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Valley Veterinary, 683 Westwood Avenue # C, River Vale, NJ (2026)

06/13/2024

53 years ago today I graduated veterinary school at Michigan State University. It feels like yesterday ----- NOT! Thank you to all who have entrusted the care of their pets to me these so many years. I hoping to continue for 2 more years, max. Good luck and good health to you and all your pets.

01/02/2024

After left knee replacement on August 31st and right knee replacement on December 6, I am recovering well. My retirement has been delayed and I will continue to practice on a limited basis for an undetermined time ahead. I wish all a happy and healthy new year, and look forward to starting hours very soon.

06/16/2022

Ancient history:
My cousin sent this to me a few days ago and it reminded me that Sunday, June 12th was my 51st anniversary as a veterinarian. I took the day off! It is time to say it to my friends of the Valley Animal Hospital days, the River Vale Animal Hospital days the Valley Veterinary days and even anyone who remembers me from the Fanwood Animal Hospital or Cameron Animal Hospital days that it has been a wonderful 5 decades of having you entrust your pets' health and welfare to me. My time is coming, tentatively December of 2023, and should be a consideration if you are getting a new pet. My hours are limited and have been cut to pretty much afternoons only, still keeping my 51 plus years of Thursdays off intact.
Thank you all for so many years of fulfilling and enjoyable days practicing medicine and surgery for these wonderful dogs, cats and a few others!

06/14/2021

Saturday, June 12th, 2021 marked my 50th anniversary of graduating the School of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University at 23 years of age. Within a week I began my professional career at the Fanwood Animal Hospital in Fanwood, NJ. A year later I joined the Cameron Animal Hospital in Montclair, NJ where I practiced until July 7, 1975 when I opened my first solo practice, Valley Animal Hospital on Broad St in Norwood, NJ fulfilling my dream of becoming my childhood hometown veterinarian.
In 1985 I purchased a house at 684 Westwood Ave in River Vale, NJ and converted it into the River Vale Animal Hospital. In 2009 I moved into the Bi-State Plaza in Old Tappan and renamed as Valley Veterinary. Five years later I moved back to River Vale at 683 C Westwood Ave and continue there presently.
It has been my honor and my privelege to care for so many pets over these 50 years and I thank the many pet owners who have entrusted me to do so. Some of you first came into Norwood with
your grandmother and her pet and now visit me with your children's pets. This is not leading to a retirement announcement as I have hopefully a few good years left in me. Again I thank you for your trust and support as I continue this journey working at a profession I truly love.

01/14/2021

I was out shopping today at one of the giant "club" superstores. I saw a huge display of glucosamine with MSN on sale and I just want to give my perspective on this because this product without containing chondroitin misses the boat by a great deal, both from a physiological standpoint and my professional and personal experience.
Up until the late 1990s it was always felt that cartilage did not heal or reproduce. Personally I was wearing a knee brace on my right knee to play baseball and tennis and complete extension and flexion was agonizing at that point. Long story why I kept delaying surgery to remove all the damaged and torn cartilage but I was holding out. I was reading a veterinary journal one afternoon and there was an article on cats and how cartilage was being rehabilitated in their knees through a supplement of glucosamine and chondroitin. The study was being done at my school, Michigan State University, so I called one of my old professors and asked if he knew about it. He did and extolled the virtue of the products as producing unbelievable results on torn, abraded, and chinked cartilage. He explained that physiologically we do actually reproduce a minute amount of cartilage daily but that we have an enzyme that breaks down a minute amount daily as well, resulting in zero progress. Glucosamine basically provides the building blocks for cartilage to be produced, but it is the chondroitin that acts to block the enzyme from breaking it down. This is oversimplified, but in effect that is the story. he said it takes 3 months to begin to see improvement (surgically viewed) and about 6 months to complete the process for most tears. I told him about my knee and asked where I could get some of this stuff, but he said it wasn't approved for humans. dogs or cats as yet, but was available for horses.
I called an equine distributor I was using at the time and asked him to encapsulate a bunch for me. Long story short, 6 months later, no more brace, no more pain, could have done the Russian Cossack dance if I ever could have in the first place. I stopped taking it after 6 months and 2 years later tore up my knee again. Arthroscopy was recommended, again, and again I skipped surgery and gave the glucosamine and chondroitin a chance to work a second time. Same result. No pain, full flexibility. I have since torn up me knees at least 7 times, never had surgery. I now have a torn meniscus in my left knee (3 years) and both are torn in my right knee ( years?). However I take my gluc and chon every day now and I am relatively pain free and functional because the supporting cartilage is still pretty healthy. Functional enough to play baseball last October in Arizona every day for 6 days and tennis now. So, THIS STUFF WORKS.
Professionally, I have done many cruciate repair surgeries early in my career as a veterinarian. My patients with or without surgery who experienced torn ACLs or just cartilage tears always exhibited pronounced swelling on the medial (inside) aspect of the injured knee. Since gluc and chon was approved for dogs it minimizes that effect by 50% or more.
To those of you who are reading this on my Valley Vet page, this just a regurgitation of what I've professed for years, but PLEASE, do not be fooled by the less expensive glucosamine without chondroitin, because I believe it will not be effective and your dog will suffer for it. To my friends who have tried it at my behest, same idea. Glucosamine and chondroitin together!

07/16/2020

Go Giants! 🏈

Happy my daughter is home to assist me in the office in matching Father’s Day scrubs.

📞 Call 201-666-6447 to schedule an appointment. Masks req; sanitizing between patients; only 1 family inside at a time.

Jets fans will be vaccinated.

- Dr. Garbaccio

01/26/2020

The loss of a pet.

I have been a veterinarian now for nearly 49 years and have experienced countless passings of my patients either naturally or through euthanasia. As for performing a euthanasia (from the Greeks origins, eu meaning good and thanatos meaning death), I remember vividly my first experience in doing so. During my first year in veterinary school we received a number of canines from Detroit that were all to be terminated at a pound. We put them under anesthesia and went through a series of physiological tests and responses. At the end of the lab period, our professor announced that we were to euthanize these dogs but to first make an incision between two ribs of the chest. While one of the members of each two-person team respirated, the other was to insert a hand into the chest cavity and cup the dog's heart in the palm of his hand, which happened to be my part. The euthanizing drug was then administered and I felt the heart slow, weaken and finally stop. It was an experience I have never forgotten, and while many tears were shed, our professor explained that it was important to him to have us realize what we were actually doing when we administered these types of drugs.

For the past 49 years, I always think of that experience when I euthanize someone's pet with the added atmosphere of an owner or family who will never see or pet their their beloved pet again. Often I find myself saying to the family that it is probably the most loving thing we do for a pet in his or her lifetime, a very unselfish act that is not only a struggle to make but which will also bring inconsolable grief upon ourselves, and I greatly admire pet owners who do this for their pets.

Today I am on the other side of the coin. My wonderful Shetland Sheepdog, Heather, has passed away. Heather brought so much joy and happiness into our household and I'm certain that many of you have experienced the same grief, emptiness, directionless feelings that we are now going through. For Noelle, Diane and me she was a true member of our family and will forever be missed. She passed in her sleep, saving us the decision that I admire so many of my pet owners for making over the years, and quite honestly she never spent a sick day in her 11 1/2 years of life.

I hope that for those of you past and those of you to come that you know I perform euthanasia with reverence and respect for your pet and your feelings. Empathy, sympathy, sorrow and all the right words that come from me do little to blunt the impact of losing a loved pet, but as I've said in answer to the question "Isn't it hard to perform a euthanasia?" which invariably comes up in the many career days I've done, I would rather do this than see a pet walk out my door that I feel should not have.

For now, know that I am experiencing what many of you have and will to come and that I will always do my best to ease both you and your pet through this process.

11/16/2018

I feel the need to express what seems to be an unpopular opinion regarding the declawing of cats and New Jersey's pending legislature to ban the procedure in this state. There is as usual a great deal of disseminated misinformation influencing public opinion and people who know me would agree that I am a very straight shooter, so consider my perspective.

I am in my 48th year practicing veterinary medicine in New Jersey and over the course of that time have declawed many, many cats, most of which were performed to save that pet its home. I won't go into the various reasons why many owners have insisted on this procedure, although facial scarring of infants and toddlers even done playfully by the pet has often preceded the request.
When declaws are done properly - and I stress that, as too many veterinarians perform them poorly - the procedure is less invasive than spaying or neutering and for many cats not as bothersome except that these incisions must be walked upon. Yes, some patients have a more difficult recovery than others but that can also be said of any surgical procedure.

The comparison of a declaw to the amputation of the last joint of a human finger is absurd. While it may seem reasonable to relate the limb of a cat to to the limb of a human, this is a specialized joint and exceedingly different from our last finger joint . To compare them in that light is to equate an elephant trunk to a human nose. Different species, different anatomy.

Where does declawing get its bad name?

Most likely from the surgeon who performs it improperly. The secret to a successful declaw lies in the removal of the nail's growth center, a very easy area to miss during the procedure. The consequence of not removing this area is what plagues cats after the surgery. Even when the surgical wound heals, the growth center continues to produce nail-like material. The feeling is initially like a “pebble in your shoe,” but as the nail-like material accumulates, the feeling intensifies in discomfort and pain for your cat. I've had too many cats come to me for their declaws (performed inexpertly elsewhere) to be corrected. I strongly feel these cases are responsible for much of the distaste for declawing.

Sadly, my opinion is that NJ would be doing a great disservice to cats and their owners to ban declawing. By their very nature, kittens and cats use claws playfully and out of habit in ways that may cause harm in homes, be it to people or belongings. When push comes to shove, behavior of this manner results in some owners deciding not keep their cat but instead offer it to another home or worse a shelter instead of developing a lasting and loving relationship with the pet.

I understand the public movement toward the more humane treatment of pets and I applaud those efforts. Pet owners who have experienced a poorly-executed declaw are rightfully disenchanted, however when performed properly can be a life-enhancing experience for both pet and owner.

This one is a mistake to pass and I hope the Senate will see fit to bury it.
Should all cats be declawed? Certainly not. I openly speak of the advantages and risks of declawing in my practice. In some cases I talk owners out of declawing. This is especially true when it is desired to stop climbing. It does not. I personally rescued one of my formerly declawed cats from 15 feet up a tree and many of my pet owners have described tree climbing adventures of their declawed cats. That is another defense that declawing doesn't completely remove. We allowed my cat in her younger days to go outdoors with us (she's 14 yr now) and my daughter and I witnessed her leap into the air and sn**ch a bird with her feet. Not bat it down, but literally trap her midair and hold on to it. Happily we rescued the bird before she hurt it and it flew away. She has captured numerous mice and chipmunks as well. Admittedly she has been lucky but in fact she has never come home with an abscess from fighting. So I take issue with the defenseless argument. I would much prefer to see the practice of ear cropping outlawed. I have in 47 plus years of practice cropped zero ears. I find no benefit to anyone but the ability to show a dog in a contest which for me is not enough to put them through that. The old story of floppy ears being more prone to infection is just not true, so for me this is the barbaric procedure. It doesn't afford the pet a better livability or save them a place in a home. Tail docking is another "elective" procedure and though I am not a fan and have performed them on puppies only rarely, there are some breeds that absolutely benefit from this procedure. When you get right down to it, spaying and neutering are elective procedures as well, which we do in the name of population control. In truth our spayed and neutered pets live longer and healthier lives as a result which more than justifies the surgery.

06/04/2018

New addition to our household! My daughter Noelle brought home Soffice, a green cheek conure. Our cat, Pasta, and our dog, Heather, have accepted "Feechay" with willing paws.

You may see Fice and Noelle at Valley Vet this summer! I am loving their extra help.

Valley Veterinary

06/13/2024

01/02/2024

06/16/2022

06/14/2021

01/14/2021

07/16/2020

01/26/2020

11/16/2018

06/04/2018

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