Dr. Greg Rich wins Oxbow Exotic Mammal Health award at national ...

At the West Esplanade Veterinary Clinic and Bird Hospital in Metairie last Tuesday, Dr. Greg Rich's appointment book was filled.

"I put bogus patients on his schedule all afternoon," his wife, Renee, said. She knew it was the only way to keep him out of the examining room for an hour.

When Rich walked into the break room, he was greeted by a crowd of people shouting "Surprise!" and a table piled high with food. In the middle, a large chocolate cake had "Congratulations, Dr. Rich" written in the icing.

"Oh, this is way too much!" he said, as smiling clients aimed cameras and cell phones at him. "Everyone who takes a picture takes a rabbit home."

The surprise party was to celebrate the Oxbow Exotic Mammal Health Award Rich won the previous weekend. He had just returned from the annual conference of bird, exotic mammal, and reptile and amphibian veterinarians in Seattle, where he received the prestigious prize at a Mardi-Gras themed reception in his honor. The award recognized his "continued legacy of compassion and commitment to animals of all species and sizes."

"It's amazing to win a national award," he told the clients and friends surrounding him. "It's a quick way of humbling someone."

This was only the third year the award was given. Last year it was won by a doctor from Italy, so it's really an international award.

"The people who chose him are legends in the exotic pet world," Renee said. "The people who write the books and invent the drugs chose Greg. It takes a lot to leave him speechless, but they did."

Rich was nominated for the award by June Booth of Slidell, who also organized the party. Booth is a licensed educator with the House Rabbit Society, an international nonprofit volunteer group that rescues rabbits and educates people about rabbit care. Her rabbits waiting for adoption stay at Rich's clinic.

"He has backed me for 18 years of rescuing rabbits," she said. "It's unbelievable how many rabbits we've saved."

Rich learned he had won on a Thursday, the day he works alone. He was swamped, and when the owner of Oxbow Animal Health, the company that sponsors the award, called, he almost told his receptionist to say he'd call him back.

"I didn't have time to talk for fun that day," he said.

But because it was John Miller himself calling, he took the phone.

"When I answered, he said, 'Are you sitting down?' and I said, 'I don't have time to sit down,'" Rich said.

As soon as Miller told him he'd won the Oxbow Award, though, he sat down.

"I must have sat in my office for 20 minutes and made people wait," he said. "This was my national and international colleagues saying, 'You really are as good as June Booth says you are.' I had to catch my breath."

When Rich graduated from the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine in 1985, he knew he wanted to build a practice for birds and exotic pets.

"I love dogs and cats, but I'm going to pick up the rabbit, the ferret, the bird first," he said.

At that time, there were only two exotic pet practices in the whole country. Rich decided to start the third one in Louisiana. Twenty-six years later, he is the only veterinarian in the Louisiana-Mississippi area whose practice is exclusively for birds and exotic pets, including everything from hedgehogs and hamsters to tortoises, geckos and snakes. His clients come from all over Mississippi and as far away as Shreveport.

"With this kind of practice, it's not location that matters," he said. "It's education, education, education."

At the party, clients wanted to share their animal stories.

"If it wasn't for Dr. Rich, I wouldn't have Bosco," Linda Schultz of Bridge City said. Bosco, who is 20 now, is a one-legged African gray parrot she adopted after Rich saved his life.

Jane Keller of Metairie listed the unusual variety of pets she has met on visits to the clinic: "Chinchillas, roosters, ferrets, a sugar glider," she said. "One time, there was a baby iguana with a broken leg, and Dr. Rich put a little green cast on it."

She told me about Charlie, the rabbit she got as a baby bunny, who, thanks to Rich's expert care, lived to be 9 in spite of a weight problem and a taste for junk food.

"He saved that rabbit so many different times," she said. "When Charlie was dying, we both were crying."

Claudia Seligman, who raises canaries in Mandeville, sang Rich's praises.

"He is so devoted, so dedicated, and he was an incredible inspiration after Katrina," she said. "He said, 'We don't need a house. We don't need a clinic. I can still do what I do.' He thought about all the other vets and came up with a disaster preparedness plan.'"

Before the storm, Rich and Renee evacuated to Gulf Breeze, Fla., with the 33 patients that were in the clinic, including birds, rabbits, a guinea pig, a lizard and a 7-foot snake named "Princess."

"I became the happiest kennel cleaner there was," Renee said. "Caring for his patients kept Greg sane."

They were gone for three weeks and came home to a wind- and rain-damaged house and a clinic that had been hit by a tornado and had had the roof blown off. They relocated to Baton Rouge, where Rich worked with students at the vet school, took care of exotic pets and volunteered with bird rescue groups, while commuting back and forth to see to repairs on his home and his hospital.

"It was 22 very long months before we could reopen the clinic," Renee said.

Rich, who received the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine in 2006, said his most recent honor isn't going to change anything.

"I'll still take in baby bunnies and ducks hit by cars," he said. "I'll still be helping the ones who don't have an owner, who don't have a voice."

He is a member of the Louisiana State Animal Response Team, and last summer he joined the Deep Water Horizon/BP Oil Spill Wildlife Response Team.

He says he shares his award with the woman he married two months after he graduated from vet school.

"I couldn't be who I am or do what I do without Renee," he said. "When I go out for an emergency at 3 a.m., she goes with me. She's never said, 'Get someone else to go.'"

"And I don't faint anymore, so that's good," Renee said.

Rich says the best part of his practice is the pets who scurry, hop, slither and fly through his front door.

"I have no clue what each day is going to be like," he said. "It's thrilling like that, and it keeps us on our toes."

Sheila Stroup's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in Living. Contact her at sstroup@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4831.

Source: http://www.nola.com/pets/index.ssf/2011/08/dr_greg_rich_wins_oxbow_exotic.html

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