Reviews for True Confessions of a Veterinarian: An Unconditional Love Story

The average rating for True Confessions of a Veterinarian: An Unconditional Love Story based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-03-20 00:00:00 Shannon Anderson Written by a local vet, 'True Confessions' is a heartfelt memoir of some of the memorable patients Dr. Witiak has seen in his long career caring for the small animal population of the Lehigh Valley. In fact, when my coworker saw this book, she remarked that she knows of Dr. Witiak, having taken her cats to one of the offices in his practice a number of years ago and that he was quite the handsome young vet back in those days. I loved his sense of humor, picking out all the best qualities of caring for our furry friends, from the unusual ways they get their names, to the things they swallow, to the creative 'breed' names he liked to devise for patients whose lineage included a mixture of genes from multiple recognized breeds. Autobiographic too, Witiak includes many anecdotes about his personal pets and home life, which includes his wife and twin daughters, who were babies in the early days of his practice and are now grown women with families of their own. It has been a little while since I read his other book, 'The Hug', but if memory serves me right, it was similarly enjoyable to this one, though I think this one focuses more on his early days as a practitioner than 'The Hug'. I recommend both if you can find them, though based on the number of editions and reviews on GoodReads, this book may be only available in local (Lehigh Valley, PA) libraries and the occasional online used book site.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-01-01 00:00:00 Rulon Openshaw A collection of stories and vignettes about the author's life and work as a veterinarian. Some were more touching than others. I have no doubt this man was an excellent veterinarian because his love and compassion for animals came through clearly. But as an author, he is not Herriot, which is what I was hoping for. Probably the most interesting part of this book to me was the setting. I had seen the book mentioned somewhere and added it to my wishlist without knowing much about it. A friend sent it to me. In the meantime, my brother and his family have moved from New Jersey to the area in Pennsylvania where this book is set. Having just spent Christmas there, I found it familiar.