Aww…who doesn’t love cute little animals? All soft and furry and ouch my finger (one of my favorite video clips of all time). Anyway, thanks to the kind offices of the American Veterinary Medical Association, you can now don the white gown, slip on the latex safety gloves and get down with helping nature’s little critters survive the dangerous world.

The AVMA Animal Hospital game is a simple but engrossing little web and smartphone game which lets you play as a virtual veterinarian in a busy animal hospital. Clients bring their pets in for treatment and you have to diagnose and treat them depending on the symptoms they display.

The goal of the game is to earn points by completing successful treatments, and these points help you progress from a lowly vet to the chief dog doctor of the whole hospital. It’s clearly aimed at youngsters, but the great thing about it is how well it manages to teach you about some of the most common ailments that pets get, and what the best treatment is.

The game is available online (at the above link) or as a free tablet and phone download for Apple and Android.