In this blog, Caroline Clark shares her experience of working within the profession for the past 40 years and how she has been able to diversify, with opportunities that she wouldn’t have had if she hadn’t been a veterinary nurse.

I began my nursing life as a Saturday girl in a mixed first opinion practice way back in the late 70s. I remember vividly being told to ‘think again’ when I told the careers advisor that I wanted to work with animals – fortunately, I didn’t heed their advice as upon leaving school I was offered a permanent post. I completed my nurse training at Berkshire College of Agriculture (BCA) – a proud moment. Afterwards, I worked in a number of mixed and small animal practices working my way up to head nurse status. However, whilst at BCA most of my tutors were vet nurses themselves and I aspired to teaching one day… once I had got some experience under my belt.

Fast forward to the early 90s and I began my teaching career, balancing teacher training college with my nursing and teaching veterinary nursing and other animal related subjects on a part-time basis. In the late 90s my experience enabled me to apply to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to be among one of the first external verifiers for the veterinary nursing programme. Going to Belgravia House was quite a thrill!

Throughout my career I had always had a keen interest in animal behaviour. In fact my first official CPD course of study was one that the BVNA ran. The four modules were overseen by some of the best in the business, including the likes of the wonderful Anne McBride and Sarah Heath. Another strand to my career opened up for me and so I applied to study a post graduate diploma in companion animal behaviour counselling at Southampton University under these remarkable mentors and others of their ilk. In 2006 I completed my course and, after achieving full membership of the association of pet behaviour counsellors (APBC), I began seeing cases within a large first opinion hospital where I was working as a lead clinical coach and education coordinator.

However, this wasn’t the end of my varied career. In 2018 I was approached by a TV company asking if I would be interested in appearing in a 20 part series for Channel 4 called Embarrassing Pets. I was to be the Pet Behaviour ‘Expert’ alongside a couple of vets and a dog trainer. Always up for a challenge I agreed and was featured on the front cover of the TV Times! As a direct result of the show I was approached by a publisher to write a book – Something else that had been on my bucket list. So last year I had my first book published: Fear and Anxiety in Dogs, now available in all good bookshops. As if that wasn’t enough I was approached by another publisher but this time to write a book all about cats: So ‘Demystifying Cat Behaviour’ was born and will hopefully be out later this year. In between this I’m now mentoring this generation of vet nurses achieve clinical animal behaviour status and/or set up in-house nurse-led behaviour clinics.

As you can see veterinary nursing has been kind to me and given me so many opportunities. In fact I can honestly say that my life wouldn’t be the same had I not become a veterinary nurse. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to that careers advisor!

Caroline Clark
Registered Clinical Animal Behaviour Counsellor

Registered Veterinary Nurse, Cert. Ed.

ABTC Registered CAB Counsellor, APBC FULL Member

Post Graduate Diploma in (AS) Companion Animal Behaviour Counselling