TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Hillsborough College has partnered with Hillsborough County\u2019s Pet Resource Center, and while it\u2019s not a monetary partnership, it does end up saving the county shelter some money.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Students enrolled in Hillsborough College’s Veterinary Technician Program assist at Hillsborough County’s Pet Resource Center weekly
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Students earn their clinical hours assisting, and it frees up shelter employees to help more animals
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Ginette Campos is the veterinary practice manager. She says during peak months, the shelter has upwards of 500 animals to care for<\/p>\n
Students enrolled in the Veterinary Technician Program visit the Pet Resource Center weekly, assisting with exams and treatments for 8-10 animals each time, and with a packed shelter, it\u2019s all hands on deck.<\/p>\n
Anthony Spatola worked at the Hillsborough County Pet Resource Center as a vet tech himself several years ago. Now he\u2019s back, this time instructing his students from Hillsborough College.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat these animals at the shelter need to get adopted if they\u2019re already spayed or neutered is a physical exam, rabies vaccine, heartworm test, they get preventatives and vaccines, so whatever they need at that time, we\u2019re going to perform,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Students take what they\u2019ve learned in the classroom and put it into action here, helping shelter animals, which in turn, frees up staff to care for additional pets.<\/p>\n
Ginette Campos is the veterinary practice manager. She says during peak months, the shelter has upwards of 500 animals to care for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely alleviates a little bit of our work load at animal services, mainly our department because they\u2019re helping us to perform some vaccines, some treatments for the animals that need it,” Campos said. “And if they were not being done by the students, we would have to do it at animal services, which is great. They\u2019re helping us, we\u2019re helping them.”<\/p>\n
Students like Italianna Anderson say helping here is a dream come true, as she has always wanted to work with animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different when you\u2019re looking at a textbook versus actually being hands-on and doing things. It\u2019s been very interesting and very fun, and I\u2019m excited to jump in and do everything,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Hillsborough College just resumed this partnership. They had stopped bringing students to the shelter during the pandemic, but started the program back up within the last year. They plan on keeping it going, and even growing it next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Hillsborough College has partnered with Hillsborough County\u2019s Pet Resource Center, and while it\u2019s not a monetary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,5711,276,115,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-10540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-fallon-silcox","10":"tag-hillsborough-county","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-tampa","13":"tag-tampa-headlines","14":"tag-tampa-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}