This is a place you hope you never need to visit. I've visited it once, and I hope I never have to go back. Yet it gets my highest rating.

It's an emergency vet clinic, and it's open all night and all weekend when your usual vet is closed. It's not a replacement for your local vet, because they don't do routine stuff here, such as vaccinations and sterilisations. It's an adjunct to your local vet.

If you're not sure whether your situation is an emergency, phone first and ask. They'll let you know whether your animal's problem can wait for a consultation at your local vet the next day, or whether you should come straight in. In fact, they recommend that you phone anyway. They don't make appointments - because they deal only with emergencies, they treat their patients in order of need, not in order of appointment time. However, they like to know you're on your way; I presume it's to assist with triage and to assemble whatever staff and equipment they might need to treat your pet as quickly as possible.

I discovered their existence when I picked up a leaflet from my local vet. I never thought I'd need it, but I took the leaflet home and stuck it on the fridge anyway. Can't hurt to keep it handy, I thought.

Within a few months I needed their services. Late one Saturday night my cat was unable to pee. He was going back and forth to his tray, squatting, whimpering in distress, but unable to produce anything.

I knew this was a medical emergency: apart from being excruciating, a blocked urethra can lead to irreversible kidney failure and death. After a moment's panic - it's 11pm Saturday night, where am I going to find a vet at this hour! - I remembered the leaflet on the fridge, and I phoned the clinic. Yes, it's an emergency, they said: you did the right thing by not waiting. Come straight over.

They anaesthetised my cat, put in a catheter to clear the blockage and drain the urine, and then monitored him for more than 24 hours to make sure he was passing clear urine after removing the catheter. They also took cultures to try and determine the cause of the blockage, and after he was discharged, they sent all of this information to my local vet so that my cat could receive follow-up treatment. They were absolutely professional, very skilled and gentle and caring with my cat, and they carefully explained to me the likely costs of the treatment before seeking approval to go ahead.

It's not cheap - I didn't get much change out of $1300 - but it was worth it because these vets saved my cat's life. He's now well and happy, albeit fairly bored with his dull prescription diet (Hill's C/D) that is designed to prevent crystals forming in his urine and again blocking his urethra.

He had one minor blockage six weeks after the first, during the transition period to the new diet, when I was still mixing it with his regular food to get him used to the taste. Fortunately, this second emergency happened during working hours, so my local vet was able to treat it. Fortunately, too, my cat produced some urine (albeit gritty with crystals, and bloodstained) immediately on arrival at the vet, so the blockage wasn't total and catheterisation wasn't necessary after all. Less trauma for him, less expense for me. Immediately after that, I switched my cat to a 100% C/D diet. Since then he has been symptom free, and regular urine tests performed by my local vet show that he is in excellent shape.

With luck, there won't be any further emergencies, but it's reassuring to know that if there are, there is an excellent vet not far away who can help, even if it's in the middle of the night, even if it's a Sunday, even if it's Christmas Day or Good Friday. That peace of mind is very important to me.

If you live anywhere near Essendon Airport, and you have pets, and you don't already know of a 24-hour vet, then I urge you to note down the details of this clinic and stick them on the fridge or on the wall near the phone.

Along with the phone number, make sure you include a map or some clear instructions on how to get there, because you don't want to be faffing around trying to find the clinic late at night when you have an animal screaming in pain in the back of the car. It's at Melway 16 C8, and if you have a recent edition of the Melway, the vet clinic is actually marked on the map. If not: enter the airport via the Matthews Avenue entrance on the west side, drive straight ahead down English St to its end, and turn right. The vet clinic is located in the main passenger terminal. Note that it's nowhere near the DFO Homemaker Centre complex on the south side of the airport; do NOT enter via the airport's south entrance. Stay on the freeway and go round to the Matthews Avenue side.

Approximate cost: $1274