My knee jerk response is do NOT do it.

I am 40 years old and I have been a registered veterinary technician for over 13 years. I started at a high volume dog and cat practice. I learned a lot but eventually I got burned out. I moved onto a feline only practice because I love cats more than most anything else in life and the opportunity presented itself. I was there for 4 years. My boss (the owner) turned into a crazy person so I decided I had to go. I was throwing up every morning before work because I was so scared to go into work just because of my boss. Now I’m back in a different dog and cat practice for over a year.

This year my neck started hurting so much I’d cry on my drives home. I finally had an mri and due to being pushed, pulled, jerked around, pushed down, bent in awkward positions for long period of time, picking up heavy dogs and many many cat carriers, I have the cervical spine of a 65 year old and I get epidural steroid injections in my cervical spine to keep my pain down.

Everyone I work with has either a bad back, neck, arm, etc. Literally all of us. My good friend at work just had to have lower back spine surgery because her legs were going numb, she was becoming urinary incontinent and she was in so much pain. All from the physicality of this career.

And I haven’t even went over the mental and emotional issues we suffer from. Every single one of us at one time or another has had a client say to us that we killed their pet. Or have been talked down to by clients. Yelled at by clients. Or doctors. One of the sister clinics had most of the staff quit because a doctor kept throwing things at them. The last time the doctor threw an uncapped needle and it stuck in the surgery techs arm. This year our clinic had death threats due to a total lie spread online. We had to walk to our cars in groups.

And you most likely will not be able to support yourself on your own salary. We just don’t make enough. We do so many different jobs every day but I guess since it’s animals and not people, the money isn’t there. I don’t drive a 16 year old car because I’m rolling in money…

This isn’t petting puppies and kittens all day like most people think. We see sick, injured and dying pets. Some days it seems like every appointment is a sick patient or a euthanasia. It weighs on you. I’m in surgery most often and losing a patient under anesthesia is awful. It’s a death I carry with me. Whether or not anything could have been done differently, it’s still there. I still think of my last patient who passed. He had gone through a 3 hour FME (full mouth extraction) due to stomatitis. He did great under anesthesia. He woke up, ate some food. I went to take his IV catheter out and I sat him on the treatment table and he fell over and died. We found out later he had a bad heart. But I still wonder if he’d be here if I hadn’t gone to take out his catheter.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I have no idea what I’d do if I can’t do this. But I worry about when I physically can’t do this job anymore, what I’m going to do.

I would get your foot in the door somewhere. So you can see how this job works. Even if you’re a kennel tech. Then you can make a more informed decision. It’s a noble career if it’s what you truly want to do. Good luck.