Your local, independent, trusted vet - Castle Vets (Dorchester) Skip to content

About us

Your local independent and trusted vet

Our practice was founded by Rip Kirby in 1992 with the ethos of being a friendly and approachable place to bring your pet. We are still committed to this, whilst providing the best possible care and treatment for all your pets. The practice remains independently owned by the vets who work in it, the only one in the area now. Being independent ensures the practice employees are motivated only by making pets better, not by keeping shareholders happy.

We have highly trained and experienced staff who will work with you to keep your pet in the best of health. We offer a full range of veterinary services, preventative health care, consultations, in-house diagnostic testing, imaging, and surgery. We have also partnered with Virtual Veterinary Specialists to ensure almost every problem imaginable can be dealt with right here at Castle Vets. We also offer a monthly budgeting plan and provide our own out of hours care to all our registered patients.

Many clients have been with us years and we consider them old friends, but we are always happy to welcome new faces, paws, tails and whiskers! Please do not hesitate to contact us about any matter big or small.

Reviews

Meet just a few of our happy owners and their pets!

Absolutely outstanding service. All staff wonderful and the vets are incredible. Highly recommend
Great staff , who have supported us through a lot with our kitty's
Great staff, vet was friendly and took his time to explain everything in terms we could understand
Brilliant quick service
Very friendly team who always make sure that your furry bestie is happy and healthy
So caring and efficient, cannot praise the whole team enough for how well they looked after our cat, and us.
Recommended so highly, this place and its staff are all amazing!
Good care of our animals
Best local vets imo brilliant with my nervous mastiff x
Very friendly. Great vets and nurses.
Castle Vet's lovely. Welcoming! Organized! Knowledgable! And friendly!
I am so happy to have registered my little dog with Castle vets, they have been fantastic with Flo. They really go above and
We have been using this vet practice for about 2 years now. We had three cats when we joined and they have cat surgeries and practioners. I would always take my cats here. I feel listened to and respected. And that the welfare of my cats is important. We recently had to say goodbye to one of our little cats. The care and consideration from the whole practice ( vet Ellie, nurses and reception staff) to us and our special family member was second to none
Lovely people friendly service
Absolutely the best. Looked after our best boy Jake for nearly 14 years and were always kind, compassionate and supportive. All round lovely team of people.
Very friendly and helpful.
Very good, kind service both to me and my pets over the years.
Always a friendly welcome at the surgery and helpful, professional advice.
Been going there for more than 20 years with various cats. Wouldn't go anywhere else. They are brilliant
The best thing I could have done is move our dogs to the care of Castle Veterinary Clinic. They have just recently helped diagnose one of our dogs with a life threatening cancer. She is now cancer free and under the continued care of this wonderful practice. As soon as you walk in you are greeted by the most friendly staff. I am confident in knowing we are with the right professionals.
As a new client bringing one dog and 2 cats for their initial appointments I have so far had only positive experiences, and have found it easy to get an appointment, easy to park, and so far have even seen the same vet each time which is nice for continuity. Reception staff are lovely, too!
Did lots of homework about vets before relocating to Weymouth and Castle Vets came out top for us. We made the right choice because the vets here have been superb when needing to visit with the feline member of our family.
What a great team, from initial telephone conversation to my dogs operation - consistency in professionalism and customer experience 10/10. Would highly recommend.Thank you to both Weymouth and Dorchester ❤️
Fantastic vets who really do care for your pets.They've always been more than happy to help and give advice; and the prices for visits are very good too.
We can never thank Castle vets enough for the outstanding care over 10 years for our amazing dog Alfie. As well as all the routine checks, vaccinations and general care, they recognised aged 3 that he would need life changing knee surgery to prolong his life, which would have been shortened considerably had we opted for pain relief only, and which also improved his quality of life. He loved visiting both the Weymouth and Dorchester surgeries and all the staff always welcomed him despite his boisterous greetings which sometimes involved paws on the reception desk and knocking down of displays! When we became concerned that he was seriously ill, they were prompt and sensitive in their investigations and in giving us dreaded news, helping us to digest the implications for Alfie. This meant that we made the right decisions for him and he had a good last week of life with a final walk on the beach, a final visit to his favourite dog friendly pub (the Springhead at Sutton Poyntz and the last thing he actually ate - some carvery pork) - and time at home resting on the sofa, going down the garden, or sitting outside sniffing the air. When we saw a deterioration which signalled that he was uncomfortable, we called the vets and within 40 minutes, despite being nearly midnight, Kirsty the vet and Roxy, veterinary nurse, arrived at our house and made sure that Alfie's death was a calm, peaceful and dignified one. They must have been tired, but they sat on the floor with us all reminiscing about him, stroking him, talking to him and crying and only left, over an hour later, when we were ready. Alfie loved Castle vets and we do too.