Teaching ethics in the veterinary medicine curriculum presents unique challenges. Students who are accustomed to fact-based science courses are asked once in their academic careers to take a course that is often focused on philosophy and the application of abstract concepts. After poor student ratings, the researchers decided to re-design their veterinary ethics course to adopt a case-based, learner-centered approach. Students were given clear course learning outcomes and shown how they had direct applicability to their future work as academics and clinicians. The objectives of this course were to encourage first year veterinary students to 1) Identify their own values, biases and personal beliefs surrounding animals and the human-animal bond and how these biases impact their decision-making; 2) Critically evaluate issues, and form logical and ethical arguments and decisions; 3) Demonstrate the ability to navigate difficult conversations with peers when differences in values emerge in discussions. The instructors designed cases involving ethical dilemmas in veterinary medicine, divided the class into groups of five students, and gave their students an ethical decision-making framework to structure their solution to each ethical conflict. This new approach led to greater levels of student satisfaction as rated by 180 students.