I am not stalking Dr. Karen Overall!!!

I am just making this statement as my staff think I am. Hey, when the goddess of veterinary animal behaviour sends you an email asking you to help out with a Masterclass at the NAVC Conference,you tend to go. (Bonus was going to Orlando during our Canadian winter!!) It was a low-stress handling lab and boy, was it fun!!! The two board certified veterinary behaviourists running the course were Dr. Karen Overall and Dr. Martin Godbout (a Canadian!) and a great trainer, Pat Miller. There were six of us who were asked to help out during the full day seminar. Three of us were behaviour residents and the other vets had a lot of experience in behaviour from Dr. Overall's course at the NAVC Institute. There were 50 students accepted into the class and we were hopping all day. We were either presenting, helping the students with their training or doing demonstrations (My kong filler can basically blew up while I was demonstrating how to properly fit a Gentle Leader. Luckily the dog thought it was great!).

We are watching a group give a demonstration on how they taught the cat to lay on its back for an ultrasound (the things you can do with baby food as a treat!)

From left to right: Dr. Karen Overall, Dr. Martin Godbout and Pat Miller. Watching the demonstrations of the dogs at the end of the seminar. Only one was left standing.

Pierrette, Colleen and I. Its a small world cause it turns out that Colleen's sister is a client of mine. I wish I could have seen my face when Colleen said she knew exactly where Okotoks was even though she is doing her behaviour residency in Ottawa.

Martin is like the big brother I never had.

Fiia and Steve are also part of what we are starting to call "the tribe". A group of veterinarians who are just crazy about behaviour and figuring out how to make our pets' lives easier whether at the veterinary clinic, home or out in public.

Other than my mother, this woman has had such an incredible impact on my life and how I practice veterinary medicine. Dr. Overall is a complete inspiration.

Student again!!!

I have always been fascinated by animal behaviour. It is my true passion in veterinary medicine. This spring I found a board certified veterinary behaviourist, Dr. Diane Frank, who is going to mentor me through my non-conforming residency. Yup, I am going to be a student again!!!!

For those of you who don't know what a non-conforming residency is, I will try to give you the short form of how I plan on accomplishing this. (The proposed program I sent to the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists was 26 pages long!) I will still be practicing general practice veterinary medicine at my hospital; however, Dr. Frank will be coming out once a month for three or four days at a time to oversee my initial cases.

Here's how my caseload works. She will be present for the first 25 cases and then she will be present for 25 of the next 50 cases. There will be varying amounts of supervision as we progress through my minimum of 400 cases. Not only will I be seeing dogs and cats, but horses, birds and zoo animals. This is going to take me about five years. If I were to go to a university with a behaviour residency program it would take about 2 to 3 years. The thought of leaving my patients, clients, work family and, of course, my patient husband, just doesn't work. As well, I will be writing a paper based on research I will be doing that will be published in a peer reviewed journal. I also will find the time to write three peer-reviewed case reports. Once I have completed my program, I will be apply to sit for the boards. This is a two day test (not stressful at all!). Upon passing, I will be board certified in animal behaviour.

Now, during this process, I will still be practicing veterinary medicine as usual. I would likely go absolutely mad if I couldn't. I will also continue to do general medicine once I am a specialist. Being able to help my patients to have a great experience at the hospital is so fulfilling as is helping my scaredy cats and dogs learn to relax.