I feel like more students end up with an animal from junior surgery than an animal from the vth.
Hey just throwing in my 2 cents but the above is accurate. It's a scenario-dependent situation. I adopted a teaching beagle who was 9 years old and was going to be retired however, the only reason I was able to adopt him was because a wonderful technician offered to foster him for me and potty-train him. If I hadn't had her I wouldn't have been able to take him because I didn't have the time to potty-train a geriatric dog in block 1 of vet school (anatomy!). She ended up having him for about 3.5 months too so that was a long time and we discovered some underlying health problems (idiopathic epilepsy and B1 CHF) so that added another difficulty to this whole process. I brought my cat and bird and there was some stuff where my cat went to go live with my long-term boyfriend for a while because my housemate's cats and him were not getting along and it wasn't fair. My bird I also felt bad for because I felt there were times she wasn't getting enough attention. My balancing act has come with time and I wouldn't change anything about it! My animals have been so important for my mental health (my beagle is just the happiest dog in the world, my cat is a snuggle monster, and my birb and I have lovely conversations and watch tv together) and they force me to take breaks from school! One thing that needs to be mentioned though is I was very nervous about how I would handle all of them during my clinical year and I'm so lucky that my bf is able to move in with me during my clinical year so he will be taking a lot of that responsibility on during that year but that's something a lot of 4th years end up needing to pay someone to help them with. So mental health for yourself is important and if a pet will help that that's wonderful but you have to make sure they're there to just live and have a good time and not be locked up until you need them (not insinuating you would it's just sometimes school gets so stressful they fall by the wayside). Good luck
Most of my classmates have pets. It is manageable for sure.
I have a friend that took a large breed dog from the US to RVC, and another friend that brought 2 dogs from England to the US. I believe they both had to start the process several months in advance to avoid quarantine. The specific steps may depend on the country you’re wanting to move to or it may all be the same for the UK (no idea). But any local vet (to you) that has the ability to sign health certificates will likely know the process or have a staff member that is knowledgeable.
(I almost guarantee they won’t actually know the process specifically for the UK and will have to look it up on the APHIS website)
It must depend on the clinic. I worked in a practice that did a lot of international health certificates (military city) and we had a receptionist that was super knowledgeable and organized things. If she hadn’t done a specific country before she would look it up but that was rare.
Yeahhhh military is a whole different ballgame. Most vets don’t do domestic health certificates that frequently, let alone an international one.
First through third year were fine. 4th year rotations are super variable. It is pretty bad when you start looking at a 60 hour week as relatively easy and I can take care of myself and maybe my pets. My dogs are currently staying with my wife and kids since I can't care for them pretty much for the rest of 4th year. My cat is too much of a jerk to inflict on my family, so she just has to deal* with variable breakfast and dinner times.
You can look it up here
www.aphis.usda.gov
To clarify, it’s a standard general practice in a city with a lot of military, not a military-specific clinic. And we did quite a few domestic and international health certs, both military and non-military related. A second clinic I worked in (in a different city) also did some international, though not quite as many. If the OP calls around, he/she can find someone that knows something.
I figured it was not a military specific clinic, but when you have a large military presence with a lot of people in the military who have to move frequently with their pets, you definitely start to know the process more. My vet got maybe one or two domestic travel certificates a year and the whole time I was working there, the closest thing we ever had to international was Hawaii.
My clinic does a lot of them, and we still look it up because regulations change. We make owners read rules on the APHIS website too.
