Yup, veterinarians are awesome. Lois was extra awesome.
In North America, there are only 28 accredited veterinary schools. It’s harder to get into veterinary school than it is to get into medical school. It’s more competitive, there are more and tougher prerequisites, and it’s easier to wash out. People who can’t get into vet school often go to med school instead, which means that it’s possible that your family physician wasn’t good enough to work on your dog.
A veterinarian has to be a general practitioner, an orthopedic specialist, a surgeon, an anaesthesiologist, a urologist, and much more, and they have to be all those things for dozens of different species of all different sizes, with different organs arranged in different ways, susceptible to different diseases and medical conditions. And they are paid only a fraction of what a medical doctor is paid.
Without exception, veterinarians do it because they love it. They all could have chosen to pursue a less-difficult education and make more money .