Embrace your conscience. We'll back you up.

Attended veterinary school in Mexico, at Universidad Veracruzana. While visiting a functioning pig slaughterhouse, Daniela was so traumatized that she had to seek psychological therapy. The therapist basically gave Daniela two options: quit veterinary school and do something else to help animals or "suck it up" and finish school if she really wanted to become a Veterinarian. Daniela decided to sacrifice her feelings of depression and anxiety and finished veterinary school as the Valedictorian of her class in 2008. She now enjoys a successful career in shelter medicine and high quality high volume spay/neuter.

As a UC Davis veterinary student, refused to participate in terminal surgeries, where animals are killed after student surgeries, and offered to fail the class to save the life of Becky, a dog who was slated to die for the student’s education. Because of students like her, UC Davis changed their policies.

Dr. Rosenberg is now the veterinarian at Happy Hen Sanctuary in San Luis Obispo, California.

Worked for a rural mixed animal practice with a practice owner who regularly belittled, humiliated and sexually harassed her. Was asked to treat a wounded fighting cock to repair him to go back to fighting. After 10 years of practice, was forced out when she was unable to return to full time work 6 weeks after the birth of her second child. It was finally after she left when she realized how poorly she was treated. She opened her own veterinary practice with a commitment to create an open, respectful and compassionate environment for her employees and clients. They focus on low stress handling and restraint to create a calm and comfortable environment for their patients and humans. Now collaborates with the Street Dog Coalition and volunteers to provide services to people and animals experiencing homelessness.

Fought back against University of Georgia’s use of terminal surgeries in student education to establish a non-terminal option for veterinary students and now teaches surgery around the world with an international organization.

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) revealed the agricultural industry’s coordinated efforts to discredit her and portray her as a “dangerous animal rights activist” for speaking out against factory farming. Dr. Heath garnered worldwide attention after an Intercept article laid out the details of the story.

On the founding committee of Veterinarians Against Ventilation Shutdown, urging the American Veterinary Medical Association re-classify ventilation shutdown as a “not recommended” method of depopulation.

Follow Dr. Heath on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Refused to kill animals in veterinary school and helped Australia's veterinary schools transition toward humane alternatives. Has spent his career advocating for animals. Visit his website, and read more about his work. Andrew is currently a professor of Animal Welfare and Ethics.

Dr. Larson has been a farmer, bareback bronc rider in the rodeo, a large animal veterinarian, spay/neuter clinic owner, medical researcher, meat inspector, state veterinarian and a prosecutor. She has worked with the media as a consultant on animal abuse issues including rodeo and PMU (pregnant mare urine- Premarin) horses.

In 1993, she started the National Spay and Neuter Coalition to stop the killing of 18 million unwanted cats and dogs every year in animal shelters. Her clinic sterilized 78,000 cats and dogs before she retired in 2014. Now, the number of animals killed in United States shelters is down to 1.7 million. 

Dr. Larson is currently retired but works with the police on animal abuse issues and also performs consultant work on animal abuse issues, mostly related to rodeo. 

Refused to kill a bird patient used by students for learning surgery.

Has spent his entire career advocating for improvements in veterinary medicine as an author, podcaster, television personality and speaker.

In veterinary school, Ingrid L. Taylor refused to kill ponies used to teach clinical procedures in a terminal lab. She and a fellow student worked together to adopt out the ponies to homes where they could spend the rest of their lives being valued companions. Now a writer and an award-winning poet, Dr. Taylor works on dismantling speciesist attitudes toward animals and raising awareness about the sentience of animals other than humans. She spent several years in emergency, critical care, and general clinical practice and served as a public health officer in the U.S. Air Force, where she looked after the medical needs of military working dogs and oversaw infectious and zoonotic disease programs.

She has provided expert veterinary opinions and court testimony in cruelty cases, and her testimony helped secure the first ever charges filed for cruelty to crayfish in the United States. She has worked with veterinary schools and veterinary technician programs both locally and internationally to encourage the adoption of humane training methods, and her work currently focuses on removing animals from harmful and wasteful biomedical experiments and promoting non-animal research methods. Find out more about her writing here or follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

During veterinary school she witnessed pigs in gestation crates, cramped living conditions, castration without any anesthesia or pain medication and the conditions on a fur farm. The suffering she witnessed haunts her to this day. As a result, she dedicates her life to spreading compassionate awareness of animal suffering.

Was told that a pork producer who sat on the review board of the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine would not allow a student entrance into the school because of her commitment not to consume animal products.

Witnessed neophobic, unsocialized research beagles in an AALAC-approved facility on IACUC-approved studies that claimed they were adhering to all guidelines and minimum requirements. The dogs were “debarked” and never saw beyond the white indoor walls of the facility. They were kept in supposedly AALAC-approved kennels devoid of toys yet replete with feces and urine (again, all within guidelines). Anonymous was eventually banned from going to that facility due to the complaints that they kept raising about a "good" research facility. When the dogs were moved to a different research setting, Anonymous visited the dogs every day, let them all out of their kennels, brought toys, and let them finally go outdoors, play, and enjoy the fresh air. Anonymous continued to provide them with this respite nearly 365 days a year and loved each and every one of them individually - and has now dedicated a veterinary career to trying to affect change from within.

In veterinary school I was a SAVMA Delegate. One of the SAVMA sponsored evening events at one of the annual SAVMA conventions was at a local bar. I heard over the loudspeaker that there was going to be a greased pig contest outside. I ran outside with one of my veterinary student friends to see what this event was all about. It was freezing temperatures outside, there were several pigs in a small arena, a large bottle of lube, and multiple drunk male veterinary students ready to participate. This was no ordinary greased pig contest in which people try to catch a slippery pig. This event was an opportunity for drunk male veterinary students to try to dismember these pigs alive. A whistle blew which signified the start of the contest and each student grabbed a different leg of the pig. The pigs were in the air and students were pulling their legs in different directions trying to rip them off of their bodies. Pigs were screaming in pain and my veterinary student friend was screaming at the veterinary students to stop. I had tears running down my face as I took photos of the veterinary students treating these pigs with complete disregard for their lives and the pain that they were experiencing. Eventually a whistle was blown to signify the end of round one. The pigs were unable to walk and were clearly in severe pain. Then they announced a second round in a few minutes. I ran inside and found a SAVMA representative and told them they had to go outside and call off this contest, which they did. 

That night I went back to my hotel room with my fellow SAVMA delegate and had her contact our SAVMA President to notify them that an anonymous person took photos of this event and if there wasn't an emergency meeting first thing in the morning, that this person was forwarding all photos to PETA immediately. We had our emergency meeting and over several months we all came to an agreement that veterinary students cannot handle animals when alcohol is being served at an event. This became part of our SAVMA by-laws. Unfortunately I was unable to get rodeo style events removed from SAVMA sponsored activities. I wrote an article for our national SAVMA magazine. Only part of my article was published, and veterinary students from rural communities supported the event that occurred outside that bar because that was their tradition.