Like many professional regulators, such as those for doctors or teachers or lawyers, the College of Veterinarians of Ontario does not wish to attract public attention only, or frequently, for its discipline cases.

But now that Ontario’s drastically outdated veterinary oversight laws are being updated and new legislation brought into effect, with sharper disciplinary teeth to bring veterinary professionals into line when they stray, a few recent prosecutions give a sense of just what a professional regulator sometimes has to deal with at the extremes.