When I was growing up, all I wanted to do was move to the rain forest, take photographs of animals, and sell them as postcards. But when I was informed by my finance-wise father that postcards would earn me about 2p each, and living costs thousands of pounds, I fell out of love with the idea.

I then moved to the more conventional dream of being a vet. This lasted throughout my pet-collecting childhood until it was pointed out to me that vets have to shove their arms inside cows and kill off poorly cute things (although not at the same time.)

Now in my early 20s I have found that my informant was wrong and that I can be a vet without the gore and tears, with the help of Imagine: Pet Vet.

You may have already seen the “Great Games for Girls” on the DS adverts.  And with Pet Vet, I find it hard to imagine a young girl who would not love this game. You get to be a pretty young female vet, with full access to her wardrobe and hair dyes to customise her to your heart’s content. You also get to play with cute animals. Owners bring in their sick pets, you perform such diagnostic treatments as swabbing sores, tweezer-ing fleas, guiding the endoscope and checking out x-rays, and then you tell the anxious owner that little fluffy will be just fine.  Of course, all the recuperating animals have to stay overnight in your pens, and you must feed them and pet them until they are fully better.

When I first turned it on I was quite sceptical, but as soon as I did I just had to keep playing it. My inner pink-clad, pigtail-wearing child just would not let me turn it off. This truly is a great game for girls.  To avoid being sexist I am sure many young boys would love this game too, before they reach the age where they feel it is important to be perceived as “all man.”

Petting a dog back to health earns you a mere two thousand pounds. At this rate, it won’t be long before I can sustainably move to the rainforest and indulge my other childhood fantasies too!