a Vets Dilemma

Another interesting phenomenon or fact is that 4 times the number of Veterinarians commit suicide than do Doctors.
There has always been the theory that the English love their pets more than their fellow humans, they show massive amounts of tolerance and seem to connect with their furry friend in a more fundamental way than they do with a relative in the family.

 Part of this is the dominant nature in the relationship and through that dominance a sense of ownership which clearly is missing in most human relationships. The ownership expresses itself as love since there is no danger of being rebuffed, unless it's a cat or a tortoise and it's very fulfilling to be able to wholeheartedly devote empathy and sentiment accepting that the significance of a wagging tail we construe as friendship and a lick as near a kiss as you need.

Do Vets over emphasise their role in this drama between man and animal, do they transmogrify through a magic relationship, beyond the clinical responsibility, such that the pain of the animal and the owner is absorbed in some way.
I remember working in an acute cancer ward for a week installing a telephone system for patient use at each bed. The atmosphere in the ward was business like but the stench of death hung over the place. You would go in in the morning to find Mr So and So had passed away in the night and the knowledge that death stalked the passageways seemed, in my eyes, to haunt everyone. I asked the nurses how they dealt with it but they said it was a job and they couldn't become emotionally involved, although to repress the natural regard we build up for someone we look after and care for, seem to be less than normal. I suppose we also find a kind of 'resolve' in treating humans because by communicate with them, the very process of interaction, their  passing away is made understandable by its "normality" given the place and the disease.
An animal seems to the 'animal lover' on a different plain. Most of the communication is carried out in their own head. They figment what ever emotion the animal feels and then find release by being downright sentimental by concocting a relationship to mean more than it can.
Perhaps Vets being privy to this daily symbiosis they are prone themselves to become overly sentimental and as we know, too much sentimentality is bad for you.