Far and Wild: Inside the New Memoir From the Worldwide Vet

Far and Wild: Inside the New Memoir From the Worldwide Vet

Dr. Cliff Redford has treated a crocodile in Jamaica, a monkey in India, and dogs in a war zone. His new memoir asks a bigger question than any of those cases: what do you actually owe this profession once you have the license?

Far and Wild publishes September 15, 2026, from ECW Press. This is an advance look built from the publisher's synopsis and early reader reactions ahead of release, not a page-by-page reading of the finished book.

The Setup

You know the type of vet who cannot sit still even in their own words. Dr. Cliff Redford, known online and on Canadian television as the Worldwide Vet, built a solid, ordinary career at Wellington Veterinary Hospital in Markham, Ontario after graduating from the Ontario Veterinary College in 1998. Far and Wild is the story of everything that happened once ordinary stopped being enough. He started spending his own vacation time and his own money flying toward animals in trouble instead of away from work. Athens. Egypt. India. Jamaica. Ukraine, mid-war. The book is his attempt to explain why, and what it cost and gave him along the way.

The premise alone should sell most vets in this community. It is a rare thing to find a memoir that treats clinical detail as part of the storytelling instead of something to gloss over for a general audience. Early readers describe Dr. Cliff walking through the actual techniques and procedures he used to diagnose and treat patients most of us will never see in a small animal practice, a one-eyed crocodile nicknamed Jack, a monkey in crisis in India, animals caught in an active war zone. That specificity is what separates a genuine field memoir from a highlight reel, and it is the detail vet readers will actually care about.

The Emotional Core

Several advance reviewers point to the same thing: the book does not flinch from the hard parts of this work. Charmaine Brett of the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society described it as one of the most honest portrayals of animal welfare work she has encountered, one that sits with the exhaustion and heartbreak of the job rather than skipping past it, while still leaving room for humor and connection. National Post columnist Adam Zivo made a similar point about the Ukraine sections specifically, noting that Redford gives readers a fresh angle on a conflict already covered from every conventional direction by centering the animals most coverage leaves out. That combination, unflinching honesty paired with genuine warmth, is a hard needle to thread in a memoir, and it sounds like the reason so many early readers are responding to this one.

Who Should Read It

This is an easy recommend for vet students still deciding what shape their career should take, and for any early-career vet quietly wondering if there is a version of this job that looks nothing like a nine-to-five. It also works as a gift for the client-facing side of your world, front desk staff, techs, and pet owners who love a good animal story and have no idea how far the license behind your name can actually travel.

The Vet Candy Verdict

Far and Wild is shaping up to be one of the more interesting vet memoirs in recent memory, built on a genuinely unusual career and backed by early praise from people whose opinions on animal welfare storytelling carry real weight. Preorder it now in paperback, ePub, or PDF ahead of the September 15, 2026 release, and expect to see it back on our radar once copies are actually in hand. Five paws up! Pre-order your copy here: https://ecwpress.com/products/far-and-wild