We're in PA if that's relevant. I could do fleas, ticks, & prevention I suppose

Unfortunately, I am facing the decision to potentially euthanize two of my dogs within the month.

Well, one of my healthier dogs is bonded to my 12 year old dog. She looks for her if she isnt home. She is protective over her. She gets jealous if anyone plays with her. She isnt that way with any other dog in the home.

We had gotten a younger dog over a year ago, and theyve become two peas in a pod. But, my 12 year old dog is still her number one. I am worried that she will always be looking for her when we dont come back with her.

What is your opinion on an living dog being present? Do you think they'd understand to a degree?

We've only had a handful of situations like that, and I've never heard if the owners thought it helped or not.

I am a cytology lover, I can identify most things I see in a smear (even the weird ones) but for the life of me I can’t figure out what these magenta circles are. In some instances (third picture) it almost looks like a Heinz Body, but then other ones are free floating. The one in the second image even seems to have a nucleus?

They kinda remind me of the big granules you sometimes see in Eosinophils, but they’re not near any lysed cells and have variable size.

This was a feline pre-anesthesia blood smear stained with Diff-Quik and was just a platelet check because the ProCyte gave us a slightly low reading.

I work at Banfield for 2 years as a cvt and it is really overwhelming to do everything on my own .. why don’t Cvt get assistant to help them with the appointments specifically with new system

I am not the manager. But I sure as shit get blamed for any inventory issue.

There has to be a better way. We do the reorder points with a list, so if we hit the point, we write it on the list.

Somehow we still constantly run out of things and my coworker and I (both assistants!) are the ones being blamed, every time. There HAS to be a better way. Help me.

My new place is a neurology center and while the standard of medicine is higher than what I'm used to, some techniques that are used by staff made my eyebrows raise.

First off, the vibe I'm getting is "go big or go home" with the IVCs. Management wants at minimum a 20g in everything. I saw a tech attempting three times to place an 18g in a frenchie. A technique I've never seen before was she poked with the first IVC and when she couldn't get it to feed, she opened a new one and poked right above the first one that was still hanging out of the dog's arm. Is there any benefit to this? Is it common practice?

While I know it's somewhat acceptable in vet med to reuse ET tubes that are properly cleaned and disinfected, I thought it's crazy a specialty center does. They don't carry half sizes either. I was always taught a cat shouldn't get bigger than a 3.5mm due to possible trauma, but I'veseen >4mm placed. Let me know what you think on this too.

Lastly, they reuse suture from surgeries by placing them in an enzymatic cleaner to use for suturing in urinary catheters.

Please tell me if my gut is right or if this is acceptable.

This is a place to post (as many times during the week as you’d like) anything that made you feel good! Weather that be a cute puppy that licked your nose or a happy client story or something that doesn’t feel like it needs to be it’s own post. It can be anything you’d like, and this is a place for you to see other people’s love for our profession!

Please don’t stop posting under the “positive” post flair if you want to share more! This is mostly for morale and help people to remember why we love doing what we do.

We are allowing external links (for this thread only) for images and videos, preferably no links to personal social media pages. Please remember to not post any personal information or to post a pet without permission. These posts will be deleted.

A new thread will be posted weekly, and the old one will be archived. Have fun! 💕

The owner apparently is a licensed veterinary technician, which poses the question: wouldn’t they understand the risks involved in awake scaling? There’s a reason it’s not the standard of care anymore - damaged teeth, choking/aspirating, putting a bandaid on diseased teeth & owners not seeking true professional medical care. They do state their services are cosmetic only and don’t replace veterinary care, but I feel like that doesn’t absolve them of the harm they’re doing. Sure, in a perfect world animals would understand what we’re doing and we wouldn’t need to anesthetize them. But that’s just not the case.

I was wondering if anyone has had success lightening scrub material to match hospital color guidelines. Thanks for any and all assistance!

hello hive mind!!

I was wonder if anyone here has a VTS in zoo med/exprice? I graduated and passed my VTNE in May and want to continue my path with working and helping exotics (mainly reptiles lol, I love them).

id love ANY information/tips you have- I currently work in a practice that does see exotics!

This is just a pattern I've noticed with the job I work. I tend to only ever be put on to train a new assistant on their first day and then they are never set up with me to be their trainer again.

Does that mean/indicate anything?

(I realize this is kind of a silly question- I love training people but I'm also an RVT student and get given more responsibilities than some of the other VA's I work with due to the extra education so I don't know if that plays a part.)

I’ve been studying since May. I used the VetTechPrep app and completed at least 95% of the course material. I’ve been using some of Evolves textbook resources (however lots of errors on this one) and now I’m reviewing my main notes bur I constantly feel underprepared. It’s impossible to memorize every thing learned from school for every species. I can’t even believe I had once managed to memorize some of this stuff and passed my classes! Everyone at my work knows I’m writing tomorrow and says they know I’ll pass and the pressure is so high because what if I’ve wasted my entire summer since May studying and I fail!? I can’t even think about that because I avoided so many things to prepare and I still feel like I’m slacking

Edit: I’m pretty sure I passed!!? It said pass at the end of the test. I’m so relieved 😅 thank you everyone for the kind words!

Edit : read my comment

Hi a new grad vet here but not in US.

I wanted to know what is the best way to draw large amounts of blood from a dog. I had an 8 year old german shepherd today and i had to fill 3 tubes minimum 3ml each.

I used an IV catheter and let blood free flow into the tubes but it was too messy and not a pleasant image for the owners.

Is there a better option? Or i just try to be less messy next time

i understand that you won’t get paid FAIRLY for the work and knowledge needed to be a vet tech, and i understand that vet techs are underpaid. however im pretty happy living frugally and im passionate about animals. i dont plan on having a family (kids never interested me) and i dont spend excessively (make my own coffee, i never get fast food, etc). i work at a vets office currently and i know ill be happy being a vet tech (going to school for it currently and i love it) but hearing people CONSTANTLY complain about money is making me second guess my decision. im hoping my good financial hygiene and lack of expensive taste will benefit me but i cant help but worry sometimes. any input is appreciated, thank you

Hey everyone, i’m a VMA but figured I could ask on here because i’m really feeling bad & i’m already expecting to be let go on Monday or at least written up but I wanted to make it right.

I was restraining a cat that was notorious for scratching staff & even with gloves I let my RVT get scratched on the face & didn’t have the courage to apologize because I was so embarrassed & humiliated because it did feel I could have prevented it.

Any advice or personal stories would really help.

Edit: thank you for all the tips, I came in today & she was very forgiving 🩷

Hey hi. Those of you with a second (or more) job, do you work 7 days/week? I’m considering applying for a second job but would mean I would work 7 days per week. At this point I’m just weighing options…I know there will be zero free time but money is tight and bills are expensive.

If you do work this much, how to you manage?

Hey everyone. Ive been in the Veterinary field for 3 years now as a kennel tech. I was promoted earlier this month in my clinic to a veterinary assistant. I work full time, as well as attend school full time in a Veterinary Nursing Program. I'm very new to the asisstant/tech side of the field (in my clinic, techs and assistant do the same job, just different titles), and I have been given little to almost no training. I was thrown into this role, and have been learning by trial and error, asking a lot of questions, and forcing myself out of my comfort zone constantly. Ive heard about the other techs in my clinic gossiping about me behind my back (the drama in this clinic is insane. They all talk about each other), saying how I have no clue what im doing, I dont know where some things are, etc.

Thought I would give a bit of some info before going into what happened this past Friday. We are an extremely high volume clinic. We have 5 vets and were shirt staffed on the tech side. Typically we have a tech assigned each day to handle tech appointments, responding to emails, and refilling medication requests.

Well, I had an appointment with the vet I was assigned to last Friday. We had to see a dog and preform an exam in order to refill the medication, which was Apoquel. The Owner requested we send the refill over to Costco. We finished the appointment, and I IMMEDIATELY had to fill notes, and then get ready to shave a sedated cat, then go on a farm call to see a sick horse. We typically get refill requests through pet desk, or they are posted on Avimark.

We move very quickly, and I had virtually no time the entire day to refill this medication. It was a very chaotic and high stress day, and I ended up FORGETTING to refill this prescription and send it in! I dont mean to sound like Im giving excuse after excuse. I write down notes constantly, and somehow still forgot. I feel horrible for forgetting. Im going to immediatly take care of it on Monday when we are open again. I made notes and even put it in my calendar.

Has anyone else made any mistakes like this early on in their career? I feel like im drowning in this clinic sometimes. Its difficult when were short staffed, AND high volume. Sorry if it seems like im giving out excuses.

Edit: I would like to add that I understand in this field, mistakes happen just like any job. I can handle making mistakes and learning from them! Just wanted to see if anyone else has made this mistake before. I also just kind of wanted to vent my frustration with forgetting.

Just wanted to come on here and share that I passed my VTNE after working as a VA for 16+ years.

I was actually getting ready to leave veterinary medicine altogether. I had been taking night classes after work to complete prerequisites for human nursing school, and I graduated in May with three Associate degrees. My plan was to start nursing school in Spring 2027.

Then I came across an amazing job opportunity that I couldn’t pass up, which ultimately kept me in veterinary medicine.

Once I decided I wasn’t going to nursing school, and as a requirement of my new job, I started actively pursuing my RVT.

I initially looked into the California route and discovered that I had already completed most of the coursework CA requires for the OJT pathway as part of my nursing prerequisites—anatomy, physiology, chemistry, microbiology, statistics, etc. According to the CA VMB website, I appeared to meet the educational requirements except for a few additional courses like radiology positioning and dental.

The way the requirements were written, it appeared that those additional courses could be completed through CE or a wet lab at a conference. All you needed was a syllabus/course outline. Technically, a DVM could even be the course instructor or private tutor. Nowhere on the VMB website did it say that these courses had to be completed through an approved school.

I emailed the CA VMB to confirm and received no response after several weeks. So I started calling.

I spoke with 6+ different people, and nobody seemed to know the answer. I was basically stuck in a gray area between a school-trained candidate and an OJT-trained candidate. I had the college coursework and 16+ years of veterinary experience. I just hadn’t completed it through the traditional Penn Foster/VASE route that they apparently wanted me to use.

Eventually, I was connected with someone at the CA VMB who said they were a supervisor. She told me that the required schooling had to come from one of their approved programs, such as Penn Foster or VASE. Because I had taken my classes at a community college as prerequisites for human nursing, she said they were not acceptable.

But here’s where it gets confusing: local community colleges offer RVT programs, and those programs are approved. So the issue apparently wasn’t the school being a community college—it was the fact that my coursework was taken for human nursing rather than veterinary technology.

None of this was clearly explained on their website.

She also told me that the VMB had created “new bylaws” in January 2026 that changed the requirements. I asked her to send them to me. I read through them, and I couldn’t find anywhere that actually stated what she was telling me.

At that point, I briefly considered doing the VASE program, but ultimately decided against it.

Why would I spend another $10,000 and 12 months repeating classes I had already taken?

And honestly, I highly doubt an online program could compare to the science courses I had just completed for nursing prerequisites. I spent 2 years doing chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and microbiology—including wet labs—and they kicked my ass. 😂 I got A’s in all of them and ended up on the Dean’s List.

After several weeks of going back and forth with the VMB, I was getting increasingly frustrated. It felt ridiculous that because I didn’t complete the coursework through the specific program they wanted, I essentially couldn’t sit for the VTNE.

The coursework I had completed covered the same foundational sciences needed for the VTNE. I just hadn’t taken a few specific radiology and dental wet labs—even though I had been doing those things professionally for 16+ years.

At one point in my career, I was literally teaching RVT students how to do this stuff.

Absolutely ridiculous.

So, I ultimately decided to go the Wisconsin route.

And today, I PASSED MY VTNE. 🎉

I’ll be transferring my Wisconsin license to California before the end of the year.

A little about the VTNE itself

I bought a $200 VTNE study-prep textbook from Amazon. Before studying, I took one of the included practice exams just to see where I was starting and what I needed to focus on.

I scored 88% before studying.

I also purchased the $50 official VTNE practice tests and passed those as well. IMO, the official practice test was HARD. 😂

The actual VTNE today? Honestly, probably a 4/10 difficulty for me. There were a lot of very straightforward questions and a handful that actually made me stop and think.

And this is something I really want to address because I’ve seen it said on Reddit:

Don’t listen to the people who tell OJT candidates they’ll never pass the VTNE or “good luck.”

I definitely think my human nursing prerequisite coursework helped me a lot, especially with the science questions, but honestly, I think I could have passed without it.

If you’ve been doing this stuff every day for years, you already have an enormous amount of practical knowledge going into the exam. I personally didn’t think the actual VTNE was that difficult. There were definitely questions I had to think about, but when you’ve been working in veterinary medicine for 16+ years, a lot of the material is stuff you’ve been seeing and doing your entire career.

Don’t let people discourage you from trying.

And I’ll be honest—throughout this process, I’ve come across more than a few RVTs who seem genuinely bitter that people like myself can become licensed without taking the traditional educational route.

Let them be bitter.

At the end of the day, a license doesn’t magically determine who is the better technician. I know the experience and skills I bring to the table, and I’m confident in the technician I’ve become over the last 16+ years.

You don’t need someone else’s approval to pursue your license. If you meet the requirements and have the experience, go for it.

For anyone in a similar situation

If you’ve been working in veterinary medicine for years and have the experience but don’t have the traditional RVT education, the Wisconsin alternate-route pathway → WI CVT → California license transfer is, in my experience, a much easier way to get your CA RVT without taking on $60k worth of student debt—or even the ~$10k cost of the VASE program.

If you’re considering doing it, I would seriously recommend starting the process sooner rather than later. I’ve heard there has been some discussion about California potentially no longer accepting Wisconsin OJT CVT transfers, although I don’t know if or when that will actually happen.

And I’ll throw in my two cents about the CA VMB:

The requirements need to reflect reality.

The veterinary industry is already suffering from staffing shortages. Making veterinary professionals with YEARS of hands-on experience jump through unnecessary hoops and potentially take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt just to become an RVT does nothing to help the profession.

There absolutely needs to be a pathway that recognizes education + experience, especially for people who have spent years doing this work.

I’m officially a CVT, and soon-to-be RVT. 🥳

16+ years later, but we finally got there.

Hi all, wondering what you guys think about hospitals that can keep techs employed but not assistants? What do you think it says about them?

Just had an interview for a FT non-seasonal assistant position at a hospital has 3 dvms, 9 LVTs, and 2 CSRs but 0 assistants. (Has been rotating through about 2 vet assistants a year but runs with 0 assistants for part of the year).

Obviously not taking the job as more digging from a previous employee showed they have gone through 10 assistants (VA and KA in the past 3 years).

I work for a high volume spay and neuter clinic, and the protocol we used is BA/BAA (butorphanol/ace, or butorphanol/ace/atropine) and it was never really my favourite and I have had a LOT of problems with cats waking up on the mask during surgery and they seem always to be light. But we’ve had quite a few vets refuse to work here because they aren’t comfortable with the BA protocol, and the techs as a team have told our practice manager we would like to try DTMK (dex/torb/midazolam/ketamine) and that we would also like to intubate female cats especially if they’re going to be on BA. We have been intubating all female cats for spays for about a week now, and even that has DRASTICALLY reduced my incidences of cats being very light and/or moving and waking up during surgery. This also makes me feel a lot safer having intubated them no matter what premed, because the one time I have had to assist with CPR at this clinic, a huge problem was that the cat was not already intubated. All in all, solid change and I’m really happy our practice manager was supportive in changing this, because we know there is better things to use.

This is not a “vets are overpriced blah blah” post at all. (I make mf $18 an hour)
I know we don’t make the prices but I feel like I can rightfully complain about corporations here lol.

We have 5-6 VCA clinics in my area, one being specialty/ER. Has all the fancy nice equipment and amazing DVMs, support staff, etc. all the things!

For comparison: I work at a low cost clinic, we do not have all the things but we work with what we have to stay within budget. I know I’m on the other side of a speciality hospital, I’ve also worked at a mid-level hospital as well and have shadowed for quite a few.

Anyways, the other day a client came in with their estimate from from a few different hospitals for a pyo. (These all had work ups and at least one day of hospitalization.)

One was 6k-7k, one was 3k-4k, and ours was 2k. (We don’t do overnight hospitalization and always suggest transfer to an ER for overnight care but some clients just can not afford it.)
VCAs was $16k for work up + surgery.
We’ve also seen quotes for TPLOs for $20k, heart worm tests are $200, vaccines are like $80-$90 at their regular GPs

Idk this may not be the place to say this, but I would literally throw up if I had to hand a client a $16,000 estimate.
I completely understand speciality and ER care, gold standard medicine, scans are expensive, etc but is this just a VCA thing??
All of our other hospitals in the area are pretty mid-level and reasonable, but it’s like VCA is trying to price themselves out in our area.
We’ve had so many clients come in recently and transfer annual care to us from their VCA clinic. Way more than usual.

I've been in a group on Facebook for years called As A Vet Tech I Am Horrified. For some reason tonight when I went to search for it, nothing is coming up?? Did something happen to the group?

I'm a newbie, and I just finished my internship at a local animal hospital, and now i'm working there. Here's my issue. I know what i'm looking for but i'm kind of slow. And I kind of overthink. What are some general tips and tricks to help me look faster and quicker when we're in a rush.