JEFFERSON TWP — Veterinarian Arthur Richards Jr. supplies medicine to ailing cats and dogs and relief to their owners. They provide him with a tonic.

Richards, 86, of Slippery Rock comes in one day a week to work at the Deer Creek Animal Hospital, 388 Saxonburg Road, to give its owner, veterinarian Paul Eismann, a day off.

“I like veterinary medicine, and as long as I can keep my health and be productive I will do it,” said Richards, who had his own practice in Grove City for 45 years before retiring in 1997. He said it was rewarding to feel needed and he enjoys meeting people.

“Dr. Richards has been here for a long time. He comes in once a week. I've been here for five years, and it's been longer than that. It's every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” said Barbara Kallner, a receptionist at the animal hospital.

“He likes to keep his hand in,” said Kallner. “He's forgotten more about veterinary medicine than they even teach.”

“He's really good. He handles blood work and X-rays,” said Jessica Fiscus of Kittanning, a technician at Deer Creek.

“He does exams, vaccines, pretty much everything but the surgery. He keeps us moving,” said fellow technician Sharon Malobicky of Sarver.

Richards, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of Glenolden, graduated in 1949 with his veterinary degree from the University of Pennsylvania and practiced for three years in the Asbury Park, N.J., area.

Richards points out that as an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School, he is entitled to put the letters VMD (veterinary medical doctor) after his name, while other veterinarians must make do with DVM (doctor of veterinary medicine).

“They are the only school that does that,” Richards said. “All the others are DVM.”

When he and his wife, Carol, traveled to Western Pennsylvania in 1951 to visit his brother, Bob, in Greenville, they spent the night in the Penn Grove Hotel in Grove City.

“I thought Grove City needed a vet. I came back the next day and talked to Bill McKay, the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce.”

“Then we went out to a farm in the area. The farmer welcomed me with open arms,” Richards remembered.

Richards said the Grove City area had been without a veterinarian, other than a few temporary vets, for years.

“We really liked the area and the people,” he said. “We bought a house in April 1952, and we moved to Grove City,” he said.

Richards said one of his early calls after moving to Western Pennsylvania was to the Coyer coal mine to treat a pony underground that had been injured by an augur.

“I got up on a mine wagon and had to wear a helmet and light,” Richards said. “We had to put the pony under anesthetic and suture him up in the mine.”

“I had two miners holding lights for me and one of them fainted. I had water running down my neck,” he said. “It was quite the experience. It plunged me into the rural veterinarian world.”

None of his five children have followed him into the field of veterinary medicine, he said.

“You would start dinner and the phone rings, and you have to get up and leave. None of them wanted that kind of life,” Richards said.

Although while growing up, his children did help out in the practice, aiding in surgeries and working as receptionists.

Richards said he ran the practice out of his house until 1955 when he built an animal hospital adjacent to his home.

His was a large animal practice — treating horses, pigs and cows — until 1970 when he quit treating large animals.

“In 1970, we remodeled the hospital so that when we hired more vets, we concentrated on small animals,” he said.

“There weren't as many farms,” Richards said. “During and after World War II, Cooper Industries was hiring 1,500 people to build their turbines. A lot of farmers left for the mill and switched from dairy to beef cattle.

“After they got home from work and found something wrong with their cattle, they'd call me. I was getting more and more night calls,” Richards said. “If you have a cow that's been trying to calve all day, that's not a good situation.”

In 1997, he sold the hospital and he and his wife moved to Slippery Rock.

“I retired. I took some courses at Slippery Rock. In 2002, I published a book, “Tale Waggings Recollections of a Rural Veterinarian,'” said Richards. “But then I started doing relief work, vets would call me, they knew me, to fill in.”

“I settled in here for five or six years now. I come in on Tuesday,” said Richards.

Deer Creek handles cats and dogs only, and Richards estimates he sees between 25 to 30 animals a day.

He keeps up on medical technology. He said he just completed a week's course at Penn State on skin diseases.

Richards said to keep his license current he has to complete 30 continuing hours of education every two years.

The Pennsylvania Veterinarians Medical Association sponsors meetings throughout the state, said Richards “You have ample opportunity to go to meetings and keep up.”

Still, Richards said the field has changed.

“Small animal surgery is now referred to specialists, it's changed that much. I used to put pins in legs, do orthopedic surgery,” said Richards, “but all that goes to specialists now.”

Richards says he doesn't do surgery anymore anyway, confining his work at Deer Creek to vaccinations, examinations and blood work on the dogs and cats brought to him.

“I have not really been bitten,” said Richards in his long career of tending to frightened and suffering animals. “When you look at a dog, look him in the eyes. Use gentle handling and eye to eye contact.”

Although, he added, with cats, it's best to either wrap the animal in a towel or use gloves.