When Dr Harry Met Sunday

Vet Dr Harry with Matt, Rhys, Sunday & Zara from the Animal Rehab Klinik, Sutherland.

The Dog Lover’s Show Sydney 2018 was the start of something I don’t think any of us were expecting. Our game plan didn’t initially include adopting a tri-paw Rottweiler and our aspirations for being on TV were still largely reliant on Matt getting a place on The Bachelor.

But imagine how boring life would be if things went to plan!

So Sunday came home with Matt and then on Monday morning we received an email from Sharon from Better Homes and Gardens saying that none other than Dr. Harry (from everyone’s childhood memories) would like to do a story on Sunday.

The email was exciting news, but we still needed to tick a few boxes. First and foremost, Dr Harry needed to know that we had legitimate qualifications as unfortunately a lot of people who work with animals in our industry don’t. Dr Harry doesn’t want to be endorsing any dodgy practitioners so we had to prove our worth.

Fortunately, on top of my Master’s in Osteopathy, Matt’s Master’s in Chiropractic we also both have a Graduate Diploma in Animal Biomechanical Medicine – so we checked out and were good to go. A date was locked in and we had two weeks to prepare Sunday with some media training (lots of Instagram photos!)

At 9am sharp, the production team for Better Homes & Gardens & Dr Harry arrived and we set about preparing for the day. They gave us some basic tips for being on camera and after a quick furniture shuffle, we were good to go.

We started by doing a few ‘candid’ entrances where Dr Harry bursts into the Klinik and we act all surprised that he’s come. We don’t like to brag too much but we nailed it – best ‘surprised’ faces you’ll ever see.

Next, we focused on the heroine of the story – Sunday. Now I know that Dr Harry has been around since at least I was a child, but neither Matt nor I were prepared for the wealth of information that came out of his mouth. For the next hour, Dr Harry talked, almost without a break as he examined Sunday from head to toe whilst offering up endless tips on how to examine animals – hip dysplasia, cruciate tears, dental problems and more. At one stage Dr. Harry turned to us and asked us if we were actually going to say anything – we may have been a little star-struck. Even without the TV segment airing, this experience alone was worth its weight in gold!

Dr. Harry proceeded to give us more advice on just about everything from animal psychology, farming, dietary and even how to care for our plants. I guess that’s what you get when Better Homes & Gardens stops by the Klinik.

By this stage, Sunday was pooped, but the film crew couldn’t resist getting some more footage in the Animal Rehab Klinik’s canine hydrotherapy treadmill. Luckily, we had Zara ready to step up to the plate. She’d been waiting patiently for her chance to get her award-winning treadmill skills featured on camera.

Our treadmill is the main feature of our Klinik – built in the UK by Hydrophysio it’s a state of the art dog treadmill that allows dogs form the size of a chihuahua up to a small horse to exercise in a low weight-bearing environment. We’ve been doing most of Sunday’s rehabilitation in this as she can’t walk properly yet. In fact, we haven’t really walked her much in the treadmill, instead opting to fill it up higher so she can swim which is a really effective way of strengthening her amputated leg.

As the morning was wrapping up, the Better Homes & Gardens team popped round to Matt’s place to do some more filming with Sunday.

Dr Harry’s cab was a no show but while he was waiting for a group of eager-eyed vet nurses from Kirrawee Veterinary Hospital spotted him from afar. It took them a little while to confirm that it was indeed the legend himself, not to mention muster up the courage to pop over and get a few photos with him.

Without a cab, our helping hand, Barbi gave him a lift to the cab rank and snapped this killer selfie on the way!

Now, with Sunday’s Story just about to air on channel 7 we can’t contain our excitement. Sunday is growing fast so Dr. Harry will need to come back soon or he won’t even recognise her!

Stay tuned for episode 2 which will air later in 2019!

You can re-watch episode 1 which aired on 23 of November here.