For the love of Bears!

I love veterinary nursing, a real advocate of the career! But when people ask me what made me want to become a vet nurse, the tale surprises and intrigues them. My path into veterinary nurses wasn't the expected path that most people take. In fact it was the opposite of what was expected, although I've always been an animal lover, my closed minded young brain saw the veterinary field as the enemy! Money grabbing, cold hearted, clinical people. I wanted nothing to do with it.


I wanted to be an interior designer. I had a flair for art and design and was successfully offered an unconditional placement at University. As far as my mom, dad and I were concerned; I was going to University to study art further......... Then one day, I was watching the Really Wild Show with Michaela
 Strachen. I don't even know why I was watching it, it was a kids programme, and I was 17. It was a special about a charity called Animals Asia. I'd never heard of it before, but it talked about how they rescued bears from bear bile farms. I have never seen anything so harrowing before. As a teenager, nothing much impacted on my world, dramas revolved around boys and haircuts and prom dresses. But this, this haunted me for days and weeks, until I knew I had to do something. However big or little I had to take some sort of action.

So I did my research. I got in touch with a man called David at the charity's head office and he provided me with loads of information. The more I learnt, the more I wanted to help. So I put my education on the back burner (much to my teachers' distress!) and I got permission to do some fundraising and awareness raising at

school. I did an assembly to each year of the school, that was over 1000 students, I was terrified. I played a video (ha! Remember them!) which the IT technician had helped me compose full of clips of the bears and what they went through. It made quite a few year 7's cry! But that's what I wanted, for other people to be hit as hard as I was. Finally, after all the assembleys, we did a big car wash. I can't remember exactly how much we raised, a few hundred pound I think, but I remember feeling it wasn't enough. Not money, but not enough help, I wanted to do more, I wanted to physically help. So I did more research, and I learnt that the charity's bear sanctuaries only take two types of volunteers; veterinary nurses and animal behaviourists.

So I broke the news to my mom and dad; I'm not going to University. I went back to college to study animal care and management. I still wasn't sure what I was going to do after that but I knew I wanted to do something more worthwhile than paint peoples' lounges!

It was only after I did work experience at a vets that I saw the light. Vet nurses weren't the enemy or the devil's advocate. In fact they made an amazing difference; to their patients, their colleagues, the community.

So I was sold! I completed college and luckily gained a placement at a lovely vet practice which trained me. In 2009 I qualified as a veterinary nurse, it was one of the happiest days of my life, surrounded by friends and family picking up my certificate at my graduation ceremony. In 2011, I flew to China and came face to face with my first Asiatic Black Bear.............................but that's a whole other story..............