About Auntie Jessie

Since a young age, I've been more interested in animals than anything else. I used to say I wanted to be an animal doctor. As a toddler, I would look for garden bugs that I decided needed help (they were fine). I would take on more tasks for our family pets by cleaning, feeding, grooming and making them happy. Making animals happy, made me happy (it still does!)


As I grew, I realised that being an "animal doctor" was not the job I thought it was, and that being a vet nurse was the path for me. I thrive on being able to make a difference to an animal's life. I still love the simple things such as, making sure they have a super, soft comfy bed, or getting excited when the cat that hasn't eaten for a week, decides to eat from my hand.

Although I love my job as a veterinary nurse, there are some things that I struggle with in my career...


1) Seeing animals suffer (the classic scenario when I'm nursing a patient that I know in my gut is not going to get better.) This unfortunately is something nurses have limited control over. I can express my opinion to some degree, but ultimately the owners have the right to make decisions for their animals, based on their discussions with the vet.


2) When an animal such as, a cleft palate puppy, a fading kitten, wildlife or strays are presented to a veterinary practice, but are not given the standard of care they deserve. This can happen when vets are left to pick up the pieces when an owner surrenders an animal, lack of funds, lack of time, lack of knowledge, lack of awareness... and the one that upsets me the most, lack of want and compassion.


I would often research specialist rearing methods, and when the cleft puppies came in to be put to sleep, I would take them on. Me and my mum started fostering for animal rescues and this gave me more fulfillment.

Then one day at work, only by chance, I saw on the appointment diary "kitten found with no eyes - PTS" (put to sleep.) I stayed late after my shift and waited in the prep room, where the kitten would be brought for his final moments. The kitten was a tiny bundle of fur and bones, with two grossly prolapsed eyes as a result of neonatal ophthalmia (an eye infection which occurs before the eyelids open.) He was in a bad way, but I was toying with the idea of trying to save this kitten. The vet already had the "death juice" to hand and seemed to have already decided the kittens fate. I felt awful, as I cupped the kitten in one hand, holding out his twiggy leg with the other for the vet to find a vein... that was it, the needle was in.


But the vet couldn't find a vein. Whilst the vet was preparing to sedate the kitten, I asked the vet if there was anything else wrong with the kitten. The vet explained that apart from being emaciated, he appeared to be otherwise healthy. He was a measley 180g, the size of a two week old kitten, but was actually around 5 weeks old, due to having all of his baby teeth. He was meowing and searching my hand for food...which told me this kitten had not given up on life!


So I asked the vet, "Could we just take his eyes out?" I'm sure there was a more professional way of me suggesting this ... The vet paused for a second, and replied "I geuss so, but he's going to be blind and will need special care, and who's going to pay for it?". Without contemplating any of this, I just said "I'll take him on."

Thankfully the vet was willing to stay late and perform the operation, They could have easily said no, and that would have been that; I'd have had to "help" put this poor kitten to sleep, and that would have been another situation to seep it's way into my sad memory bank.


But not for this little kitten (who I decided to call Weasel!) He underwent emergency surgery to remove his eyes and less than two hours later, I took him home. He was purring, eating and to my surprise, seemed incredibly happy with his new life! He made me cry ... to think he was literally a whisker away from certain death ... all because he needed extra help.


This was this situation that made me realise I needed to completely change how I navigate my way through working with animals whilst doing what I love- helping.

After lots of brainstorming and planning, Auntie Jessies' Animal Care was born. I decided to become a part-time locum veterinary nurse (a nurse that fills in for veterinary practices.) I combined all of my interests (handrearing, specialist neonatal care, whelping, pet-care, and vet nursing) into a business ... sort of. The cost of taking on animals can be enormous, and if anyone doesn't already know, vet nurse wages don't match to vet bills. I was being asked to take on more handrears than I could cope with which got me thinking...this is not sustainable.


With handrearing in particular, colleagues often tell me they've never heard about certain techniques and methods I've practised over the years, and that I should teach others.

But it's not a case of handing someone supplies and giving them a 2 minute talk. In order to have a high success rate with handrearing, neonates require specialist care, particularly those with medical needs.

So I've now started making online courses available to anyone interested in taking care of neonates. My hope is that with these courses, more awareness can be made into how much more everyone can do to help when faced with those horrible situations when a neonate needs our help.