New Canaan Veterinary Hospital has been at 7 Vitti Street since the mid 1950's. Old Doc Whitlock and his wife lived here, ran an animal hospital and had his folks living next door. In 1959 the facility had a terrible fire and Doc Whitlock rebuilt it to what it looks like today. Back then, in an effort to avoid fire again, he built almost the entire building with cinder blocks. Beneath our carport is a basement complete with bomb shelter.

The next practice owner was Rick Esquivel. He owned the veterinary practice but not the building. He purchased New Canaan Veterinary Hospital some time in the late 1970's and ran the facility until 1996. During the 1990's several doctors worked here as well. One of them, Dr. Potenza, worked here 1-3 days a week while running his own successful house call practice in Stamford. In February of 1996 he purchase the practice from Dr. Esquivel and the building December 1998 from Mrs. Whitlock. Dr. Paul Potenza is a 1988 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and specializes in veterinary dentistry, as well as routine veterinary medicine.

Since then Dr. Marlene Schaefler, a 1999 gradute of Cornell University, joined Dr. Potenza full time in the fall of 1999. In 2003, Dr.Janine DiStephan joined us 2 days a week. She too is a Cornell University Graduate from the class of 1992.

Dr. Potenza and the staff at New Canaan Veterinary Hospital strive at all times to not only provide excellent patient care but excellent client care. We believe that in order to give the best care to the patient we need to have a good relationship with their owner(s). Because of that we invite you at any time to come to our office and request a tour of our facilities. Our building may have the looks of the 1950's but the equipment we have inside is state of the art. We have 3 fully trained technicians on staff and 2 technician assistants providing all our nursing care. If you have a problem or question about our office you can call Katy the hospital manager. Our phones are answered by our capable front office personnel Nancy, Robin and Alexis. Albeiro and Maribel are our married grooming team, and last but not least our kennel manager Jose has a total of 6 great guys working for us. They are Daniel, Jorge, Guillermo, Hector, and Domingo. Thank you for checking out our web page to find out a little more about us.