Smiles Dog Training

07/30/2026

Hello friends! Firstly thanks for all the follows - it's hard to believe we're almost at 1k followers in large part thanks to PBS NewsHour! Thanks to all your contributions, Private Equity Vet is getting more complete by the day and is being visited by thousands each day.

After hundreds of hours of work behind the scenes (and plenty more to do) we finally launched IndependentVet.com, a companion site to PrivateEquityVet.org. It's our answer to the question we get daily - "where can I find a list of independent vets?".

But we need your help verifying independent practices! Please tell your local independent vets, and get on the map in your local area and please start verifying the ones you know. It's honestly surprising how many independents don't explicitly state it on their websites.

Thanks so much for your support!

Please give us your feedback! Oh and FYI, this is purely a passion project to honor Pluto run and funded by volunteers with zero commercial interest. Access will always be free both to view and list, the only reason we went with the .com was for sale and the .org was taken.

If you're a vet who is passionate about helping independent practices, we'd also love to hear from you because we want to use this site as a force for good and we need your ideas!

06/03/2026

05/22/2026

05/07/2026

The people who care for animals in shelters and rescues experience post-traumatic stress at rates five times higher than the general workforce — and yet, almost no research has looked at how to support them.

A new pilot study published in Human-Animal Interactions by Dr. Melissa Trevathan-Minnis and colleagues set out to change that. They evaluated a 10-week virtual support group designed specifically for animal shelter and rescue workers and volunteers — and the results are striking.

What they found:
🐾 Significant reductions in grief vulnerability, perceived stress, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress
🐾 Significant improvements in overall mental health
🐾 100% of participants said they would recommend the group to a colleague

But the qualitative findings are where it really lands. Participants described what the group gave them:

- A like-minded community across geographic lines
- Validation for grief that often goes unrecognized in this work
- Tools for boundary-setting and self-care
- A renewed connection to purpose
- Permission to step back without shame

The "caring-killing paradox," disenfranchised grief, moral stress — these aren't abstract concepts for shelter and rescue workers. They're daily realities, and they're driving high rates of turnover (around 28% nationally, compared to 3.3% in the general workforce).

This study offers something rare: an evidence-based, scalable, low-cost intervention model for a population that has been overlooked for too long.

📖 Read the open-access study:

Trevathan-Minnis, M., Morris, N., Johnson Binder, A., & Pelar, C. (2026). Assessing the impact of a support group on people who work and volunteer in animal rescues and shelters: A pilot study. Human-Animal Interactions, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1079/hai.2026.0022

💬 If you work or volunteer in animal welfare — what kinds of support have meant the most to you?

05/04/2026

The long and short of it is that I have spent most of 2026 battling health issues (my own, my family, and Tidus too), burnout, grief in its many forms, and compassion fatigue. All while this ::waves at the US facism rolling ahead:: is happening.

It has made me a very inefficient professional, and I just wanted to thank everyone for their patience and flexibility while I get things sorted. I am reevaluating my capacity and boundaries around my business, as well as my role in the pet professional community, going forward.

04/23/2026

A milk replacement for puppies is being recalled nationwide, and officials are urging pet owners to discontinue its use immediately, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://fox5sandiego.com/news/pet-owners-urged-to-stop-using-recalled-puppy-milk-replacement/