In honor of World Wildlife Conservation Day (Dec. 4), Co-founder Kayla Fratt of K9 Conservationists shares how conservation detection dogs sniff out the scat of everything from Alaskan wolves to Guatemalan ocelots to help further research of their ecosystems and reveal who’s eating whom in the wild.

The Center for Veterinary Social Work at the University of Tennessee is “a space for all professionals with an interest in human and animal welfare to come together to collaborate.” As the field of veterinary social work gains popularity, how it’s taught and practiced is growing up too.

PainTrace is a noninvasive device that measures acute and chronic pain using skin-based electrical activity as an indicator. And it could help us know, once and for all, where animals’ pain is located and how much pain they’re in.

Matt Motta, PhD, and Gabriella Motta, VMD, are a brother-sister research team who (along with fellow researcher Dominik Stecula, PhD), are examining vaccine hesitancy among dog owners, drawing connections between pet owners’ decisions, fears about human vaccines, and the lasting effects of Covid-19.

Do you know a co-worker or client who seems to be struggling with a substance use disorder (SUD)? Or maybe you’re the one struggling? Phil Richmond, DVM, CAPP, CPHSA, CCFP, has been there, and now he is on a mission to flip the paradigm about SUDs from stigma to compassion.

Sixteen years ago, Monika Wood was veterinary assistant doing a dental prophy on a dog when she was inspired to pursue a career in research. Now she’s a credentialed veterinary technician working to provide the best possible animal care in the research lab.

Get excited for AAHA Con in San Diego next month with round 2 of speaker trivia. Can you guess the AAHA Con presenters based on these facts?  

A multimillion-dollar gift to the University of Florida Veterinary Oncology Program and Colorado State University from the estate of Lawrence G. Laiks—a dentist—and his wife Ann Laiks, who was a dental assistant, could be a game-changer in the fight against cancer in animals and humans.

Ivan Zakharenkov, DVM, MBA, chief executive officer of Galaxy Vets, turned his own experience of burnout into a passion for ongoing research of mental health and wellbeing in the profession.

Mark Morris, Sr., DVM, the first president of AAHA, created the prototype for Hill’s K/D renal diet in his own kitchen. Today, the Morris Animal Foundation continues his legacy by funding pioneering research like the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study and the hemangiosarcoma initiative.