Clinical Animal Behaviour (Online Learning) MSc, PgDip (ICL), PgCert (ICL), PgProfDev postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

There is a Labrador at the practice where I work as a receptionist who will not cross the waiting-room floor. He stops at the edge of the grey vinyl, plants his feet and waits until his owner carries him to the consulting room. Clients often ask me whether he is being stubborn. I have learned to say that I do not know, but that it might be worth mentioning to the vet, because a dog that braces on a smooth surface could be anxious, sore or both. That small uncertainty, whether a behaviour reflects emotion, pain, learning or some mixture, is what I want to study properly, and a part-time online programme would let me do so while continuing the work that keeps raising these questions.

My undergraduate degree was in Zoology, where I enjoyed ethology far more than I expected to. For my dissertation I worked with a local rehoming centre to compare stereotypic pacing in kennelled dogs on days with and without a food-dispensing toy. I scored behaviour from kennel camera footage using a simple ethogram and instantaneous sampling every two minutes. The sample was small, twelve dogs over four weeks, and the differences I found were modest and inconsistent between individuals. What I took from it was less a conclusion than a respect for method: how much depended on defining 'pacing' tightly enough that I scored it the same way on week four as on week one, and how easily kennel noise or staff routines could confound a result. I would like to learn how clinical behaviourists move from that kind of observation to a working diagnosis for one animal.

Since graduating I have spent three years on the front desk of a mixed small-animal practice. I am not involved in clinical decisions, but I see a great deal: cats who arrive silent and leave hissing, puppies whose first visits shape how they behave at their second, owners who describe 'aggression' when what they mean is a dog guarding a sore ear. I helped the nurses introduce quieter booking slots and a separate seating area for cats, and I now ask owners a few set questions when they book, such as whether their pet travels well, so the team can plan. It is ordinary work, but it has shown me how often behaviour and physical health are presented to vets tangled together.

At home I foster cats for a small rescue, usually one or two at a time. My most recent was a young ex-feral tabby who spent her first fortnight under the bed. I kept a short daily log of where she ate, how close she let me sit and what made her retreat, and passed it to the rescue so adopters had more than 'shy' to go on. Reading Sarah Heath's and others' work on feline emotional health, and John Bradshaw's Cat Sense, helped me think about her fear in terms of motivation and early socialisation rather than personality.

Outside animals, I play fiddle in a ceilidh band at weddings and village halls. It has nothing to do with behaviour science, though it has taught me to keep commitments on tired weekday evenings, which matters for part-time study alongside full-time work.

I want to develop a grounding in learning theory, the neurobiology of emotion and the interaction between behaviour and medical conditions, and to understand how behaviour cases are assessed, referred and managed ethically. In the longer term I hope to work towards supporting behaviour cases within general practice, where so many problems are first noticed. I am organised, used to recording observations carefully, and comfortable talking with worried owners. Online study suits both my circumstances and my habit of learning steadily alongside practical experience, and I would bring to it a genuine curiosity about why animals like that Labrador do what they do.