Zug

It is the beginning of June 2023, and after having worked over the past 4 years, among a number of places, in the “City of Stone” (and timber)(Sundsvall in Sweden), the “Gateway to the Arctic Sea”(and to the most Northern brewery) (Tromsø in Norway), the “City of Granite” (and – of course – oil) (Aberdeen in Scotland), I am finding myself now in the “City of …….Washing Machines” ( and of alpine commerce) in Zug in Switzerland.

Wedged with its own tiny canton between the financial powerhouse of Zurich in the North and the beautiful setting of Lucerne and its Lake (Vierwaldstätter See) in the South, this alpine back water transformed itself over the last 100 years from a small fishing village, first to the production site of high end domestic appliances (V-Zug) and then to a magnet for all sorts of both domestic and international companies and institutions. If you can’t afford to have a production site here, then at least you want to place the name of your company somewhere on a letterbox in this place .

With a corporation tax rate of only 11.9 % (compared to 21% in Bern and 25% in London), it is no great surprise that investors from all over the world are calling this place their home, resulting in unaffordable property prices and ….in a shortage of veterinary services.

The only place offering veterinary care right in the town is – very much in tune with the economic heritage of the place – located on “Industry Lane” (Industriestrasse), right next to the huge and very modern household appliances plant . A – now derelict – factory railway track is running 10 meters away from my consulting room window.

The refridgerators, washing machines and dishwashers in every respectable household here and even in the veterinary clinic feature the “V-Zug” logo.

But – as we are in Switzerland – you will struggle to find here a smoking chimney, a dirty truck or even workers in oil stained overalls. Everything appears ultramodern , designed and built with high quality materials, spacious and possibly a little bit too tidy and organised for my liking…..

Along with Zug’s cosmopolitan residents are coming their pets, with clinical histories and colourful travel accounts from all over the Globe.

There is the anaemic rescue dog from a shelter in Romania, the cat with a mutilated tail from Indonesia, the well travelled Weimeraner with a severe food intolerance from Southern California, the Chihuahua with its damaged toes caused by an escalator in Rio de Janeiro, the Chow Chow with its poorly fixed bilateral entropion from Singapore and the anxious sheep dog from the West Coast of Ireland that actually hates to travel…..

Every second pet here has a non-native owner and despite being in Switzerland, I am conducting more consulations in English than in the for me still challenging Swiss German.

But, in many ways, it is Virginia Water all over again!…….

Thrown in with the package is a beautifully designed and spacious veterinary clinic, a team of well trained and motivated veterinary nurses,

plus a professional dog groomer with her own studio on the same premises and a short distance away from the practice, a lake with a beach, plus – very important for me – a couple of 6000+ ft mountains with a lot of hiking trails…..

Now, who can blame me for wanting to spend this summer here ?!……