Vet and former rugby player Elise O'Byrne-White: 'You feel sick. These cases stay with you'

Former Ireland rugby player Elise O'Byrne features in six-part RTÉ series about the DSPCA

The Shelter DSPCA Picture Conor McCabe Photography.

I catch Elise O’Byrne-White on the phone just as she’s finishing up surgery at the Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA).

“It was just a routine castration, 20 minutes – a big Rottweiler, 40kg,” says the former Ireland rugby player, who’s been working with the DSPCA as a veterinary surgeon for 18 months, and who assures me the Rottweiler’s recovering well.