Dr. William Lien established Lien Animal Clinic as one of the first veterinary hospitals in West Seattle in 1951.
On Sunday, the clinic celebrated 60 years in service and invited their clients in to enjoy cake and refreshments while they provided activities and information about the clinic and its services.

But back to the history for a moment. Dr. Larry King joined the staff with Dr. Lien in 1968, and subsequently owned the practice for 18 years. He then continued to work at the clinic as an associate veterinarian until his retirement in 2007.

Drs. Timothy Kraabel and Elizabeth Fritzler, both WSU graduates, purchased Lien Animal Clinic from Dr. King in February of 1999 and are currently joined at the practice by Drs. Benjamin Fisher, Kristin Wrycha, Marc Duyungan, and Jody Zawacki.

After purchasing the clinic, the Kraabels dreamed of replacing the current hospital and searched for a suitable site in West Seattle for a new clinic that was convenient, affordable, and appropriately zoned to allow an animal hospital. When no such site could be found, they decided to make the best use of their current site. Jeff Clark and his team from Architectural Werks was selected as the architect for a new building to be constructed on the back parking lot. Corstone Construction broke ground in February of 2009 and the new building was completed in August 2009.

Dr, Kraabel said, "I like that the place has roots. I'm the third owner in 60 years and I've been part of it for 20 years. I like that I know the two guys that owned it before. Everybody put their mark on it and where we are today was built on what these guys did before. It's always been a very busy, very thorough practice and I think it has sustained itself that way."

Today the clinic employs 35 people and has six doctors on staff.

The relationship with West Seattle has never wavered, it has only grown Kraabel said, "It's always been really entrenched in the community. It's a West Seattle icon." They have many thousands of clients.

Still, Lien has clients that are from outside the immediate area some coming from Tacoma and even as far away as Sequim and North Bend. "There are people you develop a relationship with and they want to maintain that."

The clinic has seen it's share of unusual patients and cases in it's time. "Dr. Fisher works on reptiles so we see a few turtles and I worked on a goldfish once but sadly that case did not turn out well," said Dr. Kraabel.

Kraabel said last week he had to remove some artificial flowers from a dog. The wires had damaged his intestines but the doctor managed to recover them and the patient is now "doing well". "We see animals that have gone after something and jumped out a second story window, and we see lots of bunnies, ferrets, hamsters and guinea pigs and I took a tumor once off a two inch mouse. We had to make a little tiny cone that would hook up to our anesthesia machine, that's kind of unusual.

During the event the staff provided:
Tours of the clinic
A teddy bear clinic (bring in your broken teddy bear and we’ll stitch 'em up)
Photo of your pet
Teeth Brushing/Dentistry demonstrations
Ultrasound Demonstrations
Client Education
Complimentary refreshments
Prizes and giveaways