Animal Welfare Professionals

I run a rescue and am constantly taking classes and attending seminars in animal welfare and running a non profit. One thing I really want to do is do a bit of shadowing of a veterinarian to learn some more smaller basic things like tips and tricks for getting animals to take medicine, insulin injections, and things like that. I am not in a program to be in the veterinary medical field thought. I know a lot of veterinarians have shadow programs if you are in vet tech school but if you are not where can you shadow or get some hands on practice with some basic things?

#EducationandTraining

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Sunny Levine
President
Sunny day rescue
GA
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Hi Sunny,

Great question!  I'm guessing that the best way to get experience would be to volunteer for your local shelter's  veterinary team?  They can always use help and when there's things that you're unable to do, they'll teach you if there's time.  Most of the things you're talking about would include shadowing the vet techs and not the veterinarian.  You might also ask to talk to the vet at the clinic you take your rescue's pets to about what you're hoping to learn and whether they'ed allow you to shadow and/or volunteer. 

I'm guessing you've found videos online but there's nothing like shadowing an experienced tech or vet... getting a pill into a cat without a lot of stress is probably one of the skills i'm most proud of :)

Sheila

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Sheila Segurson, DVM, DACVB
Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorist
Director of Community Solutions
Maddie's Fund
Pleasanton CA
9258608284
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I honestly would just reach out to your local veterinarians to see if you could come shadow for a couple hours at their clinics. What you're looking for is way less involved than what they would offer in the vet tech shadow programs which I imagine are more like short term internships. I remember shadowing at one of my local clinics for a couple hours when I was in 8th grade so I don't think it would hurt to just call, email, or even show up in person to your shelters to just ask.

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Laurel Nelson
Cat Welfare Supervisor
Nebraska Humane Society
NE
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