WELCOME TO PEACE LOVE PETS VETERINARY CARE. Peace Love Pets Veterinary Care is a full service veterinary clinic that offers the best care with the utmost compassion.  We offer general practice services as well as specialty internal medicine expertise.

Our Staff:

Ms. Janita Camano, LVT

Ms. Michele Alier: reception

Ms. Joanne Toner: reception and office manager

Ms Laura Staffa: Administrator

Ms. Neli Zuluaga: veterinary assistant

Ms. Yennifer Flores

Dr. Kristen Andersen

Dr. Diane Levitan

WELCOME TO PEACE LOVE PETS VETERINARY CARE. Peace Love Pets Veterinary Care is a full service veterinary clinic that offers the best care with the utmost compassion. We offer general practice services as well as specialty internal medicine expertise.

The founder, Dr. Diane Monsein Levitan has over 20 years of veterinary medical experience. She has received worldwide recognition as founder and first owner of the Center for Specialized Veterinary Care and The Compassionate Care Center, the world’s first veterinary referral hospital to allow human owners to stay with their pets overnight. Founded in 2002, the Centers represented Dr. Levitan’s vision to build a model hospital that would encompass all aspects of advanced veterinary medicine, including 24-hour emergency care as well as address the intellectual and emotional needs of pet owners. After selling the Center, Dr. Levitan began Helping Promote Animal Welfare, Inc (Helping PAW)- a 501 (c)(3) tax exempt public charity. Helping PAW is dedicated to ending pet overpopulation through education of the public and by providing high volume, high quality, targeted, affordable sterilization services of unowned and companion animals and to subsidize care for animals whose owners are on government assistance. After 2 years without client patient relationships, Dr. Levitan decided it was time to practice full service medicine again, and in June of 2010, she purchased American Animal Hospital and transformed it into what it is now, Peace Love Pets Veterinary Care.

An accomplished Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Levitan’s expertise spans all aspects of veterinary internal medicine. A board certified specialist in small animal internal medicine, she has also performed clinical research; lectured and taught courses in ultrasound, endoscopy and laparoscopy; published in veterinary textbooks and journals; and serves as a consultant for many businesses. Recently, Dr. Levitan has been sharing her expertise around the globe by offering volunteer spay/neuter and veterinary services in remote areas of the Dominican Republic and Bahamas. She is one of a team of international veterinary internal medicine consultants for Antech Diagnostics, a veterinary diagnostic laboratory.

Dr. Levitan is a member of the Nassau County Medical Reserve Corps, the American College of Hyperbaric Medicine, Fair Media Council and many other organizations that allow her to add to her profession and her community. She was the Chief Medical Officer of PetWatch, Inc. and currently acts as a veterinary medicine and business consultant as well as a media veterinarian. She has been appointed to the Board for Veterinary Medicine by the New York State Board of Regents. She is a member of the American Society of Veterinary Journalists and a member of the Veterinary News Network; is an advisor and contributor of educational video segments to PetStyle.com, a contributor to ThePetStyleBlogSpot as well as Newsday’s Long Island Parent’s and Children’s, Elements and Boulevard magazines and NBC’s PetSide.com . Dr. Levitan is co-host of Petliferadio.com’s The Pet Doctor and is a frequent guest on Day Break USA syndicated radio as well as many other radio and television shows.

Dr. Levitan’s centers have been featured nationally and internationally on Fox News and NBC Nightly News, The Today Show and several others. She is known as the expert media veterinarian in this region and is proud to continue to present news, perform interviews and be interviewed in a responsible manner in the best interest of people and their pets. For examples, see our in the news section of this web site.

Dr. Levitan graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with high honors from the University of Michigan and earned her veterinary degree at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Veterinary Medicine, also with honors. She has received accolades from many organizations such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, New York State Veterinary Medical Society, University of Pennsylvania Alumni Award, voted Woman of Distinction by Distinction Magazine and was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a third time honoree as one of the 50 Most Influential Women on Long Island, by Newsday’s Long Island Business News.

Dr. Levitan loves working in Commack and feels especially fulfilled every day by being able to help so many animals and their people! Providing the care, attention and expertise that animals and their families need and deserve is the most rewarding privilege any veterinarian can hope for!

Dr. Kristen Andersen is a wonderful person and veterinarian and we are so pleased that she has joined our team at Peace Love Pets Veterinary Care as an associate veterinarian. Dr. Andersen graduated from Hofstra University in 2001 with a B.S. in Biochemistry. She received her Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 2006. Dr. Andersen has completed preceptorships in shelter medicine at the ASPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and emergency medicine at County Animal Clinic in Westchester NY.

Eager to pursue further training, she completed an internship in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery at Fifth Avenue Veterinary Specialists in New York City in 2007. She quickly developed a passion for emergency medicine and critical care. She worked as an emergency doctor for two years at Animal Specialty Center in Yonkers, N.Y. During that time she handled traumatic injuries (Hit-By-Cars, high rises, burns, lacerations, pneumothorax, choking), toxicities, respiratory emergencies, heart failure, proptosed eyes, severe anemias (immune mediated anemias), pyometras, diabetic ketoacidosis, seizures, intervertebral disk disease, head trauma, urethral obstructions (blocked cats), renal failures, gastro-dilatation volvulus (twisted stomachs), shock and severe electrolyte abnormalities. While in Yonkers she served on the Board for Yonkers Humane Society and HEAL (Humans Enriching Animals Lives).

Although emergency work was her passion, she wanted to give back to the community and provide quality medicine for all animals so she accepted a position as a staff veterinarian at North Shore Animal League in the fall of 2009.  Dr. Andersen truly believes that every animal deserves the highest-quality veterinary care and to be treated with compassion, patience and dignity.

Feeling like she needed to connect more with animals and their people, she decided to accept a position at private practice in East Islip, New York. She thoroughly enjoyed helping her patients and educating her clients on all the options they had to care for their pets. She is a firm believer in preventative medicine and the human-animal bond. Dr. Andersen participates in many low-cost spay neuter programs to promote animal welfare and help end overpopulation.

Dr. Andersen is very excited to be a part of the compassionate team at Peace Love Pets Veterinary Care. She is looking forward to providing superior care to all of her new patients and their families.