Vet’s dedication to her patients, city boundless

Jane G. Linden, a veterinarian who owns the Providence River Animal Hospital, loves the city where she lives and works.
She’s proven her dedication by renovating a dilapidated shop in Providence’s former Jewelry District into a modern animal hospital – and by the number of charitable events she regularly sponsors to help the indigent and their pets.
And although the New Jersey native and Brown University graduate says she can’t imagine leaving the state capital, she cannot help but toy with the idea. “Providence is a great city,” she said, “except for taxes.”
Her property tax bill for the animal hospital on Point Street increased by $5,000 in 2010. This is only for her business; she pays taxes on her residence in the city as well.
“It is a terrible situation for property owners and businesses,” she said. “I don’t understand how the state thinks it can foster business by having the small businesses – the little, puny businesses – bear the entire burden” while larger corporations take advantage of tax credits and loopholes not available to smaller enterprises.
In the last few years, her business has sponsored open houses to raise money for charitable animal causes, including the Companion Animal Foundation – a Rhode Island Veterinary Medical Association program that provides funds for animal care to people who cannot afford it otherwise. Linden took over the association’s presidency and has a strong interest in continuing to help the indigent.
Twice a year she visits schools in the city, usually in South Providence, with her two dogs, Raisin and Lily, to help educate children about the joys and responsibilities of having pets. “Some of these kids have never touched a dog before,” she said. Linden and her staff regularly help out at McAuley House, a charitable organization operated by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy. “It’s a great cause. They do so many wonderful things in this city, very quietly, under the radar,” she said. Linden and an associate treated about 25 cats and dogs at a clinic for McAuley clients that she sponsored in a tent in the agency’s Elmwood Avenue parking lot.
Working with Rev. Mary Margaret Earl, administrator of McAuley House, she held a fundraiser to establish a permanent fund to provide veterinary care to McAuley House clients, raising $2,500 to set it up.
Many indigent clients she sees found their pets abandoned in the street. They adopted them, took care of them and now, “the pets have become their companions and they love them,” she said.
Linden earned her veterinary degree in a four-year program at Tufts University near Boston and served a one-year internship at an animal hospital in Springfield, Mass., before opening the Providence River Animal Hospital in 2004. She has been a veterinarian for 12 years and her approximately 3,000 clients are mostly from the Providence area.
Linden makes a point of noting that she does not give free pet care. “I wish we could,” she said. “We will help people finds ways to fund the care, and we work with clients to figure out what kind of care they can afford.”
She employs five people and pointedly noted that she would hire more “if our taxes weren’t so high.
“I like the mayor, and I’d love to talk to him about how he can help us stay in the city,” Linden quickly added. But, “I need to have a good incentive to stay.” &#8226

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