Shadowing a Vet: Getting Kids Involved at an Early Age

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Job shadowing is one of the best ways to learn if a job or activity is a good fit for you long before you have to get the education or put the work in. Veterinarians work one of the most interesting jobs in society, and are a great resource for education, especially for kids. 

 

If you want your kids to learn more about the natural world and give them a chance to learn hands-on about animal care, there's nothing better than a job shadowing a vet.

 

Here's how to get your kids involved and how to tell if it's the right choice for them!

Why Introducing Children to Veterinarians is Important

Although there are parts of the job that no child needs to see, a lot of what a veterinarian does is incredibly useful for a child to see. From showing how to respectfully hold and work with animals to giving kids a chance to watch medical care that doesn't directly affect people, it helps them learn the importance of caring.

This can be translated to their care for other people or their respect for pets at home, but it gives them a base to spring off of and create a healthier relationship with life beyond themself.

What You Can Expect From This Type of Shadowing

Job shadowing a vet as a child isn't going to include any hands-on work involving the animals unless those are animals the vet has deemed safe. The most your child will do is feed and comfort the pets while learning about shots, cleaning, signs of injuries, and how to treat animals.

 

Veterinarians won't usually show children anything graphic when it comes to animal injury and will be careful to only handle cases that will be okay for your child's age and understanding. 

 

Kids get the chance to feel included, and like they're helping while watching a professional save lives and help make animals feel better. This can help kids who are introverted or who have mild fears of dogs or other pets.

This can also be an awesome way to introduce the concept of shelters and fostering: but be warned, your child may want to bring home an animal if they're at a facility like this!

How to Tell if This is Something Your Kids Would Be Interested In

If you're curious about this, it's important that you think about whether this is something your kid would enjoy and benefit from. Does your kid love animals? Do you want to spark curiosity in them and give them a chance to grow and become more responsible?

 

Talk to your child ahead of time, and help them figure out if this is something they’d enjoy doing. They can always change their mind down the line, but it’s important that it’s something they actually want to do before you sign up for it. 

Children Are Naturally Curious and Have a Hunger to Learn

Young children have an innate curiosity about the world around them because it's all so new and unknown. Giving them a subject to focus that curiosity on through veterinarian shadowing helps them get that energy out while also getting the satisfaction of further information and skills they might not have learned otherwise.

 

If you have a child that keeps asking 'why' or 'How does this work?' then job shadowing could be exactly the stimulation they're seeking.

Compassion for Animals Translates to Compassion With People

If you want to help your child learn to be more compassionate and empathetic towards people, it's important to start by showing them animals. Most agreeable people tend to start out with compassion and social behavior with animals.

Pets like cats are a great way to teach consent since these furry friends are great at making it clear when they don't want to be pet or have any attention paid to them. Job shadowing a vet gives your kid a chance to learn about body language in animals and how to care for something beyond themselves at an early age.

What Guidelines to Lay Ahead of Time

Although every veterinarian will have an onboarding session with your kid, showing them what's acceptable and what isn't, it's still good to have a talk with your child ahead of time to prepare them for this work. Talk to your kid about the importance of being respectful and listening to instructions, but also the importance of setting boundaries.  If they aren't comfortable with taking on a job or petting an animal, they should have the words to make that clear. 

 

Any veterinarian who offers job shadowing to kids will generally have a keen eye for when a child is uncomfortable and will know to change the subject or task, but helping your kid speak for themself is invaluable.

Give Your Children the Chance to Be Excited to Learn!

Building excitement for learning and the world around us can help kids grow up to be curious and eager to get an education. Offer veterinarian job shadowing is something they can take part in: and watch your child flourish!

Kathryn Goodwin is a devoted animal lover and an ardent volunteer at the El Paso Animal Shelter. Her deep passion for animal welfare has led her to dedicate her time and writing efforts to educating others on how they can give back to the animals in their communities.

 

BOOK FEATURE: The Cat's Meow (How Cats Evolved from the SAVANNA to YOUR SOFA) by Jonathan B. Losos

 FROM CAT AND DOG CHAT WITH CAREN: Why is this a "book feature" and not a bona fide review? Because to be quite honest, I didn't get a quarter of a way through this 350+ page tome! As a result, I am going to share the press release below and interject a few things from the pages that I DID read. The Cat's Meow will definitely require A LOT of spare time to read (I definitely hope to finish it in the not-too-distant future), one can ever have enough information/insights about cats, their origin and their future. It is one of those books where you can read the chapter titles and zero in on the ones that are of particular interest to you if you do not have time to read the entire book. You could return to other chapters at a later time).

This May, Viking is thrilled to publish THE CAT’S MEOW: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa (on-sale May 3, 2023) from leading evolutionary biologist Jonathan B. Losos. Cats may be the most popular pet on the planet—in fact, as I write this, one of my two cats is begging for food (classic)—but they still seem to have only one paw out of the wild. In this illuminating book, Losos reveals the past, present, and future of our feline companions.

 

In the vein of books that dig deep into the biology of one species, such as The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson and The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman, THE CAT’S MEOW puts domestic cats under the spotlight. Since its evolutionary origins in Africa, the cat has been transformed in comparatively little time into one of the most successful and diverse species on the planet. Jonathan Losos, writing as both a scientist and a cat lover, explores how researchers today are unraveling the secrets of the cat.

 

In a genial voice, Losos explores new scientific investigations into the present and past, from research on cat territoriality and predation, to DNA studies of Egyptian cat mummies. He also touches on the future, and the repercussions of the manipulation of evolution by cat breeders. How has selection, both natural and artificial, over the last several millennia shaped the contemporary cat, with new breeds vastly different in anatomy and behavior from their ancestral stock? THE CAT’S MEOW seeks to explain all this, and is full of interesting facts such as:

 

Each cat probably has its own meows that he/she uses in different situations. Cats may have even evolved to meow and purr because human auditory systems prefer high-pitched sounds.

 

Despite popular belief, cats are not loners! In dense cat populations, cats live in social groups and behave amicably with fellow group members – grooming, rubbing, and cuddling—just like lions.

 

The earliest evidence of humans and cats associating comes from graves found on Cyprus from about 9,500 years ago. By about 3,500 years ago, cats were household pets in ancient Egypt.

FROM CAT AND DOG CHAT WITH CAREN: Here are a few facts that I took away from the book as well:

"if you can read the expressions and body posture of your cat, you can understand what a lion or tiger is thinking."

"the African wildcat is the species from which domestic cats arose."

"cats are not objects. They're living, sentient beings, and we certainly interact with them as such. (The author goes on to say) "for this reason I will not use "it" in reference to a cat. To avoid using "he", "she", or similarly awkward conventions, I'll alternate between referring to generic cats as females in even-numbered chapters and males in odd-numbered chapters. Of course when discussing specific, real cats, I will refer to them according to their real sex."

AUTHOR BIO: Jonathan B. Losos is an evolutionary biologist at Washington University and the founding director of the Living Earth Collaborative, a unique biodiversity center and partnership between Washington University, the Saint Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Garden. He was previously a professor of biology at Harvard and a curator at the university’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. He has won awards from the National Academy of Sciences, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the American Society of Naturalists.

 

PRAISE:

"If you have ever lived with a feline long enough to reach an accommodation, you’ve probably asked yourself: Am I training the cat, or is the cat training me? That question is a gateway to the labyrinth of fascinating riddles explored by Jonathan Losos—himself a lifelong ailurophile as well as an eminent  evolutionary biologist—in this engaging and very smart book." – David Quammen, author of The Song of the Dodo and Breathless

“The Cat’s Meow by Jonathan Losos is an impressive and enlightening deep dive into how our beloved feline companions found their way into our hearts and homes. Recommended reading for all cat lovers.” – Pam Johnson-Bennett, Certified Cat Behavior Consultant and author of Catwise, Cat vs. Cat, and Think Like a Cat
 
“A fascinating, evidence-based look at how we have lived with cats for thousands of years - with an eye on where our relationship with cats might go in the future. The Cat's Meow is an engaging journey through cat evolution and domestication.” – Mikel Delgado, Ph.D, Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist
 
"What does the future hold for humankind’s other best friend? Reaching back into the evolutionary history of the cat family, brought right up to date with the emergence of new breeds and hybrids, this fascinating book deserves to be on every cat-lover's nightstand." –John Bradshaw, author of Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM MAY 3RD 2023!!

In Full Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy to feature on the blog. I was not given financial compensation.