“Being a vet is not about liking animals, although it does help.”


Pizzles in Paradise is the story of John Hicks – English vet turned Kiwi vet. Taking the reader from the Yorkshire Dales to the Highlands of Scotland, and from the Norwegian Fjords to the wilds of New Zealand, including vet practices in Taranaki and Ashburton, it tells of childhood pranks, the trials of adolescence and courtship, the pains and rewards of emigration, and the sobering experience of facing serious illness.

More than a series of veterinary anecdotes, Pizzles in Paradise relates many aspects of a vet’s life, ranging from the grotesque to the hilarious, including the castration of Boris, a mature and frisky boar, the story of the horse whose leg “fell off”, and a $10,000 mistake with a deer.


John Hicks has been a practising veterinarian for over thirty years. After graduating from Liverpool University he and his young wife emigrated to New Zealand. For the last twenty-seven years he has embedded himself in rural Southland where he runs a mixed practice with two other partners and writes “Vet Talk” a fortnightly column in The Southland Times.