November 28, 2025
Veterinary medicine is evolving fast, not just in technology but in heart. In a recent episode of Hot Vet Mess, the survival guide for new grad veterinarians hosted by Dr. Emily Merry, registered social worker Teagan Miller joined to talk about a side of vet med that is rarely seen but deeply felt: veterinary social work.
If you’ve ever thought, “Wait, social workers in vet clinics?”, you’re not alone. Even Teagan admits she hadn’t heard of it before doing her practicum at the Ontario Veterinary College. Today, this growing field is reshaping how clinics care for both pets and people.
Here are five things you probably didn’t know about veterinary social work and why it might be the quiet revolution vet med has been waiting for.
At its core, veterinary social work is about helping people navigate the emotional side of animal care, whether that means helping traverse tough treatment decisions, supporting the transition to end-of-life care, or processing grief.
Veterinary social workers support pet owners through tough moments and give vet teams someone to lean on, too.
You have probably heard of the “five stages of grief” — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But Teagan feels that is a myth when it comes to loss of all kinds, including pet loss.
"Grief doesn't go one, two, three, four, five, and then you're done. It's messy, unpredictable, and deeply personal"
She refers to disenfranchised grief, the kind that isn’t always recognized or socially accepted. Think of the phrase “It’s just a dog.” Those words can make people feel guilty or foolish for their pain, when in truth, losing a pet is losing a family member.
Veterinary social workers help validate that experience and make space for it.
Vet med is full of emotional labor. Comforting clients, supporting coworkers, and staying strong after tough cases, it can be exhausting. But who supports the caregivers?
Not every clinic can have a full-time social worker on staff, but even simple tools like resource guides, pet loss brochures, and referral lists can make a difference. OVC Pet Trust is one example, offering grief support materials that clinics can share with clients in need.
Both Dr. Emily and Teagan emphasized this message, especially for new grads entering vet med: you’re not supposed to know everything.
Being honest with clients and saying “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” builds trust, not weakness. It’s a reminder that empathy and humility are part of what makes a great vet.
From household pets to horses and livestock, animals are deeply woven into people’s lives. When illness or loss strikes, it’s not just medical — it’s emotional and personal.
Teagan now works as a therapist with a special interest in pet loss and bereavement. She’s one of several professionals in Ontario who offer this specialized type of therapy, helping people process grief while honouring the relationships they had with their animals.
This growing area of care shows how the human–animal bond is finally being recognized in both veterinary medicine and mental health.
The episode closes with Teagan saying what many of us are thinking: “I wish more people knew this existed.”
And that is exactly why this conversation matters. Veterinary social work helps keep empathy alive in a profession that often demands so much of it. It reminds us that healing is not just about medicine. It is about connection, understanding, and the courage to sit with someone’s pain.
📍Find Teagan at Noia in Hamilton, Ontario, or online at Psychology Today
🎧 Tune in to Hot Vet Mess for the full conversation.
Transcript:
Teagan: I feel like I'm Taylor Swift.
Dr. Emily: Have you listened to her new album? I have. How are we feeling about it?
Teagan: I mean, I think I'm feeling… I feel like I'm on the same wavelength as the majority in the sense that the music itself is fine, like totally listenable. It's just, why did she say some of the things that she said? I know she didn't have to do that. She could have just, like, talked about slightly different things and it would have been so different. She could still… like, all the songs could still even be the same gist.
And I even think it's funny that she's doing this time, she's doing the most explanation for songs she's ever done. I almost feel like she kind of knows that people are gonna have these reactions, and she's feeling the need to explain herself. You know what I mean? Well, then just maybe don't say that. Like, you can say it, or you can say it a different way. Just say it in a more subtle, funny way where, if people interpret it that way, that's their problem.
So anyways, there's just a little bit of that in there. But listenability-wise they're pretty good. So that's, I guess, where I'm at with it.
Dr. Emily: Welcome back to Hot Mess. I'm your host, Dr. Emily Merry, and today we have a very special guest with us. This is Teagan, a registered social worker, and today we're going to be talking about her role specifically in the veterinary social work space.
All right. So do you want to start by telling us a little bit about how you got involved in this and what your job is?
Teagan: Yeah. So I did my practicum, my master's-level practicum, at the Ontario Veterinary College. That was my first introduction to veterinary social work. Before seeing that on the list of options as a placement that I could do, I really had no idea that veterinary social work even existed, even as a longtime animal lover. It wasn't something that had ever really crossed my mind.
The role of veterinary social work kind of mirrors the way that social workers support in lots of other environments as well. It's really, first of all, providing support to people in the moment with whatever they might be going through and, in the context of vet med, whether that be decision-making around treatment, end of life, those sorts of things. Loss and bereavement is a big part of it as well.
It's also working in tandem with the veterinary team and supporting in ways that might be helpful for them as well, and then also, outside of that, providing resources and kind of bolstering what is available for people to access on their own and helping people to navigate different systems and access resources.
It's a very interesting new field within our profession, so I'm excited to get to dig in with you.
Dr. Emily: Okay. First, we're actually going to start with some rapid-fire questions.
Okay. So I'm going to ask you some really simple ones, and then you'll just give me either one word or one sentence, whatever fits the vibe.
Okay, ready?
What's the weirdest thing you've had to say to a client with a completely straight face?
Teagan: Sarah at OVC. She's the social worker there, and we would have to introduce ourselves as Tegan and Sara. That would always… I would usually get a funny reaction from everyone. Everyone's always like, “Oh yeah, wait, wait, did you just say Tegan and Sara, or do you sing too on the side?”
Dr. Emily: Yeah, well, that would be the next question.
Okay, perfect.
Podcast or music on your way to work?
Teagan: Oh, usually a podcast, to be honest.
Dr. Emily: Yeah.
Teagan: Recently? Probably music. Recently music has been on the mind.
Dr. Emily: Okay.
What's the hill you'll die on about vet med that will probably start an argument at a dinner party?
Teagan: I don't know, this might be obvious, but I think just that vets deserve just as much credit as medical human doctors. Seeing the amazing work… when I was at OVC, getting to see a little bit more behind the scenes of just what goes on, it's amazing.
And I have lots of friends doing their medical residencies as well, and there's a lot of crossover. It's very complicated. So I think just maybe people already feel this way, but if they don't: yeah, vets deserve just as much. Throw some respect on it.
Dr. Emily: Yeah.
Okay. Sweet or salty breakfast?
Teagan: Oh. Historically sweet. Although, you know, they say your tastes change. I feel like I'm merging. I'm going into salty territory. Like I haven't met the new me yet.
Dr. Emily: Yeah, I know. I used to be someone that would get, like, whatever—chocolate, Nutella—breakfast, and now I'm very much a savory girl. It's very odd.
Teagan: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Emily: Yeah, it's because we're getting old. It's adulthood.
Teagan: Yeah.
Dr. Emily: Is this what… I didn't sign up for this.
Okay. Would you rather fight one horse-sized cat or fifty cat-sized horses?
Teagan: Oh my gosh. Okay, well, I mean, I feel like I have more of an ability to… I'm more familiar with horses than cats. Cats a little scare me.
Dr. Emily: Yeah, as they should.
Teagan: Yeah. I think with horses, especially because horses are herd animals, I'd hopefully—if I can get the trust of one and calm it—maybe that would be better. But the horse-sized cat? A cat-sized cat is scary enough.
Dr. Emily: Yeah. I love that.
Okay. What's your go-to coffee order?
Teagan: Well, if we're talking just straight up, I'm just like a two-cream-one-sugar brewed coffee. Or, honestly, just a vanilla latte. A classic latte.
Dr. Emily: A latte. You can never go wrong.
Okay. Something else we're going to be trying new with our audiences is we'd love to hear your burning questions. So if you need advice or you want to hear about one of our experiences, put a comment in the section down below.
Okay, so here's some of the juicier questions that we're going to kind of dive into. So feel free to elaborate on these.
Okay. How do you see the role of veterinary social work changing the profession?
Teagan: Yeah, that's a great question. It's such… I think, I mean, full disclosure, I actually didn't even know about veterinary social work prior to doing this placement. And I mean, I am a lifetime animal lover, animal person. Animals had a big role even in sort of encouraging me to pursue social work, which is funny because, you know, it's focused on people.
But animals have been a big part of my life, so I had no idea that this was even something that a social worker could get into.
It was really interesting to kind of learn more from Sarah and through my practicum about the ways that veterinary social work is starting to integrate a little bit more into the field of vet med.
I think we're also just at a time in general where people and animals… animals are more integrated into our lives than ever before. Companion animals are so important to so many people. And I think, intuitively, people know how important animals are, but it's not always been socially recognized as family—you know, “pets are family members.”
Losing a pet or going through something difficult with a companion animal has a huge impact on people, and people need just as much support going through something like that as when they're going through an illness with a person in their life.
Having veterinary social work recognizes that a little bit. It's the same reason why there's social workers in hospitals for people: there's recognition that there's more to it than just the medical component. There's the human component.
Vets do an amazing job at handling that. I saw so much amazing, compassionate care being given during my time at OVC from vets. Vets do an amazing job with that. But you guys have all the medicine, all that, to focus on—and that is a whole big job on its own.
The human element and all the stuff going on outside what happens in the vet clinic… there's so much going on in people's lives that is not related but related to what their animal might be going through. So having a recognition of that and having support for that, I think, will only help to preserve the bond that people have with their animals and also hopefully provide needed support to vets who historically have taken on a lot of emotional labor in their work.
There's always going to be that, no matter how much… even if there are social workers in hospitals, vets are still going to care so much about their work, and there's always going to be that emotional element there, and that shouldn't go away. But hopefully, if there is that extra support, vets will have extra resources, people to collaborate with, and team members that can share some of that.
And, you know, have a dedicated space and time to talk about some of those things.
So I think that's… and it's interesting. Veterinary social work is kind of a broad field; there's some other elements to it. What my experience was in my practicum was sort of in the vet hospital setting.
But there are also amazing social workers doing work in shelter care as well. That's really helping to make sure that people have equitable access to services to allow them to have their animals in their life and support that bond.
There's amazing work being done at the Toronto Humane Society with emergency sheltering supports, so people don't have to surrender their pet just because they might be going through something immediate. They can have a short-term shelter, and then hopefully, if their life becomes more stable, they can have their pet back with them again. So again, preserving that human–animal bond.
And then there are also social workers who work in animal-assisted interventions. That's sort of a growing field as well—therapeutic interventions that incorporate animals, like dogs and horses and other animals, that can support healing and recognize that we're all very connected: animals, nature, humans. And we get the benefits of nurturing those connections, if that makes sense.
Dr. Emily: Yeah, totally. I mean, candidly, I had not heard about veterinary social work up until our mutual friend Nora was like, “Teagan's at the OVC,” and I was like, “Why is she there?”
And then we were kind of chatting about what the role is of somebody in social work, in general, in the hospital. And I will say it's such a breath of fresh air, or even just a sigh of relief as a practitioner, to know that there is a resource that we can lean on if we're emotionally tapped out or if we're out of our realm.
Because, like you said, we're equipped to feel empathy. We're equipped to give our empathetic statements and to provide what we are capable of. But that's not what we're trained in. We're trained to be doctors.
So having somebody who's trained as a therapist or social worker and has the capacity to regulate emotions and speak to those people who need help is incredibly helpful. To know that I can say, “I'm just going to tap someone in here who has more knowledge than me and who can help all of us with this conversation,” is really helpful.
And I'm really glad that this exists and it's being more widely seen throughout different hospitals, because it's definitely needed. It has been needed for a while.
Okay. What do you wish every vet clinic had in terms of supports, not just for the clients but also for the staff members?
Teagan: Yeah. I mean, I think you bring up a good point there—that having extra resources, having something or someone to go to when you might feel a little bit like, “This might be a little bit outside of my scope,” or “This might be a little bit more than what I, right now in this moment, can handle.”
Feeling resourced is huge. When you're in a hospital, you want to be able to reach into the drawer for the medication or the equipment that you need and know that it's there and it's going to help you in whatever you're doing. Not having that creates distress and stress. It adds stress to situations.
And the same is true for those emotional or human components that come up inevitably in vet med. Not every… it's probably not feasible for every hospital to have access to an in-person social worker just on demand.
But that doesn't mean there can't be a good set of resources that the staff have access to—that they know they can turn to if they feel like something extra might be needed here.
So, knowing about the community resources that are out there for supporting clients and what they're going through, whether it be grief and loss or navigating decision-making and stuff like that, or accessing things like shelters that have animal food banks so clients can be supported outside of the care that's being provided in that moment by yourself.
If there's other concerns that feel like, “This isn't for me to address, but I can explain and give some resources to this person,” that's huge.
Something as simple as that. OVC Pet Trust has done a lot of great work with that, kind of using their resources to provide things like pet loss support guides that vet clinics can have on hand so that folks have something that they can utilize if they're going through that.
So I think there's something to be said… I know as a social worker, that's a big part of our job: resource navigation—helping people to access the resources that might be helpful for them, even if it's not us actually providing that service.
For me, in previous situations that I've been in, vet med or otherwise, having a really good resource guide that I can turn to when something comes up with someone outside of what we're doing together has been super supportive and helpful for me. It helps me feel like I'm doing a better job.
So yeah, having just really good resource guides and other supports that can be passed on to clients, I think, is hopefully a feasible thing, accessible for most clinicians. Regardless of where you are in Ontario or in Canada, printouts or things like that are always useful, I find.
Dr. Emily: Yeah.
What's a myth-busting moment for our profession?
Teagan: I mean, I don't know if it… well, I think one, for sure, that came up a lot talking to people about grief and just going through things, is the idea of having to go through the five stages of grief in order and in a reasonable amount of time. That's something I think… it's not exactly how it works.
The stages of grief are absolutely experiences that many people do have while they're going through a loss or grief, but it's not as cut-and-dry as, “I just gotta get through one, two, three, four, five, and then I'll be on my way.” It's a little different than that.
Helping people to be in the moment of their own grief, in their own journey, was kind of something that… that was a myth-busting that kind of happened.
Dr. Emily: Yeah, that's interesting that you say that, because I do feel like that is heard everywhere, not just in the vet space but across… It's like, “Oh, you just have to get through anger, acceptance,” whatever they are. “And then you'll be better.”
Teagan: Yeah. And it is… the five-stages model was developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, but it was more in the context of people who are going through terminal illness. That's a bit of a different context than grief more generally.
And again, a lot of those stages do apply. It's just not necessarily going through them to this end goal of, “We just gotta get to that point.”
Dr. Emily: Right.
Teagan: Especially because you only have that limited time with these clients and whoever they are when they're in the hospital. It's not like you're saying, “Okay, six weeks from now this is what it's going to feel like. A year from now that's what it's going to feel like,” because you can't go through it with them to that extent.
As much as they are clients of the hospital that you'd be working at long term, you can't obviously be their therapist lifelong, and grief changes so dramatically from close up to far away—from personal experience.
Dr. Emily: No, absolutely.
Teagan: There are so many experiences that come up in grief that you can't prepare for. You can't know what's going to happen until you're in it.
We, as humans, naturally have a tendency: we want to know, we want to understand, we want to be able to predict. That's just a very natural tendency. And grief is that thing that really turns everything on its head and forces us to let go of a lot of that desire to have answers and to just know what's going to happen. We have to go through it moment to moment.
But there's a grief expert, David Kessler, and he says, “Pain and grief are inevitable, but suffering… we don't have to suffer in grief.” And that's hopefully what something like seeking support from a mental health professional can help people with. It's not about taking away the pain of that grief, but it's about helping people to navigate it in a way so that hopefully they're not suffering and feeling alone or feeling like they shouldn't be feeling the way they're feeling.
That's something that happens a lot, especially with pet loss. It's sometimes referred to as disenfranchised grief. Other forms of disenfranchised grief might be something like a miscarriage.
It's loss and grief that is not necessarily validated by society. Very often, people might be questioning like, “I shouldn't feel this way. They were just a dog.” How many times have people heard that or said that about themselves, even though we all know it's more than that?
When we have messages from outside that are not validating that experience, we can start to question, and that really… grief is hard enough just going through it and allowing yourself. But when you have that extra feeling of “I shouldn't even be feeling like this,” then it's really hard.
So, that's the other thing: just having more supports, being able to say, “Hey, there are groups that you can go to for support, or there are people that you can talk to.” Just knowing that sometimes is enough because people feel like, “Okay, I'm not the only one who's going through this. There are enough people that they need groups for it.”
Grief, naturally, is also a very isolating experience, and that kind of compounds the difficulty. So just having the visibility of resources and people who are doing this work can go a long way in helping people feel validated in their experience.
Dr. Emily: For the people listening who are new to this type of work, is there anything—any sentences or phrases—that you would recommend we try to say as veterinarians, or avoid saying as veterinarians, when trying to validate grief or provide support?
Because I know there's sometimes things like, we're taught in school things like, “I hear you,” or “That sounds like it's really tough,” or phrases like that. But what is something that we could try to include in our everyday euthanasia consultations or end-of-life stuff that could be carried forward?
Teagan: Yeah. Well, I mean, I do like that you bring up the value of that active listening and letting the person know that you hear them. It's interesting—going to school, going through my social work education—a lot of what we learn is not so much what to say, but how to listen, how to hear, how to just hold what someone is going through and not be able to make it all better.
But letting someone know that what they're going through matters, and that you do hear and see them—that's a really important experience for people to have.
So I do want to say that is good. And I know it can feel like, “Oh, I want to do more. I want to have…” You know, even on the last episode of this podcast, I know you were talking with Nora about not having all the answers, and that can be a really difficult situation to be in.
With some of these experiences, like grief, there aren't any easy answers and there isn't always one thing to say. That can be really hard, to just know that someone's going through something really hard and you care so much. That's why you're doing what you're doing: to try and hopefully save those animals and help someone to not go through that.
But inevitably, there's always going to be situations where it's just life, and all things end. So having… being in that moment… But yeah, there is a lot of value in listening and letting someone know that you really hear them and what they're going through. That can be very powerful.
Dr. Emily: Okay. Well, that's good to know.
Okay, so both of us are new grads. What is your best piece of advice for a fellow new grad?
Teagan: It's an interesting time to be in, right? You've been working towards this moment for so long, and now it's finally here, and all of a sudden sometimes there's more questions than ever before. “How did I get all the way to here, and now I feel like I really need to really learn now?”
I think really being proud of what you've accomplished is one thing. I think new grads and just anyone who's at any stage of beginning—because we're always coming back to the beginning of things—need to remember how far they've come and why they've worked so hard to be here.
Think about yourself five, ten years ago and how proud you would be of yourself now. Like, “Wow, you did it. All those tests you didn't think you would pass or all those times where it was really hard and you kept going anyway… you're here.”
And yeah, it's not the finish line. There's always more. But that's life. That's a continual journey.
Going into things, trying to stay curious, having that beginner's mind—a little bit of “I am at the start, and there is a lot that I don't know, and that's kind of where I need to be right now”—there's a lot of value in that too.
Because I think there's something relatable when you are new and you're figuring things out. All of us, in different ways, are figuring things out and wanting to feel like the other person we're talking to or interacting with is also kind of not “there.”
Of course, there are times where you want the other person to know what they're doing and be able to guide you through an experience, but at the same time, being able to admit, “I don't know either. Let's find out together,” can also be helpful for people.
So I think just remembering how far you've come, knowing that it's okay—you're supposed to not know everything right now. It'd be weird if you did, right? Something would be going on there.
But it doesn't make it any easier sometimes when, inevitably, we just want to jump ahead to the part where we feel good and everything clicks.
But then, hopefully, if you're doing it right, you keep pushing yourself, you keep growing, and you're returning to that place of “I'm beginning.” There are people who, when they go back and do a different specialty, they're new at that. They're at a different place, but it's always… it's learning how to learn.
That's a big part too—just getting better at learning how to know what you don't know yet and sit with that insecurity or discomfort a little bit.
Dr. Emily: When you brought up the shared decision-making, I find that when we as new grads are feeling unconfident in what we know, it's difficult to admit that to somebody else, especially someone you're trying to garner respect from.
To say to a client, “I don't know the answer to that, and I'd love to work with you, and I'd love to go back and do some research and let's see if we can find the answer,” is almost like admitting defeat or admitting that you're wrong in some way. You're worried you're going to lose their trust.
You're already battling looking young or looking like you're new to this place, and then you're trying to be like, “Well, I actually don't know the answer to that.”
But I think there's a lot of beauty in being able to be honest with your client and say, there's no way I'm going to know everything. Obviously I'm young—you can look at me and say, “Okay, obviously you're new to this.”
So being able to say, “I care about your pet. I care about doing this properly, and I'm going to go grab a textbook or I'm going to go ask a colleague,” that's a really important thing to be able to do.
And they, a lot of times, respect you more for being able to admit that you're out of your comfort zone, even though it feels so uncomfortable to have to put yourself in that position, where you risk being judged or you risk being forgotten about or that someone's like, “Oh, well, I don't want them touching my case then.”
Teagan: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it comes back also to hopefully being able to normalize the fact that vets or social workers or anyone else who's in these positions where, yes, we have a responsibility and there's a reason we go through what we go through in terms of education—to make sure we're doing things right—but we're also just people too.
There shouldn't be this immense pressure to be perfect all the time and to just know everything. Hopefully there is some understanding and some grace.
At the end of the day, just because you don't know right now doesn't mean you're not going to go and find out, and that's what's most important. If you fake it and you say, “I know,” but you don't really, that can end up worse for everybody.
Sometimes it's also nice knowing, “Wow, this person is really going to go the extra mile to really figure out what's going on, really look at all the…“ From the little bit that I got to witness of some of the medical stuff that happened at OVC, there's so many weird presentations of things and so many different symptoms that sometimes can look like one thing and another thing.
So, also knowing that someone's going in with a bit more of an open mind in a way, there's benefits to both. That's why being in an environment like a teaching hospital, where there is a mix of really experienced, really seasoned clinicians and also newer clinicians, students, interns, residents, that's a really great environment for everybody involved.
You need that mix. I think that's actually the best thing.
Dr. Emily: Yeah.
Where you're at right now in your career, can people reach out to you and use you as a resource as a private locum, or how do people…?
Teagan: Well, yeah. So I am working right now at a private practice in Hamilton. I'm providing therapy services to people generally, but I also am trying to keep myself out there as someone who has a niche interest in pet loss and just issues surrounding animal illness.
So I am trying to get myself out there as someone who can be that resource. It's just different when… yeah, it is private therapy. You're going to a therapist the way you would anyone else, but there's that bit of interest and niche in that area.
Dr. Emily: So we could refer to you and say, “Hey, I've got a client. They're really going through it. Here's Teagan's number.”
Teagan: That's right. Yeah. Because I'm… exactly. I'm just a therapist that can accept clients like anyone else. So yeah, absolutely. It's something that could be referred to.
There are a couple other social workers in Ontario who provide similar services—again, therapists who have a niche interest in pet loss and bereavement and illness and all that.
So yeah, there's a few different people. I know Sarah has a list, because sometimes people would get to the end of their two sessions, and sometimes there'd be more. They might start with the pet-loss piece, but it brings up other things, and then it sometimes is an opportunity to work through other things like, “Oh, I didn't realize this was maybe affecting me that way.”
So Sarah would have a couple of people that she could refer to who—not all they did was pet loss—but they had that understanding, that recognition of it. Sometimes people want to know the person on the other side is really going to understand and validate that experience.
Dr. Emily: And you're also incredibly unique in that you've had a very long relationship with a horse, and people who own horses have a very different relationship. I almost equate it to people who have parrots. It's a very different relationship because you have so much of your life with that animal, and their problems tend to be quite large problems. They're not just a single little incident.
So you are not only very important for the companion animal small-animal world, but also if somebody is going through a chronic illness with an equine pet or working horses or something like that, you have a very unique perspective that other people might not have.
Teagan: Yeah, for sure. I mean, the large-animal piece is a whole other world. There's a lot of different layers to that too.
Erin, out at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, has done a lot of work integrating with agricultural mental health—farmer mental health—as well, because that's been a bit of an underserved population historically in terms of mental health.
When a farmer who has livestock goes through a big herd loss, that's really serious. We might not see livestock in the same way as companion animals, but it's a relationship. It's a livelihood. It's a relationship, and it can have absolutely very big effects as well.
So that's a whole other world. And yeah, the large-animal piece… there's so much that goes in. It's a real lifestyle when you have any kind of farm animals or horse. It is… we all, whatever pet we have, it's a lifestyle. We take care of them every day, their daily needs, all of that.
But there is something to be said for going out there in the cold and wind and rain, three-hundred-sixty-five days a year, looking after horses or other farm animals. It can be really devastating when you lose them as well.
Dr. Emily: So we can link your information below, both on social media as well as in the podcast notes, so people can access you.
Okay. Closing off rapid-fire questions: if you had to ban one cliché phrase clients always say, what would it be?
Teagan: “It's just a dog.” “Just a cat.” “Just a horse.” Whatever it may be. “It's just a…” No more of that, folks.
Dr. Emily: What's one thing you wish everyone knew about veterinary social work?
Teagan: I mean, it might be the obvious answer, but I wish more people knew about it. I wish that it was something that folks, just in general, knew—that going through these experiences and having difficulty is normal and that there are supports out there.
Even things like pet-loss support groups and things like that. So yeah, just knowing that it's out there, really.
Dr. Emily: If your job was a meme, what would it be?
Teagan: Sometimes I think of… I mean, I feel like this meme applies to so many moments, but you know the one where the dog is in the house and it's like, “This is fine”?
Dr. Emily: Yeah.
Well, I really appreciate you coming today and talking about it, because as you said, it's not a very well-known part of veterinary medicine, or even… it's an evolving part of the field. It's going to exist and be more accessible to people.
So I'm glad that we are able to spread the word a little bit, and I appreciate you taking the time out of your life to come here.
Teagan: Absolutely. It's been so much fun. I really, really enjoy talking about this. It's such an important topic and something that I personally am very passionate about, and I was just so fortunate to have the experience that I had at OVC and get to dip my toe a little bit into that world and hopefully continue—but we'll see what the future holds.
Dr. Emily: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming. Where can people find you?
Teagan: We provide in-person services in Hamilton and virtual services across Ontario.
Dr. Emily: All right. Well, thanks again for joining us on Hot Mess—or just Hot Mess in general. And until next time.
If you enjoyed that episode, we've got a little surprise for you. A mini bonus episode is now out where we talk more about the emotional toll advanced medical options can have on both the clients and the practitioners. Go listen now.
