Friday, 23 April 2021, 10:27 am Saturday 24 April marks World Veterinary Day and this year New Zealand veterinarians find themselves facing another year of significant stress and challenging workloads. There are many reasons for this including the fact that veterinarians were classified as essential workers during the COVID 19 lockdown often working under extreme conditions which added to the stress they were already suffering due to an often physically and emotionally demanding job. "Part of what contributes to veterinarians’ emotional loads is wanting to do the very best we can for our patients - with a number of constraints. We know animals are sentient beings and have feelings like