Mates for life: identical twin grads share vision of veterinary careers
William and Wyatt Brintnell are graduating together with U of A degrees in animal health, and have plans to one day open a clinic specializing in exotic pets.
June 16, 2025 By Geoff McMaster
As they graduate together with U of A degrees in animal health, identical twins William and Wyatt Brintnell are pursuing their lifelong dream of opening their own veterinary clinic. (Photo: Alex Pugliese)
The birthmark under William Brintnell’s left eye is a potent emblem, a constant reminder of where his identical twin brother Wyatt sat on him in utero.
After dozens of surgeries to remove the scar that was once much larger, William has come to accept that what remains will never fade. It swells up occasionally, especially when he plays soccer, but he doesn’t really care how it looks. It’s a small price to pay, he says, for a bond as tight as you might imagine in identical twins.
“We’re 22 years old, and the longest we’ve ever been apart is three days,” he says.
The brothers took to animal care from an early age, both declaring their intention to become veterinarians in their kindergarten yearbook. For much of their lives, the family had a dozen pets at once.
“During the first two years of university, we had six budgie birds, two ferrets, two crested geckos, a leopard gecko and a Hermann’s tortoise," says Wyatt. “Currently we have the tortoise, one crested gecko, four budgies and a Senegal parrot.”
They admit caring for 12 animals is a lot of responsibility while carrying a full course load at university. But it comes down to routine and careful scheduling, and the fact that they work together seamlessly. There are occasional moments of tension, but they say resolving conflict rarely takes more than an hour or so.
Both are high-level soccer players on the same Premier division team, with experience representing Ukraine in Edmonton’s . Exploiting their uncanny connection, they play as a unit.
It's a twin thing, for sure, because our chemistry has always been 100 per cent.
Wyatt Brintnell
(Photo: Alex Pugliese)
“One of us will just pass the ball into an open space and know the other twin will be there, just like the Sedins," says Wyatt, referring to identical twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin who played hockey for the Vancouver Canucks.
“It’s a twin thing, for sure, because our chemistry has always been 100 per cent.”
William recalls that on the twins’ 16th birthday, a budgie flew into a tree in their front yard. The boys caught it with a spare cage and posted a notice for a missing bird on Facebook, but no one responded.
They fell in love with the budgie, and after it died, they adopted two more, a male and a female. They decided to breed the birds, a journey that may have clinched the young men’s career path. William did all the necessary research and put a nesting box in a bird cage, and the brothers watched as the female dropped eggs in two-day intervals, producing four chicks.
Budgies are normally timid and reluctant to leave their cage, says William, but the chicks bonded easily with a family they’d known since birth, giving the brothers a rare perspective on avian behaviour. More recently, the Brintnell family adopted a rescue Senegal parrot, now 17 years old.
“In the wild, parrots usually bond with one other parrot and mate for life,” says William “So I’m technically his mate, the only one in the house that takes him out of his cage. He attacks and bites everyone else.
“There are obviously some problems with that, but we’re trying to work it out.”
The two have nothing but praise for the U of A’s animal health program, at least after surviving a rocky start during the pandemic. In their final two years, they participated in four ALES mini-internships, intensive three-day placements that included working on a cattle ranch, a poultry farm, the Edmonton Valley Zoo and the on South Campus.
Throughout their studies, William and Wyatt Brintnell participated in several mini-internships, including one on a cattle ranch.
“The internships were definitely the highlights of our university careers — such cool, hands-on experiences,” says William. The brothers also participated in a two-week veterinary internship in South Africa on their own, where they helped care for cheetahs and other exotic animals on a wildlife reserve.
For the past year, both have been working as technician assistants at Edmonton’s , one of the few facilities in Western Canada that treats mainly exotic pets. After starting out as volunteers, they are now qualified to handle animals and restrain them for certain procedures.
They say they’d be happy to work full-time at Harvest Pointe after graduating from vet school, if opening their own clinic doesn’t pan out right away. They considered securing rights for a clinic name in Edmonton’s Brintnell neighbourhood — named after their great-grandfather, the pioneering Canadian aviator — but discovered a Brintnell Veterinary Hospital already exists there.
In a nod to their June birthday, they’ve now registered the name Gemini Veterinary Clinic with the province. For now, William is waiting to hear whether he’s been accepted at the , having scored higher than Wyatt on his Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). Wyatt hopes to follow the year after.
“If Will gets in, it will be the first time in our lives that we go separate ways,” says Wyatt, who is waiting to hear if he’s received an for a project this summer.
“It’s not that we need each other to function,” adds William. “It’s just that we’ve had the same interests and friends, shared the same classes, the same care, even passed and failed the same courses.
“It’s pretty crazy, I mean kind of unheard of, especially after 22 years, right?”
