Here are three stories related by veterinarians about lessons learned, joy experienced, and the guilt, regret and wisdom that come with approaching and living past the end of the animals we love so much.

Not the dog he grew up with, but the dog who made him grow. 

While Andy Rollo, DVM, says he wanted to help animals that didn’t have a voice, he also thought he knew his limits. Finley was the family dog who died of cancer in Rollo’s third year of veterinary school. At that time, most veterinarians want their own dogs, but Rollo says he’d seen enough trouble and didn’t want extra responsibility.

Then, out of school, a sick yellow Labrador puppy came in with megaesophagus and aspiration pneumonia, with a breeder intent on euthanasia. First, a team member took in the hard-luck medical case, but then her living arrangement changed and she couldn’t keep him.

“Beau was a really nice dog,” says Rollo. So, he adopted him.

Eating problems aside, the puppy grew up happy and strong. But soon after adopting him, Rollo went out for a run with the dog, and suddenly he just couldn’t walk and he had to carry him home.

A surgeon visiting the hospital soon after diagnosed the unlucky lab with muscular dystrophy. Then bouts of irritable bowel disorder and bad diarrhea followed, just when Rollo and his wife were dealing with their first child’s birth. Treatment through the years meant feeding tubes, trying everything and reaching out to veterinary specialists across the country with questions.

Still, the puppy who didn’t seem like he’d last six weeks lasted a long six years and taught Rollo a lot. The crucial question, as the dog struggled health-wise, was, how far do you go with medical treatment when a patient is failing?

“When I eventually euthanized him, he was as skinny as could be and couldn’t hold anything down,” he says. “When do you say enough’s enough?”

Rollo’s hard experience deciding when euthanasia was right has helped him become more understanding with clients struggling with the same decision.

The dog that disappeared on her.

Melissa Detweiler, DVM, and her husband bought a house…and a dog came with it. But they didn’t know it at the time.

“There was a big chocolate Labrador laid out in the garage,” Detweiler says. 

They checked out the neighborhood and figured out the last owner had left him behind (an ex-wife who didn’t want her former husband’s old dog.)

“We found the name Copper on the garage wall with a date and figured that was his birthday,” she says. 

He was a good dog, and good with the kids. Over time, he picked up a little arthritis, got a little hard of hearing and started struggling with his eyesight. Then Detweiler and her family moved from suburbia to a rural town, and Copper really started living his best life.

“He loved being out in the country,” she says. 

But he got older, and it looked like eventually the family would need to decide when it was time for euthanasia. It was a hard decision, but one that was ultimately taken away.

One night, her daughter went out to feed Copper, and he was nowhere around. It was December, foggy and getting dark, but they still searched everywhere.

“We never found him,” she says. 

Detweiler says she walked and drove every back country road around town, hoping to find him or his body.

“That still haunts me,” she says. She never said goodbye.

“Now when I have conversations about euthanasia with clients, I can relate to their difficult decision,” she says, remembering starting to consider the decision as Copper got closer to the end of his life.

“Euthanasia isn’t the easier option,” she says, “but it’s an option.”

The dog that bailed him out.

“We had this brown dog,” says Jeremy Campfield, DVM. “And she was far from perfect.”

The brown dog came into Campfield’s life with tetanus from the streets (before his wife adopted her), then fought through parvovirus, kennel cough and life-threatening bee-sting anaphylaxis. She loved eating poop, was aggressive toward men and overly-protective on a leash—yet always needed to stay on it because she was unpredictable. 

But this brown dog was a good dog, he says: “More than once I’ve had to remind myself that a dog lunging at me as I enter the exam room might also be a ‘good dog,’ just like her.”

Campfield’s daughter asks him regularly to tell the story of when his good brown dog saved him. The story goes, he and the dog were on a hike in Southern California when the wind picked up and clouds started rolling in fast. Fog obscured things, and after 90 minutes of backtracking, Campfield realized he’d lost the trail.

“It was a weekday, and we were the only ones up there at the time,” he says. “Without cellphone reception and late afternoon upon us, I began to ready myself for an impromptu camping trip on the mountain.”

Campfield says he would have survived overnight, but his family would have been panicked.

“As we made a few more blind passes around, hoping to stumble back onto the trail, that brown dog became increasingly vocal and restless on her leash,” he says. “Then finally, after more wandering, she got stubborn.”

“She sat and stared at me, refusing to go in one direction, and I could have sworn she was trying to communicate something to me,” he says.

So, he broke his own “strict rule” about always having the dog leashed around people and other dogs. 

“As soon as the leash clasp was off, that lazy house-dog was a sight to behold,” he says. “She started zig-zagging back in the direction we’d just come.”

She was searching. And within 15 or 20 minutes, after hours of his lost meandering, she found the trail.

“I don’t necessarily think she saved our lives that day,” he says. “But I sure did appreciate being home in a warm bed rather than spending a very chilly night in the mountains.”

Dirham, usually called “D” by the family, recently lost her battle with mast cell disease at eight years old.

“When I am faced with euthanizing a 15- or 16-year-old dog, I tell the owners how lucky they were to have had such a good run,” he says. “And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.” +

The post Stories of Our Own Pets appeared first on PetVet Magazine.

You would be forgiven for not getting these names right the first time, but what a story the client will have to tell!

For dogs? The winner was Scarlett No Haira. Some of the 50 runners-up included Sugar Bubbles Fancypants, Madame Squishy Van Wrinkleface and Joan of Bark.

For cats? Edgar Allen Paw took first. A few runners-up included Admiral Turbo Meowington, Ella Whiskers Oreo Hurst and Tika Meowsala.

For the full list (and to see just how hairless Scarlett No Haira is), visit petinsurance.com/wackypetnames

The post You Named Her What? appeared first on PetVet Magazine.

In fairy tales, it always seems like the brave peasant can turn the tables on mean wizards or magical beings just by knowing, and saying, their names. And, if you’re Bible-minded, God makes a big deal about parading every new animal by Adam so he can give them names. 

The act of using a pet’s name isn’t quite as powerful as getting in trouble with Mom, swooning over a crush or beating the mean imp Rumpelstiltskin, but it’s a little bit like that. 

Pet names gain power as people’s affection for their pets grow. Sometimes clients give pets significant names that are really important to family history or their own deep loves and interests. Other times they toss off silly or ridiculous names (“White cat,” “Diarrhea”) that they don’t take too seriously. But even those people always seem to appreciate the power of a veterinarian and their team referring to them by name. 

It’s almost like magic.

Say My Name, Say My Name 

Learning and remembering every new pet’s name during a busy day in the exam room can be a little difficult. But it’s a bigger necessity than ever before to brush up on your memory skills. According to a new survey by Banfield, one in two Gen Zers and one in three Millennials say they adopted a new dog or cat during this pandemic. That’s a lot of new pets rolling in with new names to remember in person and in email!

What might make it easier is that so many people pick the same names (or maybe that makes it harder?) Most of the popular pet names today aren’t very magical. A recent survey of pet adoptions during the pandemic last year found that top names for new puppies were Max, Buddy, Sadie, Murphy and Rocky. The exception is Bella, the heroine in the popular Twilight books and movies, which has been a top pick since the series got popular.

This fits with what Shawn Finch, DVM, practicing in Omaha, NE, sees: “Most common pet names? Bella. Also Lucy. Maybe Max for boys.”

Her favorite pet name remains “Joey Cupcake,” a newly-adopted beagle whose first name was picked by an adult and second name picked by a five-year-old.

And, brace yourself, one client in Colorado named his bulldog “Bulls***.” 

“They made the dad change his name for the medical record,” Finch says. “I think they changed it to Spot.”

So, weird names, funny names, profoundly important names; clients like to know that you remember their pet’s name, that you remember them and that they matter.

So, How Do You Remember?

Dr. Jeff Werber, a practicing veterinarian in Southern California, says the pet’s name takes priority.

“I do my best to remember the pet’s name even better than the owner’s name,” Werber says. “When I see people out of practice, there’s nothing better than asking how Luna or Lola or Rosa is doing. It’s priceless as far as building that veterinarian-client bond.”

Even mess-ups can sometimes hilariously cement a client relationship. 

Dr. Finch remembers mixing up names in the exam room once: “This one time, I picked up a super-cute tiny Pomeranian and held her over my head within earshot of mom and said, ‘Who’s the cutest? Is it Willow? Yes, Willow’s the cutest!’

“The client loved it,” she continues. “But, umm, the client’s name was Willow, not the dog. We never speak of it, but she still brings her dogs to see me, so she must be OK with having a dork for a vet,” Finch jokes.

That leads us right into our first tip:

1. Don’t crisscross patients and clients. Finch says she’s noticed a trend where people give pets really human names, and their own names seem more casual. “I have human clients with cute names like Spencer and Calvin, and pet patients with human names like Bob and Pete and Sally,” she shares.

2. Always double-check the record. Why trust yourself? Take a beat before you make the call, write the email or open the exam room door to make sure you’ve got it right. “I read the record every time, which is always right there in front of my face,” Finch says. 

3. Attach the name to a story. Use that old memory trick of attaching the name to an image in your head. Werber recommends making sure to take the time and pay attention when talking to a client about the name for the first time. “If it’s from a foreign language, ask what it means. Ask the story behind the name. Show some care and curiosity,” he suggests.

4. Use the name to go the extra mile. Love the name? Tell the client. Ask where it’s from. Maybe even do a little leg work, like Finch did: “The best was a dog named ‘Khoshekh,’ which I thought I recognized as a character from a podcast drama my daughter listened to. I confirmed that, and when I called his dad, I asked if that was right, and he said in the seven years he’d had the dog, no one had asked him that. It totally made his day and mine.”

5. Don’t mess up the gender. “What’s worse than mixing up names is mixing up the sex,” Werber says. “Sometimes the client will correct you with venom.” Be sure to check the record or double-check “under the hood.”

Your veterinary hospital sees thousands of clients a year, and more pets than people. Clients want to know that you remember them and their pets. So, if remembering names isn’t your thing, take a moment to peek at the client’s record before walking into that exam room or try out some of the above tips. That one little word, which most pet owners hold very near and dear to their heart, can go a long way in helping to build that client-vet relationship. +

The post What’s in a Name? appeared first on PetVet Magazine.

Here are five tried-and-true ways to help lower stress, get your tired brain back into shape, and help to maintain your calm and composure when work is hard and the monotony of daily life is getting you down:

1. TAKE A BREAK FROM THE PEOPLE & REMEMBER THE PETS

In a year of pandemic stress, many people around you were reacting emotionally and not managing themselves properly. That might have made normal work with people even more stressful for those who (typically) like working with pets more than people. 

“You deserve, every day, to decompress without people, if that’s what helps,” says Melissa Detweiler, DVM.

“Our family lives out in the country, with two neighbors within three miles, so I can get a little isolation,” Detweiler says. “The stress of practice is from the people, not the pets.”

Her husband and kids know to give her time if she comes home from work, puts on her shoes and heads out on a three-mile country route to walk when she gets home. 

“I have to be disconnected from everything for a bit,” she says. “My dog is running through the creek, covered in weeds, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. It reminds me why I do this.”

2. Get in touch with your senses

The work of a veterinarian can be relentlessly cerebral and high-stakes. Sometimes you need to get back to the basics and stop and think about what would sound nice, smell nice and feel nice.

“I am addicted to salt baths,” Sarah Wooten, DVM says. “I spend an embarrassing amount of time bathing.”

Wooten also quiets down the world at least twice a day with meditation and escapes the noise and pollution of the city life by getting back into nature.

What sights do you miss? What smells bring you joy? What would feel good on your skin? You need to love on your body the way you love on your mind. 

“Self-care is not a luxury,” Wooten says. “It’s a survival skill.”

 3. Honor your inner child & play

Some veterinarians play video games. Some veterinarians dance or sing or play guitar. Some veterinarians jump on trampolines or ride their bikes. What used to make you happy when you were young? 

“Sometimes at night if the family is home and we’re watching TV, I like to color in coloring books,” Detweiler says. “It helps me disconnect, be creative, and look at all the pretty colors.”

Coloring is so different from her job, she says. She indulges herself with fun office supplies and new pens and daydreams about what she’d be doing if she weren’t a veterinarian.

“I would open up an arts & crafts supply store,” Detweiler says. “No stress, nobody dying.”

Your responsibilities are real and your work is important, and that’s why it might be time to reach back, a little bit each day or each week, to a time when the world wasn’t weighing on your shoulders.

4. Cut down on social media and connect with close friends

Participating in groups for veterinary professionals on social media where sympathizing with each other’s struggles is good, but sometimes veterinarians’ tendencies to stay in problem-solving mode turn sessions of sharing into sessions of correction.

“I don’t post about too many cases,” Detweiler says. “I guess because somebody will comment and say, ‘Well, why didn’t you do it this way?’ But I just wanted to vent.”

Instead, when she needs to talk about work but in a more personal, less professional way, she has particular colleagues and friends who hit the right tone. 

“You need to talk to people within the profession who get it, but they know I don’t need them to solve my problems,” she shares.

Ask yourself how you feel when you talk to certain people online and when you participate in certain groups online. Can you find the right coworker, mentor, colleague or close friend who gets you? Try connecting with them instead, one-on-one, rather than consulting a group who doesn’t understand your whole situation.

5. Get creative

Aside from child-like fun, are there other ways you used to be creative that you haven’t tapped into lately? Or maybe there is a new activity or hobby you have thought about trying out but have yet to find the time?

Writing is something creative that Dr. Detweiler enjoys. Sometimes that means articles or content to be read by others, but sometimes her art is just for her.

“I’m just purging; getting the words out, and that’s sometimes something I need,” she says.

She also combines her creativity with time with friends on her podcast, DVM Divas (dvmdivas.com), which gives her the chance to mix comforting and challenging conversations in with her joy of making audio.

What did you used to do that got your creative juices flowing? What have you always thought about trying out? Don’t overwhelm yourself by dreaming up some new, creative side hustle for money or fame (unless that’s thrilling). Find a small way to try it out and bring that creativity back into your life.

Stop what you’re doing right now, take a deep breath and think about what you’d like to do when you get home. Enjoy a moment of peace and quiet away from people or a cuddle with your cat? Maybe play a video game, strum on the old guitar or dance to a song? Relax in a bath with a sweet-smelling candle or take a walk in the park?

Last year was a rough year. You need a break, doc. +

The post 5 Ways to Detox & Decompress: Cleanse Yourself of 2020 as You Careen into the New Year! appeared first on PetVet Magazine.

Kids need to really, really want it.

People become veterinarians for lots of reasons, but Sarah Wooten, DVM, says when she thinks back to her own journey, there were hurts that that she hoped to heal and things she hoped the career would win her.

“[As a child,] I spent most of my time with animals because I had a huge imagination and a lot of social anxiety—people didn’t really get me, but animals did,” Dr. Wooten says. “Unlike most vets, I didn’t know I wanted to be a veterinarian my whole life. But being a veterinarian seemed to be the road to financial stability and social status and respect—two things I lacked as a kid and really wanted above all else.”

Today, as she bops around her work life and children’s lives, she encounters different kids, and many of them seem to have a clearer idea than she did way back when about what the job entailed.

“My best friend’s daughter is high school age and wants to become a veterinary surgeon,” Dr. Wooten says. “She spends her free time watching YouTube videos on surgery and is super driven and clear about what she wants.” 

She talked to her friend’s daughter about how expensive veterinary school can be and how that compares to starting salaries, but it didn’t make a dent. “Good,” she thought.

“She would not be swayed, which means she really, really wants it—and to be a good veterinarian who sticks in the profession, you need to really, really want it,” Dr. Wooten said.

If kids can manage the cleaning up, the blood and the euthanasias… 

Melissa Detweiler, DVM, was around animals from day one as a kid. But in third grade, her veterinarian’s euthanasia of her sick family dog almost put her off the career. 

She says the reality of euthanasia and the behind-the-scenes work is something that turns off some teens with summer jobs at her veterinary practice today.

“The high school kids help clean kennels and help with boarding dogs,” Dr. Detweiler says. “They apply for the job because they think they want to be veterinarians, but it’s no glamor role.”

Of the ones who leave the job early, Dr. Detweiler says some decide they want jobs in human medicine. Another high schooler realized she couldn’t get over the sight of blood. 

She and the rest of the team joke that the biggest red flag is when the first words out of an applicant’s mouth are, “I just want to do this because I love animals so much.”

“So much of the job is bad smells, weird fluids and a fair share of ‘gross,’” Dr. Detweiler says. 

Some children (and adults) who gravitate to jobs in veterinary medicine also like animals more than people, “but pets don’t come in by themselves,” she says.

“I counsel the kids on learning how to communicate and being comfortable with people,” Dr. Detweiler shares. “If that’s not an introvert’s natural tendency, it’s not that it can’t be done, it just takes work.”

Death is also a rough part of medicine for young employees—something especially hard on idealistic animal lovers. TV shows from Animal Planet and National Geographic glorify the fun, joy and excitement of saving lives, but the harsh reality is, sometimes animals can’t be saved. And that’s hard for some animal lovers to swallow.

In Dr. Detweiler’s rural Kansas town, a lot of the kids who seem to understand the reality of life and death the most are those with an agriculture background. 

“Kids from farms kind of understand the bigger picture of the profession,” she says. “Maybe they’re not as emotionally vested in every case, and they have a healthier boundary; a healthier viewpoint.”

“These kids from rural and semi-rural communities love and appreciate pets,” Dr. Detweiler explains. “But they don’t get as frustrated with clients who don’t follow all the recommendations. They don’t take it personally if clients don’t accept the best, most expensive treatment plan.”

Dr. Detweiler doesn’t try to talk kids out of veterinary school, but she tries to share the good with the bad. 

“It sounds weird, but of the teenagers who leave their jobs early in my hospital, maybe we save them,” she says. “Let’s show the cool surgeries to them, but also not hide the ugly parts of the job. I don’t want to see people give their lives to a profession they’re not suited for.”

“There are many ways for animal lovers to live lives invested in animals and caring for them without going to veterinary school,” Dr. Detweiler shares. “A rich life full of pets, farm animals, rescues and fosters might work fine for some.”

Don’t waste teachable moments!

When Chris Carpenter, DVM, surveyed practicing veterinarians, 65 percent of them said they’d decided to become animal doctors before they were 13. That means the elementary, middle and high school students who come to his website, www.vetsetgo.com, to learn about becoming veterinarians might not have all the information about the career path, but they’ve got lifelong passion to make it happen. 

Dr. Carpenter considers it a gift when a young, aspiring doctor winds up in a hospital and a veterinarian is there to make the most of it.

“Don’t lean on bland advice like ‘study science and get animal experience.’ Instead, invite interested tweens or teens to shadow you for a day. Handle this encounter right, and you’ll gain their parents’ goodwill for life,” Dr. Carpenter says. “And, you might be training the next generation of excellent, thoughtful pet owners, too, who understand the issues of animal medicine, even if they don’t choose a career there.”

“While some of them will become animal doctors, most will not,” he says. “However, they will all become something else: pet owners. If we reach out to them today, build a strong connection with them, and educate them on animal health, we will have well-educated future clients with a close connection to our profession.”

For those whose dream is to doctor animals, veterinarians like Drs. Wooten, Dr. Detweiler and Dr. Carpenter welcome them aboard. +

The post When I Grow up… What Kids Get Right (and Wrong) about the Profession appeared first on PetVet Magazine.

The ancient philosophy of Stoicism was started around 300 BC by Zeno and developed by his students and followers as a mixture of logic, physics and ethics. Today, logic and physics have surpassed old facts and theories, but many still find wisdom and solace in the ethics as encapsulated in the class notes of a student of Epictetus, the letters to a friend (literary or real, we’re not sure) of Seneca and the journals of Marcus Aurelius (intended for publication or not, we’re not sure).

While caricatured in modern times (and even in ancient times by their philosophical competitors) as humorless and emotionless, Stoicism, generally, didn’t argue against emotions. They argued that people are swept up by them too often because they are focusing on, and clinging to, the wrong things. Get your thinking right, they argued, and you would be happier, more content and more resilient when life gets in the way.

Here are a few choice quotes from the three big Stoics and ways these ancient thoughts might be relevant to day-to-day veterinary practice.

1. You know that life can be annoying and unfair, and that people can be hard to deal with. Be ready. 

Take it from Marcus Aurelius who lived 121 to 180 AD, and was emperor of the Roman Empire from 161 until his death. 

“Say to thyself at daybreak: I shall come across the busy-body, the thankless, the overbearing, the treacherous, the envious, the unneighbourly. All this has befallen them because they know not good from evil.”

In business with the pet-owning public—and in life with everyone else—you meet and interact with those who don’t seem to be doing the right thing. On a good day, once; on a bad day, all day. Prepare yourself for this first thing in the morning, says Aurelius, and before heading out to places or situations you know will be stressful. And remember that they may act the way they do because, to put it colloquially, they just don’t know any better. 

You don’t need to take all the abuse, however. Consider the following analogy pulled from the fighting rings of Rome:

“Suppose that a competitor in the ring has gashed us with his nails and butted us violently with his head…we do not suspect our opponent in future of foul play. Still we do keep an eye on him, not indeed as an enemy…but with good-humoured avoidance. Act much in the same way in all the other parts of life…Avoidance is always possible, as I have said, without suspicion or hatred.”

Don’t spend your time resenting, hating and fearing, but build a “good-humoured avoidance” of those situations or those people that have given you reason. What could you do to manage those painful encounters differently?

2. Life is short and death is certain. Act accordingly. 

“… call this to mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead, and a little later not even your names will be left behind you.” 

Every Stoic thinker points out that life is short, and things that seem big in the moment are really very small in the long run. Thinking about death, in this way, “is not an impetus to sorrow,” Aurelius says, but a way to calibrate one’s actions and thinking to focus on the important things. What is bothering you today, or perhaps every day, isn’t so big if you think about all of your life as a whole—and perhaps how you and the offender will all be forgotten someday.

3. Give gossip no power.

“If you are told that someone is talking badly of you, don’t defend yourself against the story but reply: ‘Obviously he didn’t know my other faults, or he would have mentioned them as well.’”

Epictetus was a slave in the court of the Roman emperor Nero. He found freedom and told his students to focus on strengthening their good traits (virtues), fighting their bad (vices) and ignoring the “indifferents” in life (all the things they don’t control, like wealth, health and people’s opinions of you). He lived from 55 to 135 AD.

Perhaps Epictetus’ advice here isn’t the right response to a negative Yelp! review of your veterinary hospital, but it is a pithy, funny way to respond to one of life’s many indifferents; those things in life you cannot control and whose loss or lack should not be allowed to be your focus in life. 

4. Don’t give others power over you.

“Our master is anyone who has the power to implement or prevent the things that we want or don’t want. Whoever wants to be free, therefore, should wish for nothing or avoid nothing that is up to other people. Failing that, one is bound to be a slave.”

Epictetus’ advice is a hard sell in a world where we are encouraged to be the architects of our own health, self-care, finances, careers, families and success. The answer, says Epictetus, is not to focus on the success, but the virtues each day that you do control which may or may not lead to success: study, hard work, kindness, calm and wisdom. You control the effort you put into a case, not the outcome. 

The Stoic philosopher Antipater used the analogy of an archer: You prepare your bow well. You practice. You learn from your mistakes. You do what you can to shoot straight. But you do not control or depend on whether the arrow hits the mark.

5. Fight today’s fight today, not yesterday’s or tomorrow’s.

Seneca, who lived from 4 BC to 65 AD, was a playwright, a courtier and a famous tutor of the Roman Emperor Nero. When Nero went bad, Seneca suffered for it.

“What’s the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then? What is more, doesn’t everyone add a good deal to his tale of hardships and deceive himself as well in the matter?…There are two things, then, the recollecting of trouble in the past as well as the fear of troubles to come, that I have to root out: the first is no longer of any concern to me and the second has yet to be so.”

It is natural to be hurt, sad and angry about bad things that happen. It is natural to be worried, anxious and frightened about bad things that could happen. But there is little to be gained by either, says Seneca. Stand your ground for today and today’s troubles, and don’t add to your burden by rehashing what’s happened over and over again, or imagining over and over again what could be coming. 

6. No matter where you go, there you are.

“The story is told that someone complained to Socrates that travelling abroad had never done him any good and received the reply: ‘What else can you expect, seeing that you always take yourself along with you when you go abroad?’…If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”

If you are unhappy, unsatisfied, frustrated or overwhelmed, it’s possible a change of scenery could help. But Seneca warns us that it’s also possible, whether on vacation or in a new job or home, that the same problems that plagued you before follow you. Because you follow you.

How to change yourself is up to you. Stoicism is one among thousands of paths out there. Pick one and try it. Stoic teachers made a promise to their young students millennia ago that stands for us today: Through self-reflection, ethical study and practice in changing how we think, speak and behave, we can become better, kinder, more ethical people who do more good and less harm in this world. We can better weather the death, disappointment and disaster that surround us.

Changing how you think about things and the choices you make each moment is hard work, but you can do it. +

Sources:

• The Communings With Himself of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (1916, Harvard University Press), translated by C.R. Haines
• How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (2018, Princeton University Press) by Epictetus, translated by A. A. Long
• Letters From a Stoic (1969, Penguin Books) by Seneca, translated by Robin Campbell

Further reading:

• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine (2008, Oxford University Press)
• How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life by Massimo Pigliucci (2017, Basic Books)

The post 6 Lessons From the Ancient Stoics for Veterinary Professionals appeared first on PetVet Magazine.