Dr. Cliff Redford has run the Wellington Veterinary Hospital in Markham, Ontario for over 25 years. He has also spent years volunteering internationally: treating stray dogs in Egypt, performing surgery on animals in Jamaica, rescuing birds and monkeys in India, and responding to the animal welfare crisis at the Poland-Ukraine border during the war. Dr. Cliff: Worldwide Vet follows him and his daughter Emily through two weeks in Hyderabad, India, working alongside People For Animals, the largest volunteer-run animal rescue organization in the country. What unfolds is raw and unscripted: stray dogs with maggot wounds, a Rhesus monkey injured in a road accident requiring jaw surgery, a potential rabies case, kite-festival injuries to birds and bats, and two career-first surgeries performed in a single day using the most basic available equipment. Nothing is sanitized. The joy and the heartbreak both make it to screen in real time. The series won Best Documentary Feature and Best Nature Film at the Onira Film Awards in New York, received a standing ovation at its premiere, and is distributed through PBS and TVO Docs.

Why This Film Matters: India has the highest rate of human rabies deaths in the world, directly linked to an uncontrolled stray dog population that no authority has adequately addressed. The animals Dr. Cliff treats are not pets with owners. They are the visible consequence of urban poverty, inadequate infrastructure, and the gap between animal welfare policy and reality on the ground. The series also raises something less obvious: what it means for a Western-trained veterinarian to work inside another country's systems rather than above them, collaborating with local organizations who know their community rather than parachuting in with solutions. For younger audiences increasingly engaged with global inequality, animal rights, and the question of what meaningful cross-border solidarity looks like, this series models an approach that is hands-on, humble, and genuinely impactful.