Dr. Helen Douglas was born in Nova Scotia, but has lived most of her life in her beloved Ottawa Valley. Helen’s veterinary career has spanned more than three decades and has taken her from humble log bars in Lanark to Olympic show barns in Toronto and the Fraser Valley in B.C. It has encompassed a very wide and fulfilling range of animals and experiences, from treating injured deer and vaccinating feral cats in bags to breeding imported show dogs from England and warmblood horses from Europe.
Helen has travelled and practised extensively, including in England and the Bahamas, but has returned to the Ottawa Valley with the full conviction that there is nothing you might want out of life that you can’t get in Lanark County.
She began riding in 1965 and plans to continue well past her fiftieth anniversary of first getting on a horse. Thus began a love affair that would last a lifetime and take her on horseback all over Canada, the US, Ireland, South America, and beyond.
Helen’s avid interest in other cultures and travel has led her to Lesotho, South Africa, where in affiliation with the humanitarian group Help Lesotho, she volunteered in an orphanage for three months in 2008. She maintains her connection with them by assisting with their Web site and farm and sponsoring several children.
Reading, riding, swimming, and gardening are squeezed into her busy life as a country vet when at home in Carleton Place.