<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I have a question about what might be considered a niche or non-traditional field of study. I've always loved animals since I was a little girl and have long felt an emotional connection when close to them. Obviously they're not "dumb animals" as the expression goes, and they do have personalities and behavioral quirks just like people do. Veterinary medicine wouldn't be an option because there'd be the requirement of 1) physical examination (the same reason I wouldn't want to be a people doctor either) and 2) euthanasia/"putting them down" (I understand the need to alleviate suffering -- I even support this for terminal people patients -- but could never bring myself to do it personally).</p>
<p>But does "veterinary psychology" exist as a field of study or subtopic of, say, animal behaviorism or zoology? Like for instance, if I wanted to be a counseling "vet" for animal "vets" -- police dogs and combat animals who I'm sure experience PTSD-like symptoms just like people "vets" do (veterans, of course, not veterinarians -- seems a good choice for wordplay, though), does that even exist as an occupation or field of study? I mean, there exists animal insurance policies even in car-insurance contracts, and I don't care what people say, "pets" (animal companions, as I prefer to call them) do become part of one's family (in fact, I'd prefer a Golden Retriever or Calico cat to offspring of my own).</p>
<p>Obviously Pavlov did his famous experiment on dogs to prove a point about people. But my thing would be working exclusively with our furry, feathered, and fuzzy fauna friends (lot of F words in there -- I tend to use another one directed at Colonel Sanders and Michael Vick). ;) Anyone familiar with the concept or how it could be done?</p>
<p>No, this is not a recognized field of study. There are “animal psychologists” out there, but they don’t generally have any credentials and I think they’re looked upon by most people as quacks. If you want to work with animals in this way, but want to be more legitimate, you could study animal behavior.</p>
<p>It definitely sounds like the field you want to study is applied animal behavior, which is a graduate program offered at some schools like UC Davis. If your area of interest is animal “vets”, you could try to narrow your focus in that direction perhaps after you graduate, or maybe you could find a way to apply it to your thesis.</p>
<p>@ dvmsara: Are they looked upon as “quacks” because their clients are mostly ducks? ;-)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, though. Actually, I’d bet being a Dr. Doolittle Psy.D. would have more of a therapeutic element for the would-be therapist. :)</p>
<p>“Are they looked upon as “quacks” because their clients are mostly ducks?”</p>
<p>I tried for a long time to come up with a clever response to this, but I got nothin’, lol!!</p>
<p>And yes, I’m sure that job would help keep the therapist sane!</p>
<p>Veterinary psychology is a a part of veterinary career. It’s not in the main stream. But these it has become important for the treatment of pets, and mostly dog suffering from separation anxiety. The dog start showing inappropriate behavior during what the dog perceives to be as an absence of the owner. The dog doesn’t show any symptom of physical illness. So at that time veterinary psychologist come into picture. But in most cases, this work is done by veterinary doctor only.</p>
<p>Regardless of what you choose to do in a specialty, your four years in veterinary school will be the same as everyone else. You will learn to examine them, euthanize them, etc. You have to be a general veterinarian before you can expand your regions. Such as equine vet, pathology, toxicology, opthamology, etc. which can take a few years outside of your general.</p>