AVC students pose with three-year-old beagle Brett.

For seven happy pooches in P.E.I., retirement means an end to poking and prodding from eager veterinary students and a start to sunbathing on lawns, playing fetch, and cuddling with their humans. Now that Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) has decided to move away from teaching dogs and instead use models, virtual reality, and client-owned dogs for student practice, the beagles in their faculty are ready for adoption.

Aged between two and five years old, these beagles have been cherished fixtures at AVC. Now that the time has come for them to leave the college, many of the canine companions will be adopted by students with whom they already have close bonds.

The retirement marks a significant shift in the AVC’s approach to veterinary education. The college is progressively moving away from owning teaching dogs and more towards employing life-like model dogs and virtual reality simulations and involving client-owned pets for practical training.

“Now there just isn’t a need to actually keep dogs with us anymore, so it’s much better that we move toward the new model of having student-owned dogs, and in some cases client-owned dogs, coming in for those early year teaching practices,” Jonathan Spears, AVC’s university veterinarian, told CBC News. “At some point, it’s important that the students do have these interactions and do learn some of these techniques from the animals, but to get in those early years and teaching them on these more advanced models, now we’ve reached that point of technology.”

The beagles would arrive at AVC when they were a year old and usually stay for a maximum of four years. Though they were never subjected to invasive procedures, they were used to teach students basic techniques. While the dogs provided valuable learning experiences, utilizing models and client-owned pets will offer students broader clinical exposure.