‘Our job is to safeguard their welfare’: The vet who is helping to rewrite Singapore’s animal rules

SINGAPORE – Watching videos depicting animal abuse or neglect on repeat is not what you would put in your resume.

But it is a part of Dr Petrina Teo’s job to make welfare assessments for investigations into suspected abuse cases.

She is a senior veterinarian at the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation (CAR) at the Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS), a cluster of the National Parks Board (NParks), that looks after the welfare of companion animals, including community cats, both on the ground and through policies that shape how pet services are run in Singapore.

Her work comes as the Republic overhauls its veterinary landscape.

Passed on April 8, the new Veterinary Practice Bill introduces three tiers of licences – restricted, general practice and specialist – and prompts a fresh look at how pet-related industries are regulated. At the same time, Dr Teo and her co-workers are reviewing the Code of Animal Welfare.

It is a far cry from the shy girl who was not allowed to keep pets at home.

“My mum is very scared of animals,” says Dr Teo, 29, who lives with her parents.

Instead of having pets at home, she found companionship in community cats. She volunteered at shelters, seeking every chance to work with animals. 

That early determination eventually led her to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery at University of Glasgow’s School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine, where she completed a five-year degree with placements across companion and farm animals.

Returning to Singapore in 2020, Dr Teo started work at NParks’ Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation.

There, she handled injured native wildlife, from rescue and treatment to rehabilitation and release. The centre also deals with animals confiscated from illegal smuggling and supports disease surveillance and research into issues such as macaque management.

For wildlife, she says, the clinical endpoint is brutally clear. “If an animal cannot survive in the wild and we’re not able to care for it, it might be euthanised.”

Those situations taught her to make tough decisions quickly and with clarity.

Guarding pets on the policy front line

In 2025, Dr Teo moved from wildlife to pet species at CAR. Her current facility takes in rescues, lost-and-found pets and animals seized for welfare investigations – dogs, cats, rabbits and hamsters that may have been neglected or abused.

Public awareness has grown, she notes. Social media is flooded with videos and reports of alleged cruelty, and animal lovers are quicker to “jump into action, to report, to make sure that the cycle is stopped as early as possible”. But not every report is legally an abuse case; each must go through careful assessment.

That is where the emotional toll comes in.

Sometimes, she and her colleagues have to watch footage of animals being beaten or kept in appalling conditions.

“It’s easy to feel quite emotional about it,” she says. “Sometimes, you just feel disappointed. How can people do this to their pets? How can you not have any empathy for animals?”

As part of a team reviewing Singapore’s Code of Animal Welfare, Dr Teo looks after the physical and mental well-being of animals.

Unlike some vets who aim early for a narrow speciality, she finds meaning in policy work, where a single clause can improve life for countless animals. 

She has seen the extremes – owners who neglect basic welfare and others who go to lengths to prolong a suffering pet’s life, even when quality of life has vanished. 

For her, good welfare sits somewhere in between, grounded in empathy and realism.

“It is very meaningful that these animals have a second chance,” she says. “Working here, we push very hard for animals to be adopted. Whenever we meet new people, we’re like, ‘Hi, would you adopt an animal?’”