I Remembered a Cool Thing!

So, I've been meaning to post about the shows greenlit for this fall but it requires me to link from several pages and I'm lazy/busy so I promise I will get to it this week. I get off early Monday and Thursday so I've gotta dedicated some time to the blog!!! In the meantime, here's a moldy oldy that I found languishing in the 'drafts' pile.

Sometime during my senior year in the VT program, the need arose for Boone, our resident horse, to have his sheath cleaned. Apparently, this is something that happens all the time in the horse business but since Charcy was a girl, we students had never really been confronted with it. But it was a learning opportunity so when Dr. Mac asked if anyone wanted to join her on such-and-such day and time to clean Boone's junk, I decided I'd help out. Now, I had Animal Care immediately preceding the cleaning so it's not like I made a special trip to campus or hung around excessively; I don't think I'd have done either of those things had I been forced to make the choice. But since I was already there I decided to go for it. Besides, when else would I ever get the chance to do such a thing?! Robert absolutely did not understand or agree with that philosophy since it involved sticking my hand up a horse's penile sheath but that's why he's a writer and I'm a tech. :o) The process essentially consisted of filling a bucket with warm water and soap and then getting a bunch of gauze, soaping it up and inserting it into the sheath to scrub away debris. We wore gloves, don't worry. Dr. Mac had the displeasure of reaching waaaay up and retrieving the "bean" of smegma (sorry, guys) so we students just had to scrub and rinse. There were only about 4 of us (excluding Dr. Mac) and you wouldn't really believe how dirty it gets up there! It only took about a half-hour total and I'm glad I did it. Something to tell the grandkids.

Here's an informational video on the process if you're at all interested in real visuals to go along with your mental pictures:

4 Days and Change

Well, the moment is approaching and it's scaring me *&^%less! I can't believe only 1 final and 4 days stand between me and the end of the program... It's crazy! And very surreal.

This past Monday we had our 'pinning ceremony,' where all the instructors gather to tell us how much they like us and how much they'll miss us and we, in turn, give each instructor a gift and tell them how much we appreciate them. Then we all recite the Veterinary Technician's Oath and are given our official VT pin. It's a nice little intimate party to mark the end of our 2-year journey.

Anna, Nathaniel, Lauren, Alisa, Kristine, and Amy

Our program dogs graduated, too! Koukla and Scramble (her son ) with their new moms.

Ask Me About Periodontal Disease

Woohoo! I unexpectedly kicked my recent Dentistry midterm's ASS so I thought I'd share my fantabulous score with y'all. (We're not allowed to take our exams home so I had to snap some quick pics of my grade.) This is my first - and I expect only - 100% on an exam. I'll take it!! :D

In case you can't read that it says "One of the best essays!" And on the aforementioned periodontal disease, no less.

And, just for fun because I thought this was a cute picture, here are Linguini and I lounging on the bed. He's actually getting a little nicer!

Spay Day, Take Two

Two weekends ago, the Foothill VT program hosted another pocket pet spay/neuter day (remember the one that we did last year with all the hoarded rats?); this time around, it was rats, rabbits and guinea pigs. I signed up once again and it was a lot more fun this year, since I got to do a lot more stuff because I'm a senior. :o) I really feel uncomfortable giving people orders, though (unless it's Robert...), so I had a hard time assigning things to my two Firsties in the beginning. But after a bit we settled into a good groove and took our rat, Perry, safely through his neuter. As the senior, I was the anesthetist which, of course, intimidated me, and the fact that Perry woke up on the table during his procedure didn't help! But the doctor assured me I'd done everything just fine and that those things sometimes happen. One of my Firsties also tried to reassure me by telling me that she once woke up during an anesthetized procedure. That both made me feel better and horrified me at the same time. But! We all survived, Perry included, so the day was a success!

This is Bubba. He was THE CUTEST guinea pig in the bunch! I seriously almost smuggled him home in my bag. 

Helping Lois administer subcutaneous fluids to Perry prior to surgery.

After premeds, before surgery. Not my most flattering photo - I wish I'd realized I was in the shot!

Nat and one of Bubba's friends.

Monitoring Perry's recovery.

Isn't he a cutie?!

And this gal got a golf ball-sized abdominal mass removed. She felt SO much better!

Radar's Visit

Oh my goodness! I'd completely forgotten about this post. I started it back on August 31st, right after it happened so it's a wee bit old. Sorry!

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You guys already know how in-love I am with Radar, the only dog not adopted out after the end of last year. Well, this past weekend Foothill experienced a power outage due to some construction work being done on campus. That meant that while a backup generator would supply (some) air conditioning to the animals living in our lab, poor Radar would be at the mercy of the two tiny windows in the dog barn. So, of course, I worked my magic and got Robert to agree to let me bring Radar home for the weekend.

Unfortunately, the visit got off to a bit of a bumpy start; I did a poor job introducing Radar to Garfunkel and right off the bat there was a lot of barking and growling. Then there was some lunging. Now, that is all my completely my fault because I didn't do a proper, graduated introduction. That was little comfort to Robert, however, who was pretty adamant that things were not going to work out and that we needed to take Radar back to Foothill ASAP. I really didn't want to admit defeat, however, and after much pleading and cajoling I got Robert to agree to let us take Radar and Garfunkel for a long walk around the complex to get better acquainted. MUCH to my relief, my plan seemed to work - the boys started off the walk completely disinterested in one another (but at least they weren't fighting!) and by the end of the 75-minute walk they were sniffing each other and playing nicely. We brought the boys into the house and let them play the patio a bit and they continued to do well. Robert was persuaded to let Radar spend the night and Radar continued to impress. Luckily, we still had Garfunkel's old crate from when he was a puppy (and it is huuuuge so Radar fit just fine) and Radar went in and slept through the night with no complaints. In fact, he did so well that he was allowed to stay the entire weekend! :o) Radar had no accidents in the house, was happy to hang on the couch or go for walks with Funk and he didn't chew up a single thing. He hit a bit of a speed bump when we tried to walk him around Lake Elizabeth; Radar has lived his whole life in a kennel and gets verrrrrry excited at the sight of other dogs. If you don't know his temperament, he can seem a little intimidating when he starts shrieking at other dogs so walks around the neighborhood were made instead and he did A-OK on those. I was absolutely tickled pink that the boys wound up getting along so well and that Radar had a chance to get away from his run and spend some time in a real home. It goes without saying that I was in tears when I had to take him back to school at the end of the weekend.

Radar is, unfortunately, still with us at Foothill. He's being clicker-trained by one of the seniors and all of us are just amazed at how far he has come. He is SUCH a good boy - he loves people, dogs, and playing and if I had the space I would've snapped him up two seconds after he got to school. He is definitely a high-energy dog but he loves to please his people so if you know anyone who might be interested, PLEASE think of Radar. He would be a wonderful addition to anyone's home!!!





(Where was Linguini during all of this, you ask? Well, while Radar was very intrigued by Linguini, having never seen any kitties before, Gweenz was less than enthused at Radar's arrival. He spent the entire weekend (save nights when he was moved to the office) mewling in our bedroom. He was the only one in the house happy to see Radar's behind go through the front door!)

PUPPIES!!!!!

One of the dogs Foothill selected for our program this year is Julia, a sweet little girl whose background is unknown. She is a little dog, less than 20 pounds, and her age is estimated to be around 5 years. She had definitely already had at least one litter, as one of our other pups this year is one of her puppies (he's about 7 months old now). Unbeknownst to the instructors when they picked her out, however, was that Julia was already pregnant with another litter!

Dr. Peter took an ultrasound on October 26th and counted at least 5 puppies - and they were coming soon. So my friend Amy, who has experience, volunteered to take Julia home and help her whelp. The puppies were born late Halloween evening with a surprise sixth puppy coming a little more than an hour after number five, in the wee hours of November 1st.

I had never seen a newborn puppy - the youngest puppy I'd seen was about 6 weeks old and that was when we saw Funk at his adoption event. So Amy let me come over on the 2nd and check'em all out. I was in HEAVEN!!! You'll see it in the photos - my excitement could not be contained! :o) I have seen them again since, on the 8th, and those pictures are at the end of the slide show. The puppies just opened their eyes for the first time on Saturday so you know I'm gonna have to head back over and love on them some more. They are just as adorable and soft and wonderful as I'd imagined. Oh, and while the puppies will eventually make their way to stay at Foothill (until they find their forever homes), Julia has found her home with Amy and Jeff and is now named Koukla. I am SO happy for her! She's a super huge love bug and couldn't have found a better place to be pampered. YAY!!!

First Post of the New School Year

Yikes. It's been a looooong time since I've posted anything. I'm sorry. And I hate trotting out the same ol' tired school excuse every single time but I swear it's the truth every single time! This quarter especially. I have been so buried underneath schoolwork and clinic hours that I can't see daylight most of the time. Robert can back me up on this. So can Funk - his play times have been greatly diminished this quarter and he is the saddest looking thing at about 9 o'clock every night, it's pathetic. I had good intentions in the beginning, too! Here's (the beginning of) a post I wrote back on October 9th: 


Wow. The first two weeks of classes have already flown by and I haven't posted a thing about them. I've actually gotten do to a couple cool things, too, so before I let too much time slip by, I want to update you all on just what kinds of things are occupying my time.

• First off, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE my classes this quarter. It's stressing me out on many levels. Mainly because the classes are completely dry and boring and do not fall within my range of interests so it makes it difficult to focus or retain much of the information. Secondly, it's just a massive course load. This quarter is the most units I'll take (18) during the course of the program and that, combined with my internship hour quota, leaves me with little spare time. And lastly, because many of my fellow students are psyched that, as seniors, we've reached the point in our curriculum that's most applicable to our everyday lives in the clinic. So even though they agree that the chemistry of hematology (yuck) and the physics of radiography (double yuck!) are dry, they're excited that they're learning things they can apply to their time spent at their internship sites. I don't really have that 'glass half full' kind of outlook on life so not only am I annoyed at the boring class lectures and reading assignments, I'm down on myself for not being more interested or excited about things like other people. I really don't think there's a more neurotic or tightly-wound person out there. 

• This last week brought some sadness to the program, as one of our two sheep had to be euthanized on Thursday. Theodore had been acting a little off the past couple of weeks - eating less, separating himself from the rest of the guys in the pasture - so Dr. Mac had Dr. Bellamy come and take a look. They decided he was most likely suffering from pneumonia and put him on antibiotics. Things did not improve, however, and eventually Theo just stopped eating altogether. I had a Clin Path lab on Thursday afternoon so some of Theo's blood was drawn and Ms. D and Ms. Terry performed a bunch of different analyses, showing us what they were doing along the way. Sadly, the results indicated that Theo was in end-stage renal failure and the decision was made to euthanize him right away. Dr. Mac allowed any interested students to stay and watch, which I did. I know that seems like an odd decision but one of my weaknesses is (surprise) keeping my composure during euthanasia procedures at the clinic. I don't want to fall apart in front of clients so I viewed as an opportunity to try and work on keeping it together when I want to fall to pieces. I was a complete failure, of course, but at least Theo had some friendly faces around when he left us. The poor guy was just miserable and it showed; he was just skin and bones under his woolly coat and his eyes were almost completely dilated. And though I'm sure it sounds very strange, once he was gone, we were able to look more closely at his feet and the inside of his mouth, which was really quite interesting. (Sheep have large papillae on the insides of their cheek, which are absolutely fascinating. I couldn't find a good photo or I would have included one. Also, and this may creep you out, but apparently renal failure gives an animal a very distinct odor within their mouth and we were all able to smell that, too.) Alvin seems lost without his shier friend and the pasture seems so empty now with no Bonnie and no Theodore. :o(  It was very sad to say goodbye but I'm happy he's no longer suffering and even in death he helped us learn something new, so thank you, Theo. You will be missed.

 

• On a lighter note, I have switched clinics and am now interning just 2.3 short miles from my house. Which is NICE. And the people at the clinic seem very nice, too - the head tech has been there 10 years and is very comfortable with interns from the greenest of the green to those with a little more experience. The remaining three techs have also been welcoming, making sure to include me in interesting procedures or asking me what kinds of things I'd like to learn. Even one of the DVMs made a point of pulling me aside and asking me to check out some specimens under the microscope. That never happened at my old clinic so I am cautiously excited. This clinic is just a standard day practice, though, (as opposed to an urgent care hospital, which is what my old clinic was) so things definitely go at a much slower pace. And there are less out-of-the-ordinary cases, which means I'm a little worried that will pose a problem insofar as getting certain things checked off my skills list. But I'm trying not to stress about it too much. Trying.

• Unfortunately, my first week at the clinic tested my 'keep it together' face even before Theo's death. A call came in just before closing one day from a woman whose dog was seizing in the car. Since we were the closest clinic, she wanted to bring him in. Everything was set up  and everyone was ready when she arrived but, sadly, her dog had already died - he'd suffered major cardiac arrest and there was nothing to be done. He was a four-year-old Boxer and, unfortunately, that breed is fraught with health issues, heart abnormalities and cancer chief among them. As sad as I am to see the animal and its devastated family, I have to say that the hardest part of the whole thing for me is when the animal is put in a plastic bag and placed in the freezer. I know it's what has to be done and I know that's what happens in human medicine, too, but it just seems so terribly impersonal that it's hard for me to watch. I made myself participate, though, because it's the reality and the more I immerse myself, the better tech I'll be.

• The second week of clinic brought much more interesting things.

See there? I got past the complaining and all the steam apparently ran out. :o/  And do I remember what else I wanted to say? Not so much. Now how will Future Lauren know what interesting things happened to 2011 Lauren?! Way to go, Current Lauren. You're screwing it up for everyone. 

My Current Schedule

This is why I have no time to live, people. No. Time.

First Year in Review

As I sat on the couch, watching Friends (there's a marathon of 'best of' episodes every night this week on Nick@Nite) and feeling at loose ends, I decided I would finally try tackling a VT recap post. Part of what I like about blogging is that it serves as a sort of record of fun and important life events; as such, I should have been posting about my adventures in school and the clinic as they happened. Such posting would have painted a nuanced picture of my life as a vet tech student that I could look back on with appreciation as an older person. As it stands now I'll have one big spotty post that doesn't do justice to the blood, sweat, tears, stress, nausea, excitement and accomplishment that went into the first year of school. I guess that's better than nothing, though, so I'll scrape the corners of my brain and try to assemble a coherent, informative post that covers the stuff I haven't already touched on in earlier posts.

First up, grades. This was the easiest thing to assemble so it gets to go first. :o) Not mind-blowingly awesome but not too shabby, either. I hope I can do as well in the coming year.

I guess I'll tackle the clinic next, since it's the toughest to encapsulate and if I don't do it now, I'll just babble on until the post is 18 pages long. You all know me: I hate change and stress out about things way before they start so you can imagine all of the hand-wringing and whatnot going on at Casa de McCauley in the days leading up to my first day at the clinic. Well, that behavior pretty much followed me through the first couple weeks (at least), albeit to a lesser degree, because I like the knowable and clinic work is intrinsically unknowable. You just never know what is going to happen on a day-to-day basis and I HATE that. A lot. That's the stupid thing about me - it's not that the work is too hard. It's the fact that I have no idea what is going to happen that causes my anxiety to kick up to 1000 and then I can't think clearly. I make the simplest tasks exponentially more difficult because I literally cannot think past the fog that invades my brain when I'm stressed. It's completely ridiculous.

My supervisor didn't exactly help my nerves when he told me on two separate occasions that the clinic would no longer be accepting first-year students; they wanted 'more experienced hands only.' I asked if there was anything specific being done (not just by me but by the other two first-year interns) so that I could, y'know, stop doing that. Rof assured me there was no particular incident that sparked the clinic to issue such a mandate but I didn't really believe him and was freaked out even more after that. The practice manager and doctors weren't too warm and fuzzy toward the interns (and neither were the other veterinary assistants, for that matter) but I came to discover that my fellow Foothill Firsties were having similar receptions at their clinics, so I tried not to let it bother me too much. And Rof was actually a good instructor for all my mental-ness; after a while he could tell that I was a very competent and detail-oriented person who was hindered by a tendency to become "a fly on the wall." So he pushed me to jump in and forced me to participate when I would otherwise let my fellow interns do things for me. But he was friendly and did so in a non-threatening way so I wasn't constantly running to the bathroom and crying. :o)  (He actually never made me cry at all. I know that sounds like a very sad statement to make sound like an accomplishment but with me, it is!) 

My internship course required me to spend 15 hours per week in the clinic and I lucked out with my choice of clinic because a lot of my friends basically did housekeeping duties for most of their hours. Rof pretty much let me jump right in from the get-go, so while I did do my fair share of laundry and restocking supplies, I also got to help restrain, administer medications to both patients and boarding animals, perform nail trims and 9-point exams, clean and wrap surgical instruments, observe surgical and dental procedures and even monitor anesthesia (with supervision, of course). I did lots of blood draws, administered lots of subcutaneous (SQ) fluids and was even working in the rooms by the end of the quarter. My clinic also has its own mini lab on-site so I got to perform blood analysis every so often, too. Everything scared me half to death most of the time but I took copious notes and muddled through. There was even the odd day when I would come home and excitedly tell Robert about something I'd seen or done. Those days were his favorite.

There are two stories that stick out in my mind with regard to my time at the clinic and I have actually already done a little write-up on them both (for a class assignment). They're not long and they're not the best samples of my writing ability but if you're interested, they do give a little peek into what kinds of things I encountered as an intern.

I witnessed my first euthanasia today (in just my second week at the clinic) and it was hard. I have never had to put any of my own pets down; Ziggy, my only childhood pet (a Cocker Spaniel), was put to sleep while I was away at college so I was not present for the event. When I was asked if I wanted to assist with retrieving the dog from the room, my immediate reaction was to say ‘no’ but I knew I was going to have to do it at some point so I let out a teeny, tiny ‘yes.’ It was awful; the entire family was in the room and the three young children were literally lying across the dog on the floor, crying, when we entered.  It took every ounce of willpower I had not to burst into tears at the sight of the weeping children.  We put the dog on the stretcher and took it into the back; the family didn’t want to be present and part of me thought that was selfish while the other part understood. Molly was given a handful of wet food before the catheter was placed and just like that, she was gone. I petted her as much and as long as I could, then I had to excuse myself and cried in the utility closet. Watching her die was hard enough but the sight of the techs basically dumping her body into a bag and carting her off to the freezer was just too much. I know that’s what has to be done and I know it will (unfortunately) be commonplace soon enough but the first one was tough to take. It really makes me question if I have the personality to succeed in this profession.

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Good grief! Another sad one today. When I came in this morning I was excited to see that Savannah’s cage was empty – I assumed she’d gone home as planned. But as it turned out she’d taken a turn for the worse yesterday and had to be euthanized. I am heartbroken. Savannah had come in on Tuesday with a GI obstruction. She’d had two surgeries for the same condition in the past but the owners went ahead and had the doctors perform a third. Almost a pound of stuffed toys were removed from her abdomen! It was a long surgery and I was somewhat perplexed when the owners then wanted her to have a prophy performed on top of all she’d had done. Karen was in charge of her anesthetic recovery but over the next couple days I helped with her care. I coaxed her out for walks and spent a lot of time cleaning her and her cage, as she suffered from uncontrollable bowels for quite some time after the procedure. She always seemed depressed and a couple of times had a hard time getting out of her cage. She tried to walk on the tops of her paws, which made me nervous that she’d suffered some neurological damage while under anesthesia. After a few minutes we’d be able to right her, though, so I was optimistic that she’d be all right. When I left my shift on Friday night she seemed so much better – she was finally having firmer bowel movements and was eating more normally. She hadn’t thrown up for a day so the doctor said Savannah would likely get to go home sometime over the weekend. (Her owners had come to visit her several times over the past few days, which I thought was awesome.) Earlier I had overheard the vet talking to my supervisor and saying that these kinds of procedures often developed complications on the third or fourth day but I was willfully naïve and assumed Savannah would be fine. But she started bleeding internally on Saturday afternoon and nothing further could be done. I’m glad she’s not suffering but was still caught off guard by her passing. This was a sad Sunday indeed.

I know both of those were major bummers of stories but I got to see some cool stuff, too, I promise! I got to see a cat tooth extraction that was pretty great but you probably wouldn't be as interested in gum-slicing and tooth chiseling... ;o)

Yikes. Even with editing this post has amounted to quite a bit, hasn't it? I suppose I will lop it off here, then; I think you guys have a fair idea of how my actual classes went. School has its own stressors and the like but book learning really can't prepare you for real world experience. We are required to perform more and more complex duties with each successive quarter so I have a feeling I will be nauseous for the next 9 months. Actually, if I make it past the fall (Clinical Pathology and Radiology) and winter (Anesthesia - it scares the bejesus out of me already) quarters, I think I'll be in the clear. I hope.

Foothill's Adoptable Animals

I recently got a bee in my bonnet to help promote the Foothill animals and find them homes. Because we really shouldn't have any dogs or cats on campus right now - the goal has always been (and has, until this year, been accomplished) to have the animals during the school year but have them adopted out by before summer. No animal is supposed to spend more than one academic year at the school. Well, unfortunately, we fell a bit short this year - we still have one original dog and cat living in our kennels. We also have recently come into three new kitties, the result of surrenders needing some sort of placement ASAP. It absolutely breaks my heart to see these guys cooped up, day after day, with little human interaction; all they get are the few minutes allotted to them during Animal Care twice a day. So after one of my shifts a couple weeks back I took a few photos of each of our resident cats so I could post their photos on Facebook and the blog to get the word out. Here we go.

This is Billy. He's a three-year-old, 15-pound, domestic long-haired cat. He was hit by a car back in '10 and lost his front left leg as a result but he has no problem hopping around. I've seen him make some pretty big jumps; he gets along just fine. He's super friendly (the friendliest of all our cats, I think), very loving and likes to drink water from the tap. :o)

This is Cleopatra. She's also three years old, weighs 10 pounds, and is a domestic short-haired cat. She's a curious gal who has already been spayed and has lived at Foothill the longest of all our cats - she's definitely ready for her forever home.

This handsome fella is Mo Mo. He's a five-year-old, 15-pound, domestic medium-haired cat who has also been neutered. Mo Mo was surrendered along with his brother, Chopper, because his family had to move and could not bring the cats with them. He's a very sociable guy who loves pets and wrestling with Chopper so if they could be adopted together, that would be ideal.

And THIS big guy is the aforementioned Chopper: he's Mo Mo's litter mate, is neutered, and weighs in at a pleasantly plump 16.5 pounds. He is also a very social and affectionate guy and he loves scratching posts and chasing tennis balls. Lucky would be the house that adopts Mo Mo and Chopper! :o)

 

And because I am a weird animal lady, I whipped up a few posters for these guys. I did it pretty quickly and have since decided I might tweak'em a bit but if any of you would be willing to post them anywhere, lemme know and I'll e-mail you the original files. I REALLY want to find homes for these guys so any help - word-of-mouth, Fb posts, etc. - is welcome. :o)  

Rat Spay/Neuter Clinic

Remember the news from November of last year, about a man in southern California who hoarded over 2,000 rats? (He was featured on the season 3 finale of A&E's Hoarders.) And you may recall that the rats were rescued and brought up to be housed at Andy's Pet Shop in San Jose. Well, there are still 300 of those rats available for adoption at Andy's and one of my instructors arranged for some of them to be fixed at Foothill. Ms. Gregory is a major rodent lover and has many connections in the rodent world. So she persuaded a couple of vets to donate their services and North Star Rescue (the guys who were the main force behind the rescue and have a wealth of information about the rats on their site) brought several of the rats to the lab yesterday to be neutered or spayed.

Ms. G asked for student volunteers to help with checking the rats in (which included putting together medical charts, weighing the rats, drawing up and administering premedications), surgical prep (clipping, cleaning, setting up monitoring equipment), assisting during surgery (monitoring heart rate, respiration rate, etc.), and assisting the rats during recovery (keeping them warm, administering pain meds, antibiotics and subcutaneous fluids). It was a rare opportunity to be involved in such an endeavor so I signed up; I wound up working from 9-1:30 yesterday. It was amazing! We were put into pairs and given a rat, which we followed from the start of the process through recovery. I found it all incredibly interesting (and, of course, a bit stressful - I definitely didn't want to make any mistakes!) and made sure to take some pictures. Only two of the following photos are of anything "gross" - I took them during the actual surgery - so you should feel safe while clicking through them. :o) I honestly would consider bringing one home if I didn't already house two gregarious and mental animals already... I know most of you aren't rat people but the rats are super friendly and good with people; if you know anyone who's interested, you should pass the info along and send'em to Andy's to scoop one (or two!) up.




My partner, Manda, named our girl rat "Skunky" because of her unique facial markings. We were the second group to go so we were both very nervous about making a mistake but everything went smoothly (whew!). Skunky is an older female (about 1 1/2 or so) but she was very friendly and frisky - she was hard to anesthetize! I was so glad her surgery went well; she's a sweet girl and had who knows how many litters in that house. I hope she finds a good home to live out the rest of her life. 

Zoo Med Seminar

One of the classes I'm required to take each quarter is Seminar; I attend one presentation every month. The length varies, sometimes drastically - the class is scheduled from 6-9:40 and seminars have ranged from 90 minutes to over 3 hours! It depends on the presenter and it goes without saying that we, the students, prefer the less long-winded speakers. Topics vary, as well, from anesthesia procedures to shelter care to physical rehabilitation to cancer treatments. Needless to say, most are pretty dry. For the last seminar of the year, however, Ms. Gregory wanted to make it a bit more fun so she had some speakers from Wildwood Veterinary Hospitals and the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo come and bring along some of their friends. It was fascinating! Everyone loved it - we were totally geeking out. (Zoo medicine is definitely an aspect of the field that most of us are interested in, but it's a pretty difficult niche in which to get a job.) The presentations were interesting, of course, but the best part was when we were set free to interact with the animals. SO. FUN! 

The boa constrictor was a popular guy. Well, for some of us, anyway. :o)

Amy

Kris

Dru

I'd never seen a ferret in person much less pet one. I was super excited!

Red-tailed hawk. We got to see a blood feather extracted from one of her wings! I told you - we're geeks.

A rescued tortoise.

African pygmy hedgehog. He wasn't as prickly as I thought he'd be.

Fruit bats!!! These were one of two animals we weren't allowed to handle (the other being a rhinoceros iguana); no one is allowed to handle them unless they've had a rabies vaccination, in fact. But they were cuter than cute and very popular.

My very first skink. He was very sweet. :o)

I just wish I had been more photogenic that night... I feel so awesome having posed with so many animals!