Equine Hospital Seeburg GmbH

A strong heart and a wealth of expertise

Despite the idyllic surroundings, the infrastructure could hardly be better: Set in the Havelland district on the western fringes of Berlin, between Potsdam and Falkensee, is Pferdeklinik Seeburg – one of the leading centres for equine medicine in Germany. In addition to striving to make its four-legged patients feel comfortable, the hospital has also created an atmosphere that sets the horses’ owners at ease. The warm orange tone on the hospital’s ubiquitous logo also adorns the buildings in Seeburg. A warm, welcoming reception area and a cafeteria complete with a wooden veranda and pond offer a pleasant setting for owners to wait. Though it might resemble a holiday destination at first glance, the site is actually a state-of-the-art equine hospital.

This spot on the edge of the Döberitzer Heide nature reserve has been home to the Pferdeklinik Seeburg since 2005. Even then, the hospital enjoyed an exceptional reputation – doubtless due in large part to the man at the helm, equine specialist and FEI veterinarian Dr Andreas Faulstich, who founded the hospital in 1995. Today, more than 35 dedicated staff ensure the wellbeing of the patients at Seeburg. The equine hospital, structured as a limited liability company (GmbH), is now led by a trio of partners, who are in turn supported by seven salaried vets, student assistants, specialist office staff, veterinary assistants and stable staff.

Our services for you:

• the hospital covers 23,000 square metres
• 33 spacious box stalls
• patients including both warmbloods and a number of Icelandic horses, brought from as far afield as Poland and the Baltic Sea, to Saxony to the south and Hamburg to the west
• a specific examination room and four box stalls for intensive care
• stalls suitable for stallions and others for mares and their foals
• a second stable building houses three hermetically sealed isolation stalls, each separated by walls
• an examination hall with riding and lunging spaces and a performance area
• four box stalls for outpatient cases
• a special loading ramp with openings for both trailers and trucks
• a therapy chamber for simultaneous treatmeant of two horses with respiratory conditions
• equine scales

A workshop, computer workstations and a spacious seminar room available for training sessions are all housed in a separate building. Naturally, meeting rooms are also available and allow the staff to explain even complex issues to their patients’ owners using modern technologies and specimens. For Andreas Faulstich, whose dogs are ever-present at his side, honesty is the most important aspect. “We never try to sell unnecessary treatments. It’s part of our success,” he says with conviction.

One of the specialisms of this holistically minded equine hospital and referral clinic is colic surgery – which, in addition to internal medicine, osteosynthesis and foal medicine, is a particular focus of another specialist veterinarian at Seeburg, Marlis Gronenberg. Dr Andreas Faulstich’s areas of specialism are sports medicine, orthopaedics, clinical diagnostics to ascertain the causes of lameness, diseases and disorders of the spine, eyes and respiratory system, as well as the application of shockwave therapy. The hospital’s third partner, Dr Dirk Köhler, primarily oversees outpatient cases, focusing on dental treatments among other areas. Seeburg’s mobile veterinary service comprises six vehicles with a full complement of tools and equipment. The hospital also boasts impressive diagnostic capabilities, ranging from in-house laboratory testing to ECGs, endoscopies, magnetic resonance therapy, ultrasound scans, cardiac examinations and computed tomography. The latter diagnostic technique is further facilitated by special ball-bearing technology that Dr Faulstich helped to develop.

The Pferdeklinik Seeburg attaches the utmost importance to teamwork. “I love my work and I love my team,” says Faulstich. A resident of Babelsberg, a district of Potsdam south-west of the German capital, Faulstich considers himself a true Berliner. Each member of the hospital’s team has their own areas of specialism, attends advanced training suited to their needs, and shares their expertise with the team in brief presentations. The staff also discuss purchases and acquisitions as a team. Veterinary rounds take place twice daily, with ‘grand rounds’ held every Monday; this ensures the staff are in constant commu-
nication and benefit from a continuous transfer of knowledge. What’s more, the team gather together to relax and celebrate at the hospital’s annual summer and Christmas parties.

Andreas Faulstich first started riding as a young boy and, though he subsequently focused on other things, his passion for horses was reignited as a student. While studying at the Freie Universität Berlin, he also worked as a student assistant – at the FU’s equine hospital, of course. From there, his career path was linear: He became a vet at the age of just 24 and launched his own mobile veterinary practice in 1989 – “with an old, second-hand VW and an office comprising a typewriter and filing cards,” he remembers with a smile. Then, in 1995, he founded his first clinic, where his modern-day partners were originally his assistants. While all this is true, Andreas Faulstich could well have been a film star. In fact, he once was, and he has a deer of his own to prove it – the golden-bronze deer on his Bambi Award, which he won for playing the leading role in Peter ist der Boss, a children’s television series in the 1970s. “I’m the only vet with a Bambi and an Oscar,” he laughs. Oscar, of course, is his son’s name. Faulstich spends as much time with his son as his work permits – and is also a dab hand in the kitchen.

Speaking of cooking: Pferdeklinik Seeburg produces its own line of feed supplements, developed by Andreas Faulstich himself, which have been available to buy online since 2019.
A bright idea from the boss; it certainly won’t be his last.