Get ready for teeth, claws and heart-pounding action in an adventure through the wild outback of Western Australia with Desert Vet when it premieres this Wednesday.
Narrated by 60 Minutes correspondent Charles Wooley, this four-part documentary series follows Dr Rick Fenny, a 70-year-old career veterinarian famously known as the real-life vet to the legendary Red Dog – the friendly kelpie-cross who lived his life hitching rides and travelling throughout WA’s north, adventures that inspired a book and two acclaimed feature films.
Together with Rick’s marine biologist son Ed Fenny and his veterinarian daughter, Dr Louisa Fenny, viewers will encounter touching, real-life animal and human stories through their generational lens.
From loveable pets and their colourful owners to deadly stonefish and endangered whale sharks, most of the drama unfolds at a vet hospital that never sleeps and a remote conservational aquarium situated on the edge of the world.
Desert Vet series co-creator, Matty Roberts, promises a cinematic journey across the magnificent north-west region of WA like no other.
“It’s like Dr Pol meets Mad Max, Bondi Vet meets Outback Wrangler, with an incredibly diverse vision of Western Australia’s land and sea as its backdrop,” he says.
In the premiere episode, Rick and Ed Fenny wrangle with sharks in the aptly named and magnificent Shark Bay. At the Karratha veterinary hospital, a critically injured bulldog requires decisive action. Meanwhile a gecko gets a cage makeover to combat depression and a rescued thorny devil is re-released safely into the wild.
Desert Vet is a series co-created and directed by Matty Roberts and Joshua Capelin of Projucer, in partnership with Australian cinematographer Tim Small.
