Kevin Saldanha, biography

Residence: Mississauga, since 1986.
Province: Ontario
Country: Canada

Biography:

Born in Nakuru, Kenya in the Great Rift Valley, Kevin developed an appreciation for animals of all sizes from the wild elephants to the broiler chickens (his father, a teacher by profession, provided the technical expertise and management for a large poultry operation). His childhood was full of animal related experiences such as raising a pair of ostriches in the back yard and saving a Dik-Dik deer from starvation. It was an ideal opportunity to view the animal kingdom from up close and it came as no surprise when growing up in Goa, India he chose a career in veterinary medicine.

He studied veterinary medicine at the Bombay Veterinary College in Bombay, India and graduated with a BVSc&AH (Bachelor of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry) in 1980. In his final year of undergraduate studies he met Lisette, a childhood family friend.

On graduating, he worked briefly with the Department of Veterinary Services & Animal Husbandry in Goa before accepting a post-graduate position in monogastric nutrition at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Poultry Breeding & Nutrition Department in Bangalore, Karnataka (a beautiful south Indian state that has now become the Silicon Valley of India).

He left UAS, Bangalore in 1982 with an MVSc in Poultry Science and a Gold medal for the highest achievement in the department. That topped of an exciting year that began with his marriage to Lisette in Feburary and immigration to Canada in August.

In Canada, after a brief stint as a furniture salesman in the heart of Toronto (CITY FURNITURE, Queen & Bathurst!), he went back to veterinary studies at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph for a PhD in Biomedical Sciences under the guidance of Dr. O.S. Atwal. However, his first love was clinical pactice which gained more significance after 2 years in the sterile scientific academic atmosphere of basic research. He ultimately applied for and secured advance standing in the undergraduate veterinary course getting back into the DVM program and graduating with a second veterinary degree in 1986.

That was the year of the birth of their first child, a son named Alexander in December. Their second, a daughter, born in March of 1991 was named Emerald. The latest addition to the family is Tish, a female miniature smooth coated dachshund who joined the family as a 2 month old puppy in February of 1996.
Here is a recent photograph of the three girls!!! 

Career:

After graduating from the Ontario Veterinary College, Univ. of Guelph, Kevin worked for the Cormack group of small animal hospitals for 2 years, mainly with Dr. Joanne Best at the Animal Hospital of Oakville where the hectic pace and the excellent mentorship set the tone for the rest of his career.

He opened his own practice, the CREDITVIEW ANIMAL HOSPITAL in 1988 in the Deer Run Shopping Centre in Mississauga. Providing his own emergency and housecall services out of this facility, he also offers extended office hours and telephone consultations.

Setting the practice apart from the other 45 hospitals in Mississauga is the personal approach to every client and case. The unique veterinary ambulance affords a high visiblity to the emergency service and is equipped to handle any pet emergency including critical care transfers to specialized facilities.

Having outgrown the available space, Kevin moved his practice to 5330 Creditview Road into a free standing bungalow on a 2 acre wooded lot on the banks of Carolyn Creek in central Mississauga.  He continues to operate a solo practice out of this facility spending more time on his growing avian practice.  See http://www.567VETS.com for details

Hobbies:

Surfing the net has become a major past-time (much to the dismay of Lisette who had a computer installed at home to help her with the administration of the practice). Otherwise, model building.. specially radio controlled cars, motorbikes ships and planes are one of my obsessions (even if not very successful) Hoping to get back to motorcycle riding (a Harley for my 50th??).

After serving on the building committee for St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church in Mississauga and a stint with the Knights of Columbus, he was jaded by the 'business' of the Church and has parted ways with organized religion.  He joined the national and local associations of secular humanists and has served in various administrative capacities at both the local and national level.

https://www.facebook.com/kevin.saldanha
https://twitter.com/vegvet

Other Voluntary Community Involvements

Serving on the Board as a Director of a local non-profit daycare, Moms Love Nurseries on Eglinton Rd, between Dixie & Tomken. This committment has been ongoing for the last 4 years, 1 of which in the capacity of president.
Serving on the Building Liason Committee of the St. Francis Xaviers Church currently in the process of constructing a 950 seat Roman Catholic church in Mississauga.
Helping lead the 1st Streetsville Falcon cub pack for 4 years, 3 as "Baloo" and the last as "Akela". Achieved 'Gateway to Scouting' and 'Pack Woodbadge - Part 1' certification in the process thanks to the wonderful organization of Scouting in Mississauga.

For updated details see http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-saldanha/1b/613/b81

Humanism

I have found a surprisingly refreshing outlook on life and it's name is Humanism.

Yesterday I interacted for the first time with avowed Humanists at an inaugural meeting of the Oakville Humanist Community hosted by Elka and Ernie Enola. We had a stimulating discussion on free will and the responsibility of ones' actions after taking care of some business in establishing a new chapter of Humanism in Canada.

I'm looking forward to sharing my stories on this blog and hope you will come back to visit more often. I intend to keep this as a log of my journey.

What's the connection?

You may ask what is the connection between the topics listed in the title of this blog.

Well, it so happens that my career in veterinary medicine gave me an insight into the private lives of animals and a personal decision to follow a vegetarian lifestyle gave me an insight into the philosophy of vegetarianism.... a connection that I hadn't made for 20 years of practicing as a veterinarian and contributing to the systematic exploitation of animals.

Let me explain. My original degree in Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry gave me a decent basis to formulate my own concepts of how the workings of animals differed from, but more significantly, were similar to those of humans. A masters degree in Poultry Nutrition started me along the path of animal exploitation for our gluttonous palates. I inadvertently contributed to the suffering of countless beings but the one process that still sickens me today is the cruel destruction of male chicks from the laying lines, which are ground up alive into MCM - which stands for Male Chick Meal.... yes protein to be fed back to livestock, most probably to their mothers themselves to be re-packaged into menstrual waste ovoids we enjoy usually sunny-side up!

After aquiring a DVM and re-focussing my work ethic to helping pets, I realised that all I was doing was catering to another selfish segment of society who decided to domesticate and dominate pet animals for their own enjoyment. I was a pawn in the pet animal industry, myself exploiting a charged emotional attitude to animals called the Human-Animal-Bond. It started becoming more obvious to me that I was dealing with people who had absolutely no idea how ridicously differently they were treating different species of mammals. Without thinking twice about it, they could easily consume the flesh of one while cringing at the sight of a small flesh wound in the other. The amount of money spent on a companion animal was out of proportion to the amount of money spent on the dead flesh of a domestic animal. But it was the emotional toll that was the most surprising.

We are no longer exposed to the mechanics of livestock slaughter to the extent that many school kids today don't associate the meat in their plates with a live being. We pay workers, who have become inured to the plight of livestock, to stun, slaughter, process and package our dead flesh so that by the time it comes to actually handle it, it has been sanitized, wrapped in shrink film and labelled for sale like some commodity that never lived before. And our mindless consumption of these meats extend to seafood that is wontonly over harvested from the sea by trawlers that sweep the oceans clean, discarding more than 60 percent of their catch as 'waste'. Shrimp trawlers are even more destructive, damaging sensitive sea beds in their short-term plunder of the ocean beds for scavengers of the sea which would be similar to land cockroaches. These sensitive ecosystems may take decades to regenerate their life-forms which are offered as 'all you can eat' items at Red Lobster!

Test

This is a test. The entire text (several paragraphs of Dominion) of my first entry was lost to cyberspace. That will teach me to test first!