Friends or food?

The relationship between vets and animals is an odd one.

When I tell people the course I study, 90% of them ask me if I’m vegetarian; when I say no, all of them ask me why not – and, to be perfectly candid, I never really know what to tell them.

As a professional in practice, my relationship with animals will be as doctor to patient. This affiliation is simple enough. But when I go home, crack open the freezer and fry up a steak with a nice Sauvignon blanc, the line begins to get a little fuzzy.

Keeping a distance

Although the path my career is destined to take is still very much in the works, if I do decide to go into farm work then a certain emotional distance will have to be observed when treating patients. You have to find the perfect balance of respect for the animal and a desire to preserve life, but also the acknowledgement of that fact your patients are, and always intended to be, food.

One of the big things they taught us in the first week of vet school wasn’t scientific or mathematic. They told us, through the course, our attitude towards animals – what it meant to be a vet – was going to change.

I’d be lying if I said my own philosophy surrounding what I want to do with my life, as well as what I put on my plate, hasn’t evolved. It has, it definitely has – In fact, it still is.

Is meat murder?

I know everybody has their own opinion on the subject. People tend to get very passionate about their own food choices and go to great lengths to defend them and convert other people to their way of seeing things, especially as the vegan lifestyle grows more popular.

As vets and as medical practitioners we are, of course, entitled to our opinions like everyone else, but when we step behind the examination table or don the metaphorical white coat, the way we conduct ourselves cannot always be driven by our own personal beliefs, but a combination of the welfare of the animal and concerns of the client.

The cute factor

We like things that are cute. Although some people go through life ignoring this fact, my course has forced me to confront the fact I see a beef cow and a golden retriever in very different ways. No matter how hungry I may be, I have never considered eating a dog – and yet I will one day be required to treat both.

I do not believe either is entitled to a higher standard of care and yet, quite obviously, I hold their lives in opposing regards.

Perhaps it’s purely cultural or the way my parents raised me (they’re both big meat eaters), perhaps it’s an intelligence thing – the fact I assume dogs have more cognitive awareness than the average cow – but this line of thinking does threaten to drag you down an ethical rabbit hole of sentience and animal rights.

Valuable lesson

So, perhaps it’s not that complicated, perhaps humans, on an unconscious level, simply love fluffy things.

As a veterinary student you are taught, from the off, to analyse your way of reasoning and question it. I think this might be one of the most valuable things they can ever teach us.