When I was growing up, my family lived next to Dr. Turpel. My family hadn’t had any pets in a few years so living next to a couple who loved animals and had many of their own sparked an interest in animals for me. For my 4th birthday, they gave me a cat who I named Casper. Almost a year later we were given a yellow lab named Molly, and at this point, I had made up my mind that I needed to work with animals. Over the years we had a few other animals given to us, Blue and Sadie (Labrador retrievers) and 2 cats (Gilly and Emily). I originally wanted to become a Veterinarian and went to the University of Guelph for my Bachelor’s of Science, majoring in Zoology. During my 4 years there I went on a volunteer trip to Africa and worked with cheetahs. That was when I decided I wanted to become an RVT to allow me to have more hands-on work with the animals. I graduated from Guelph and applied to multiple colleges for the Veterinary Technician program. I chose Sheridan College to attend because it was closest to home for me. I graduated from the program with high honours in the spring of 2016. When the opportunity arose to work at Upper Canada Animal Hospital I was so excited to join the group and have loved working here ever since!