This week I’ve done brain surgery, spinal surgery, elbow surgery, knee surgery and a fracture that took 14 hours to fix. By the end, everything ached. I empathise with my patients, for sure. You feel connected to the universe, helping to prolong the lives of animals.
People say, “I’ve got a knee problem, a back problem. Can you operate on me?” If I did, I’d lose my licence.
I grew up on a farm in Ireland. I was lambing sheep from the age of seven. I remember losing a lamb as young child. I lay on the grass, looked up to heaven and wished I’d been better. When I got into Led Zeppelin, I imagined there was an actual stairway to heaven. I built a superhero in my head called Vet Man, who would save the world, and set about getting myself educated.
We often put on the radio and television for the animals. They like the tennis because it’s repetitive. Dogs like to watch other dogs or horses. They prefer jazz or opera. They don’t like heavy metal, like I do.
I’ve wanted to be Brian May since I was 10. I remember once standing on a bale of hay, playing a broom handle. My father asked what I was doing. I said: “I’m playing guitar.” He said: “There’ll be no guitar around here,” then he handed me a saw to chop the horns off some cattle.
Two years ago, Brian May came to my live show, Beyond Supervet. He’s got a wildlife centre and is very sweet. He said: “Wouldn’t it be funny if you pulled out a guitar?” I told him I couldn’t play and he said it’s not that hard. I said, “How about I give you a scalpel and say: ‘Put a bionic leg on that dog? How hard can it be?’”
Brian actually taught me a song, then I got myself a guitar teacher and my band, Fitzpatrick, played the Isle of Wight festival last year. He told me to name the band Fitzpatrick. I told him it was a crap name. He said: “That’s funny. I had the same conversation with Eddie Van Halen.”
Just because animals speak in a language that we can’t understand, it doesn’t mean they can’t communicate. I think in the next couple of decades we’ll be able translate the language of dolphins, elephants and even down to the humble bee.
I went to drama school because I wanted to learn how to communicate. I did Heartbeat, The Bill, Casualty… I was up for Ballykissangel, but Colin Farrell got the role. When he did The Penguin, he sent me a note saying: “But for a quirk of fate, I could have been a very good vet, but I ended up a penguin.”
If I have one function on planet Earth, it’s to act as a conduit for more kindness to animals. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t be an a-hole. Be somebody who gives a damn about this world we live in. Animals have as much right to it as we do.
Dogs and Their Humans: Stories of Healing and Hope from the Supervet’s Surgery by Noel Fitzpatrick is out on 12 March. Buy it for £8.99 from guardianbookshop.com
