I was also happy to see that the site links you to right to the place you can buy it so you don’t have to go searching all around.

As for the vet issue which was commented on earlier, I’m sorry but I don’t know anything about the topic.

I read those articles too. I was perplexed about where the information came from. I was in veterinary school 18 years ago, and even back then, protocols and procedures were not as described in the Merchants of Death article. Like you, the surgeries we learned were spays and neuters with Shelter pets on their way to new homes.

And be assured that the use of pain medication was more thorough and generous than is often found in private practice. To the person who commented to Emily’s article that pain medication does not exist to eradicate certain types of pain…are you sure? do you know? do you see it a lot? could you tell if you saw it working vs not working? I have seen cats having undergone lengthy invasive procedures to repair limbs or remove foreign bodies, in their cages resting peacefully, eating, and interacting with their surroundings happily with the use of appropriate pain medication. This is what veterinarians do for pets, as you know, Daniele.

We practiced casting procedures on anesthetized animals, but the limbs were certainly not broken beforehand. It’s a long time ago for me, but dissecting organs of living animals?? I have no idea if that takes place in other veterinary schools but it certainly did not in ours. Vivisection?? Not in a thousand years would anyone have participated in such a thing.

The one sacrificial procedure that took place was 1 anesthetic-induced death. The professors and students were deeply disturbed during the procedure. I suspect that’s been phased out entirely, because the use of live animals for learning purposes has become more restricted, not less.

Your final comments illustrate the reality of the profession. Veterinarians enter private practice with the expectation that they will be able to handle all manner of medicine and surgery. The fact is that many (most) students have performed a small number of surgeries (all spay or neuters) and anesthesias. In practice, we’re often given a sick animal that needs a surgery we’ve never even practiced and no source of help. The intensive supervised training found in the human medical field does not exist for many vets. So if your dog swallowed a ball or your cat has a tumor that needs removing, do you object to having a doctor who has never seen it done take on the job?

I agree with Emily that change is needed in how vets are trained. We are expected by the public to be able to perform the same procedures as pet owners have done to themselves (for a heck of a lot less money), without the training. It’s just not realistic. Surgery and anesthesia cannot be learned by video or simulation. As many students as possible, learning from 1 animal, with abundant pre and post operative care is a humane compromise, IMHO.

Who has a better solution? Vets could be trained like human surgeons and anesthetists. But do people mind if it suddenly costs $800 or more to have their dog neutered? More dogs would be euthanized at humane societies than are now.

It’s not perfect. Public education, as always, is key. I believe that the present veterinary school education cuts back live animal use as far as possible given all the constraints Daniele and I mention.

My eye was immediately drawn to a title referring to veterinarians as merchants of death. I, like Christine, am a vet. The premise of this particular blog entry of Emily’s is that veterinarians are cruel people and that we we love to mutilate animals because some vet schools use sacrificial surgeries as a learning tool. I was dismayed by both her lack of research and information on the subject as well as her narrowminded blanket statement about all veterinarians. In Canada, at the time of my training, only 1 of 4 vet schools used sacrificial surgeries. The rest of us learned surgical skills though spay/neuter programs with local shelters and real, client-owned pets requiring life saving surgeries. And as far as I know, many of the American schools taught surgery with the same type of programs. Although I am not defending sacrificial surgeries, the veterinarians who were taught using these methods certainly did not go to vet school with the hopes of “mutilating animals” as Emily suggests. These students did not have a choice in the matter as we cannot freely choose which vet school to attend nor which classes to frequent.

I fully support Emily’s cause for cruelty free products and even agree with her thought that sacrificial surgery is needless. But her comments on veterinarian students make her lose any credibility she may have had. She better hope she never needs a vet to help her beloved pets. In the meantime, I will support her cause elsewhere.