Cailey Moore
Staff Writer
Recognizing Pocahontas County’s need for a local office, Greenbrier Veterinary Hospital, of Lewisburg, began bringing its services to Marlinton in the late 1980s. Greenbrier Veterinary Hospital’s [GVH] Dr. Tomlinson would visit the county once a week, providing clinic services, and despite a brief lapse in availability, numerous snowstorms and a fire, GVH has been catering to the needs of county pets for 27 years.
“We’d been getting clients from Pocahontas County for a while,” Dr. Cindy Lightner, DVM, explained, “and it was an area that was really under-serviced when Greenbrier Veterinary first began looking for a secondary location.”
GVH felt that they could better serve the community with a local office, and in 1990, began parking a mobile unit at Fas Check. Lightner joined GVH the same year and saw the mobile unit through many-a-snowstorm and subsequent stranding until a fire in the late ’90s that solidified GVH’s need for a more permanent location.
In March 1997, the satellite clinic found its home on Marlinton’s Main Street and has been there ever since.
As an outpatient facility, GVH’s Marlinton clinic is unequipped to offer advanced procedures such as surgeries and x-rays. However, the clinic is able to perform some primary pet care services – such as administering vaccinations, conducting routine check-ups and the dispensing of medication to clients.
In addition to kitten/puppy and rabies vaccines, GVH offers a number of other vaccines.
April is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and with tick season upon us, GVH is running a special on lyme vaccinations during the months of April, May and June. As with its regular vaccination services, lyme vaccines are available at GVH’s Marlinton office.
The clinic’s main office is located just north of Lewisburg, and it is there that Lightner and her colleagues are able to provide a full range of services – including digital x-rays, EKGs, regular and orthopedic surgeries and ultrasounds.
GVH’s veterinarians have had extensive training in oral and dental care, as well. According to the American Veterinary Dental Society, 80 percent of dogs and 70 percent of cats have oral disease by the time they turn three-years-old, and it is considered one of the most frequently diagnosed health problems in pets.
At GVH, yearly dental healthcare examinations are recommended. Each examination consists of a dental health assessment – complete with treatment options and tips for future prevention – and state-of-the-art equipment and digital x-rays are available for issues that might hide beneath the surface of a patient’s gums.
Advanced pet care is available for patients, as well.
According to Lightner, techniques – such as acupuncture and therapeutic lasers – are used in cases where the patient suffers from muscular and/or skeletal problems. On its own, acupuncture in pets is used to relieve pain caused by arthritis and injury, as well as any lingering pain post-surgery. When paired with laser therapy, acupuncture makes for a wonderful rehabilitation technique.
GVH’s newest associate Dr. Raina Pannee uses acupuncture and other holistic medicine techniques to treat problems with patients’ backs and kidneys, bladder disease, seizures and more.
“It has a lot of different applications,” Lightner said of the treatment, “and we’re excited to see what all it can do. It seems to be really working, and our clients really like it.”
“We’ve used it on a couple of patients,” GVH Manager Helen Galford added, “and it’s really helped them. It’s amazing to see the ‘before and after’ differences.”
GVH offers boarding and grooming services to its clients, as well, and for those services only available at the main office in Lewisburg, the clinic now offers a shuttle service from Marlinton to Lewisburg.
“I really like this community,” Lightner added. “We enjoy coming up here so much, and we have a lot of really great clients coming to us from the Marlinton area. Marlinton, in itself, is such a nice community, and this is a really good service for them – to be able to take their pets back and forth. It’s been a pleasure to be a part of this.”
Greenbrier Veterinary Hospital’s Marlinton clinic is located at 104 Eighth Street, and is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. To schedule an appointment, call 304-799-4004.
