Sheila teaches CPR without life or death pressure to save a beloved pet

Sheila, a state-of-the-art canine mannequin, recently arrived at Wagga's TAFE NSW Primary Industries Centre, allowing animal studies and vet nursing students to practise important clinical skills, such as intubation, CPR, bandaging, draw blood and ear cleaning.

TAFE animal studies teacher Tamara Percival has worked in the veterinary industry for about 10 years, in small practice, mixed practice and emergency.

Having worked in emergency, Ms Percival said giving the students the opportunity to practise real-life clinical skills before being thrown in the deep end of an actual clinic was "definitely important".

"They real life simulated CPR dog models," she said.

"They allow us to practise CPR ... in a real-life simulation workplace without the pressure of an animal actually being in cardiac arrest.

"(Emergency) gets really hectic when it gets bad.

"Obviously people running around everywhere grabbing things and if you don't know what your role is or where you're meant to be, then it can make it really difficult to make things run smoothly."

Bella Harrison, who is currently undergoing her Certificate IV in Animal Studies, said Sheila allowed students to gain real-world, practical experience and skills without the risks involved in clinic settings.

"Having that dog mannequin is honestly one of the best innovations ever created," she said.

"It allows you to do CPR without the stress of you're gonna not save the animal.

"It's also just really good for the people who don't get the experience in the workplace ... you can come here and you can learn on (the dog). It's very good."

Fellow animal studies student Samantha Lyons is just about to complete her course and feels the skills she has gained from working with Sheila are transferable to the real-life clinical world.

"If we have a patient coming critical in clinic, it's not a situation where we can learn from, because a critical patient needs the best care and a learning nurse is not the best care," she said.

"So the mannequin dogs that we have, we're able to learn CPR on, which is not something that we can learn in clinic.

"There's a lot with the mannequins that we can learn here in a more relaxed environment, where we feel like we are able to learn, able to ask questions, rather than the high drive area of a clinic, where we are working with a critical patient and time is critical."

Although the transition of these skills from a classroom to a clinic comes with a learning curve, Ms Percival said having the foundation skills would see the students end up in a better place.

"With simulated things, we can prepare for what's going to go wrong, but in a vet clinic, things change so quickly, that you never really know what's going to come in next," she said.

"I think being able to allow them to practise as much as they want and as many times as they see fit, to be able to get confident with that skill is really important in the workplace, because it's going to streamline the workplace and make things more efficient for them and their whole team essentially."

Throughout their clinical placements, the students have found the skills they acquired from working with Sheila welcomed by veterinarians and staff.

"Obviously, with critical patients in such a high stress environment to know that your nurses know what they're doing and are able to just drop everything and help for the patient is a huge help," Ms Lyons said.

During her previous time in practice, Ms Percival trained junior nurses and said students having these skills coming into the placements was most definitely appreciated.

"I would've loved to have had the students that I have been teaching here, when I was training students," she said.

"Because the knowledge that these guys gain here and then go out into the workplace is just paramount for their education, but also just the running of the day-to-day clinic routines."