The Kirkwood Community College Veterinary Technician Program hosted an open house on Oct. 11 where it offered food, drinks and the opportunity to see dogs available for adoption.
“We have this open house every year,” said Sophie Jennett, veterinary technician. “We usually get 10-ish dogs from the shelter; it just depends how many students we have each year.”
Kirkwood gains ownership of the dogs from the shelter every year, according to Charlie Kindig, veterinary technician. After being in the program, Kirkwood adopts out each of the dogs.
“It is bittersweet to adopt them out because we’re all very close, and we all get along really well and we’re just like a little family here,” said Kindig.
“It’s just been interesting to get to learn why dogs do the things that they do. It’s been very cool to be able to understand them on a new level.”
As part of the veterinary technician program, first-year students train and handle the dogs on a day-to-day basis. They train the dogs to help make them better adoption candidates.
Second-year students operate as case managers, taking care of the medical needs of the dogs. They also act as a support system for the first-year students to help watch for problems.
“It’s definitely different than other programs or curriculum,” said Kindig. “We had a six-week semester before the fall semester, and that was just classes. But then there’s all this anticipation, like, we get assigned dogs next semester.”
Kindig added that it was interesting getting used to because they have to learn how to teach dogs using hand signs and if something’s wrong, they can’t tell you there’s something wrong like a person can.
Anyone who attended the event had an opportunity to tour the Veterinary Technician Center, which opened in 2023 as part of a larger renovation of Kirkwood buildings.
“We have pretty much everything that you can do a checkup on,” said Regina Klostermann, veterinary technician.
The building features a classroom, a surgery room, a dental room, an X-ray room and a commons area. “We actually do perform surgeries here, and we still have room for classes as well as the hands-on stuff,” said Klostermann.
In addition to the animals that students service, the building also houses several permanent animals owned by the college including two birds and a bearded dragon named Squirt.
Categories: Campus News, News
