a choir as a youngster, and when asked what he wanted to be, said he wanted to be a vet but worried it would be too hard.

"He said to me, ‘you can be whatever you want to be – if you want to be a vet, be a vet. If you don’t, you won’t’, and that stuck with me when I was studying and finding it hard.”

David went to veterinary college in Edinburgh in 1973, and when he first graduated, he then went to work in Cannock, Staffordshire in 1980 at a vet practice there.

David then to Horncastle in 1981 and said he initially only intended to stay for four years, but he loved it so much, 42 years later he is still here!

David’s first veterinary role here in Horncastle was the former Banovallum Vet Group (now Medivet Horncastle) on Prospect Street, and had regular stints on radio as a vet offering pet advice.

David recalls one particularly memorable moment 20 years ago where he was called to Stixwold, where a pony had fallen down a V-shaped ditch.

There were many people in long discussions about the best way to get the pony out, but he took matters into his own hands before the pony suffocated, and hopped into the ditch and shouted ‘boo’ behind the pony – who then promptly shot out of the ditch and ran off across the field, knocking over its owners. “That could not have worked any better,” he said.

He then met Sue in 1993 and they were married in 1996.

Their dream was to set up a small friendly surgery and to provide a good service based on ethical treatment and family values, and so David and Sue opened Vet on the Corner in 2006, with David as head vet and Sue as practice manager and head nurse.

Seventeen years later, David and Sue said that they felt it was important to find a new vet carefully, and are reassuring two-legged and four-legged clients and their owners that the vet surgery will remain a family-friendly practice, with new owner Grazyna Bomba set to take over in the coming weeks.

Sue said the couple have not had any time off since last year, and while they don’t have any concrete plans for their retirement just yet, they are planning to take some much needed breaks and maybe go walking with their dogs – German Shepherd-Labrador Cross Percy and Chutney the Jack Russell Terrier, as well as Boris the ginger cat.

"We’ve been a part of the community all these years, through the church and the theatre, and we will always remember that,” Sue added.