09/03/2026
Kaitlyn Purzycki '25 is extending the population level skills acquired in her Shelter Medicine graduate training to her work with service dogs and conservation.
For Kaitlyn Purzycki, shelter medicine has always been about more than animal care alone. 🐾
Kaitlyn '25 has been working with animals since she was 14, starting in wildlife conservation and continuing today as a reproduction veterinary technician and volunteer manager at The Seeing Eye guide dog school. She is also a lead researcher and field technician at the wildlife conservation nonprofit, Terrapin Nesting Project.
Across each role, one thing stays the same. Kaitlyn believes in what can happen when animals are given the time, patience and support they need to thrive. And that belief is what brought her to our online Shelter Medicine master's degree program.
Kaitlyn used her time in the program to better understand how shelters can support the health and wellbeing of the animals in their care, including non-traditional species like horses, reptiles and birds.
For her capstone, Kaitlyn focused on a topic that connected her experience at a guide dog school with her interest in the human-animal bond. Her project, “Dogs Helping Humans: A Path Out of the Shelter Into Service,” explored how shelter dogs could be trained as service animals for people living with PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
She hopes the project helps people see another possible pathway for shelter dogs, one that helps them move through the shelter, find a positive outcome and support someone who needs them.
For Kaitlyn, there is a hidden beauty in animals that you only see when you work or live with them. They provide a comfort that is nonjudgmental and unconditional, which can be healing for so many people. She hopes to continue working with organizations that recognize the comfort, connection and healing those animals can bring to people through adoption, service work, therapy and more.
