Dr. Ellen Leonhardt earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and then her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Ross University in 1993. She has been a veterinarian at Animal General for three decades and the medical director for over 20 years. Several years ago Dr. Leonhardt also became the Area Medical Director for all of the Long Island VCA hospitals, ensuring the highest level of medical and surgical care throughout the region, as well as mentoring new doctors.

Dr. Leonhardt has many special interests including general surgery and internal medicine, wildlife medicine and surgery, and small mammal (rabbit, guinea pig, ferret, etc.) medicine and surgery; even the occasional small pet pig can call Animal General their home away from home. Dr. Leonhardt is well versed in stem cell therapy and has successfully treated over one hundred pets with this unique process.

Dr. Leonhardt loves to and has traveled the world (27 countries and counting) in the hopes of photographing wildlife and to enjoy different cultures of the world, and thus she is proud to care for the Long Island wildlife community and currently serves on the advisory board for Wildlife Center of Long Island. She also volunteers her time to Canine Companions for Independence performing PENN Hip radiographs for all dogs in their program.

Given all her extracurricular activities, Dr. Leonhard still finds time to nurture her hobbies and spends her free time building bird houses made out of recycled and found wood, gardening and obsessing over her goldfish pond. Many of the hundreds of birdhouses she has built have been sold during fundraisers for different non-profit organizations.

She currently lives with her two dogs (Finley and Rakka), one Cat (Darwin), two tortoises, many zebra finches and a goldfish pond.