Would you recommend Community Animal Network?
Community Animal Network is a very unique animal charity that provides animal care for rescued animals throughout Orange County. For the veterinary assistant internship, I learned many useful skill that I don't think I would have gotten anywhere else. For example, I learned veterinary skills such as certain diseases, how to draw blood, and feline handling. Additionally, I learned about how to observe animal behavior and all of the little, yet important things that go into making an animal comfortable. Furthermore, it was very cool to see how the Community Animal Network helps our community. I got to see the owner, DiAnna, help a soon to be homeless person find local resources to help them guarantee pet care, despite the terrible circumstances.
I had the opportunity to volunteer at Community Animal Network’s cat sanctuary over the summer. Caring for the cats there was very rewarding and I was also able to learn a lot. I was able to practice multiple skills including proper handling and restraint, giving different kinds of medications (pills, topicals, and oral liquids) to treat various conditions (including fleas, stomatitis, spinal stenosis, hotspots, and feline acne), and grooming (brushing and nail trims) on the cats. DiAnna is very knowledgable and experienced when it comes to animals, especially cats, so I was able to learn a lot from her. There were also multiple chances to go on mini field trips to some of the cats’ veterinary appointments as well as a spay and neuter clinic. This is a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience caring for cats as well as learn a bit about how an animal rescue is run. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to get their foot in the door for animal related positions.
Working at the cat sanctuary under the Community Animal Network polished my skills and knowledge in caring for cats, both in the medical field, and for their daily care. I worked as a veterinary medical intern for six months with the Community Animal Network's director Diana Pfaff-Martin. While there, I learned, and performed simple veterinary procedures such as giving subcutaneous fluids for dehydrated cats, giving pill medications, topical ointment application for skin cancer in a cat, and insulin injection for diabetic cats.
Thanks to Community Animal Network, I was able to land a job, and work as a Veterinary Assistant with one of Orange County's Feline Specialist at the Cat Clinic. The experience, and knowledge that Community Animal Network provides is great, and very useful for people who are wanting to work in the animal field.
The Community Animal Network was a fantastic organization to work with. I came into this internship with zero knowledge of felines and now leave with numerous skills. The things I learned ranged from basic skills, such as cat handling, to advanced skills such as blood drawing. Not only did I learn different skills, I also learned about certain diseases and ways to treat them. DiAnna is basically a fount of knowledge; she taught me many tricks that every cat owners should know: one of which she called "making cats happy" which was to modify certain facets of their environment in order to please the cat to make it the happiest it can be. Although the daily tasks done at the cat sanctuary are hard work, I learned a lot from this internship. Seeing all the cats and getting to know them day in and day out made the work much more enjoyable. All in all, I would definitely recommend this internship to the aspiring vet/animal lover because the knowledge you will gain here is priceless.
On my first day of Volunteering for
"The Community Animal Network," it was like no other. DiAnna was all prepared and ready to go with teaching me, about how things work in the sanctuary. One of the very first things that I learned, was how to give pills to cats. DiAnna puts a great deal of emphasis on how to give medication. DiAnna was very hands on, showing me how to open their mouth, where to place the pill inside the cat's mouth, etc. Through all of it, DiAnna was encouraging, telling me it just gets easier with practice. I am actually pretty good at it now!
Apart from doing litter boxes and giving pills, I learned a lot of life-saving techniques. At one point, a older cat, Kiki, was in his last few weeks of life. Kiki needed to be given fluids and be forced fed. As a high school student, I had never given a cat fluids.
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