Carol is a PhD candidate in the Department of Population Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) at the University of Guelph, Canada. Her research focuses on the owner-companion rabbit relationship, and companion rabbit care and welfare. Specifically, she is exploring the validity and reliability of established human-animal relationship scales for use with companion rabbit owners, rabbit owners’ favourite rabbit behaviours and why they are so, ownership challenges, risk factors for thoughts of giving rabbits away or letting them loose outside, and rabbit intakes and management practices at Canadian and American shelters and rabbit rescues. Vespa, an extraordinary, lop-eared rabbit inspired her research.

Prior to the PhD program, Carol completed a Masters in Population Medicine at the OVC where her research focused on veterinary technical and professional skills in student veterinarians and recent graduates. She currently shares her home with a bonded pair of free-range, up-eared rabbits, Ellie and Coco. The duo, affectionately known as “the hooligans,” came to her from a foster family who took them in after they had been turned loose outside by their previous owners.