Holly Kendrick
When veterinary nurse Holly Kendrick made her weekly trip to Shag Point, 45 minutes north of Dunedin, to collect cats for surgery she didn’t expect to return with a new addition to her family. But Benson, a tiny white kitten with ginger markings found abandoned on a local beach, was just too cute to resist!
Holly works as a Technician in Otago Polytechnic’s School of Veterinary Nursing and has previously spent three years working in a Dunedin Veterinary Clinic. She believes that as a veterinary nurse, you have to be prepared to take in ‘waifs and strays’ – that’s part of the reason her family has now grown to include two Labradors, three cats and a selection of goldfish!
All three cats have been ‘rescues’ she explains. Her first, Tyson, came from a litter of kittens that was dropped off at her clinic on Boxing Day to be euthanised. “There was just something about him and I couldn’t do it. So, he came home with me!”
Her next cat Nigel ‘no mates’ was hit by a car and dropped in to the clinic, but nobody claimed him. She managed to keep him, although he had to have a leg amputated. “He’s our three-quarter cat,” she laughs.
Benson though, was another story. He wandered out of the scrub on Shag Point beach, much to the surprise of a local taking her daily walk. Only about five weeks old, it was possible the kitten was a wee wild cat, but most likely he had been abandoned. “When I first saw him, I joked about him coming home with me” says Holly. “Then he did!”
“Benson is lovely; very mischievous. He gets on well with the other cats which is great because we weren’t going to keep him if he didn’t. The cats now all sleep on top of each other in front of the fire.”
Holly completed the National Certificate in Veterinary Nursing by distance through Otago Polytechnic before joining a practice. Now, as a Technician, she is enjoying the change of focus of working at the Polytechnic and is completing her National Diploma in Veterinary Nursing. Her day to day job includes running animal room sessions with the full-time students, maintaining the animal room facilities and supervising students while they perform health checks on the animals. She also does clinical examinations and organises all equipment for full-time students.
“The best thing about my work is passing the passion I have for animals on to students and making them really excited about their work. I can tell them stories about my work experiences and they get excited about their placements and what they’re learning. It’s great to be sending new graduates out in to industry with fresh ideas.
“To be a good veterinary nurse you need to be passionate, hard-working, have empathy for clients and be focussed on caring for animals – after all, doing what’s best for them is the main part of the job. My philosophy is to treat every animal as if it were my own. That means making them as happy and comfortable as possible at all times.”