Dr Solley has revealed two colleagues in the ACT and several veterinarians interstate, have attempted to take their own lives in recent years.

He believes a chronic shortage of veterinarians in Canberra is a contributing factor, coupled with compassion fatigue, long hours and stress.

After months of being unable to employ sufficient veterinarians to cope with the workload at the Animal Emergency Centre Canberra, Dr Solley had little choice but to join forces with the Animal Referral Hospital brand to help alleviate the pressure on himself and his colleagues.

"Suicide rates in our industry are pretty high," he said.

"They're overworked, do long hours and standardised vet wages against inflation haven't changed in 25 years.

"The average wage is dropping through the floor."

Dr Solley said veterinarians were often picked up by the public service, due to better wages and conditions, and he feels it might be nearly time to move on to another profession after 15 years.

He said his wife, Amanda, also a vet, has asked him to leave the industry multiple times.

"I've been very stressed for a long time. I've experienced compassion fatigue as well as general burnout. I'm still persistently burnt out after 10 years of continuous practice," Dr Solley said.

"I thought I was pretty tough and bulletproof but I've had instances of excessive or very sad euthanasia that have affected me.

"I had an experience early this year where I just had a weekend where every animal that I saw, the owners wanted it to be euthanased. I was here all weekend and all I did was fill up our body fridge with euthanased animals.

"By the end of it all, you don't realise but you can become quite depressed."

RSPCA ACT chief executive Tammy Ven Dange said she had visited almost every vet clinic in Canberra in the past six weeks and staff struggles were commonplace.

She said the organisation hopes to re-open its public vet clinic, closed since February due to staff shortages.

Australian Veterinary Association president Julia Nicholls said she was not aware of a "general shortage" of ACT vets.

Ms Nicholls said the AVA had initiatives, such as a 24-hour helpline and mentor support program to provide support.

"It's actually very hard to get statistics but we do believe from some of the evidence that perhaps there is a higher rate of mental illness in our profession," she said.

"We've got self-help things on our website and links to Lifeline and other support services like that - we're really going to ramp that up next year."

For 24 hour crisis support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.