It's weeks like this
That really reinforce how much I *LOVE* vet school!
Granted, there are the days when I have to spend hours and hours in lecture or studying, feeling like I'm never going to get all the information in my head, some of which is boring and/or useless...but the past few days have just been awesome.
To start off with, we've begun a few new courses - toxicology and endocrinology - both of which seem really interesting and extremely relevant. Endocrinology is going to be challenging, but at least I know I will get a lot out of it. Toxicology looks like it might just be fun! But Friday afternoon, I had one of my first "omg...i'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life and its going to be AWESOME" moments.
Yep...thats me, ultrasounding a pregnant mare. I was able to visualize the heart beating, all four chambers pumping...the aorta, the shadows from the ribcage...just the ability to participate in something like that is awe-inspiring and a real boost for when I ask "why am I putting myself through all this??".
Then on friday evening, I drove myself and three of my classmates up to Atlanta. We *finally* made it - all of us were exhausted from a long day of classes - to our hotel room. It was kind of a dump actually, but thats life sometimes! The next morning made up for it, in spades!
We got to Zoo Atlanta at around 8am, and our first stop was at the elephant barn. The keepers there gave us our first "activity" of the day. You may have guessed from the large shovel that our activity was to scoop up all the elphant poop in the barn! And nerdy vet students that we are, we not only got *excited* about this - but we actually posed to take pictures. Many many pictures.
We also got to meet an elephant, first in the barn where we were shown some of the behaviors the elephants have been trained, Kelly, the one we met - was trained to over 60 verbal commands (most of which were useful ones like "present ears" or "front leg up" but also included things like "wave bye bye!" and "disco").
The trainers used positive reinforcement and whistles (the same concept basically as a "clicker") to train the elephants - with amazing results. Everything is voluntary, and the animals (in general) aren't forced into squeeze schutes and most impressively - a lot of them no longer have to be anesthetized just to perform simple procedures like blood draws. Many of the animals at the zoo have been trained to present a tail or leg and will willingly submit to some veterinary procedures while they receive yummy treats. It's pretty amazing. More about that later. Next on the trip, was perhaps one of the most amazing moments. We were offered a chance to touch the elephant for ourselves, and feed her!!
Elephants are amazing creatures. They have their own vaccuum attachment! That wonderful trunk! She essentially suctioned the food off my palm, and then blew it into her mouth. I knew they could do that...but to actually feel the suction and hear her blowing food into her mouth was just amazing. I was tickled, although that's probably obvious from the photos.
It may not be entirely evident from the photo, but I totally had elephant nose goo on my hands!
We also had a chance to go to the Panda exhibit, although we didn't all fit in the panda "area" so we had to be content to take pictures through the glass, although we did get a talk from the head panda keeper about their recent-ish panda birth and witnessed a training session with their male panda (which actually didn't go that well, he wasn't in a very cooperative mood so they terminated the session early). Most of their training is done with "protected contact" - that is, they always have some sort of a large fixed barrier between them. With the pandas, the trainer stood behind a mesh-wire door and was attempting to get the panda to target and to present certain body parts that would be useful during an exam (like ears, eyes, chest, paws, etc).
We then wandered around the zoo for a while, and saw some Kune Kune pigs and a Meerkat lookout, amongst other things.
Next on the list was Rosie, a black rhino, who believe it or not walked into this special schute of her own free will - and it was never closed so that if she wanted to back out she could at any time. She seemed to enjoy the attention, and did not balk at all the people watching her training session. The rhino trainer actually did use clickers! No whistles, as she had learned her training techniques with clickers and felt most comfortable working that way. I never could have imagined a clicker trained rhino, but she was. She responded to many of the same verbal commands the elephants did, like back up and leg up and target. It was truly amazing. She was a clever cookie.
She had some kind of ulceration around her lips, and had no problem presenting her mouth for the keeper to examine and point out the lesion.
The last part of our trip was by far the most impressive and...mind-blowing.
Yes, that is a fully grown male lion. Yes we were *that* close to it! Luckily, those mesh doors looked pretty strong. The lion took to roaring occasionally, and everyone would (not pausing in their picture taking of course) take a couple steps backwards. I've never seen a lion so up-close - and he deserves the title "king" of anything. Yikes is all I have to say. The lions are somewhat harder to train than most of the other animals (lol cats) but they will still voluntarily present their paws and get up on a table and present their tails for blood draws. This was where things got exciting. The lion got up on the table for blood draws...and then the keepers let us HOLD THE LIONS tail!! I saw the vein they get the blood from, and held a live twitching lion tail in my hands. It was a heady feeling. The highlight of my month, at the very least. It was wonderful.
You can't tell too well, but that is in fact me...just before I got to hold the lions tail. Flipping amazing.
We also got to meet a crotchety old lioness, who you could tell was thinking "meat popsicles" in her head everytime she deigned to glance in our direction.
I caught her at a slightly undignified moment.
That was pretty much it for my Zoo Atlanta trip. It was amazing, and well worth the roundtrip 11 hour drive. I had a blast! I'm really starting to appreciate how many amazing opportunities are out there for students in vet school. Not just the awesome hands-on labs, but school clubs and volunteer organizations really give us so much to do. I can't imagine being anywhere else or doing anything else - what could be better than this?!?!
Another great experience - I had an awesome time at operation catnip this morning (a trap neuter release program that is run at my school) but I'll write more about that tomorrow (when I'm *not* in class!) because now it is time for more sleeping!
Granted, there are the days when I have to spend hours and hours in lecture or studying, feeling like I'm never going to get all the information in my head, some of which is boring and/or useless...but the past few days have just been awesome.
To start off with, we've begun a few new courses - toxicology and endocrinology - both of which seem really interesting and extremely relevant. Endocrinology is going to be challenging, but at least I know I will get a lot out of it. Toxicology looks like it might just be fun! But Friday afternoon, I had one of my first "omg...i'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life and its going to be AWESOME" moments.
Yep...thats me, ultrasounding a pregnant mare. I was able to visualize the heart beating, all four chambers pumping...the aorta, the shadows from the ribcage...just the ability to participate in something like that is awe-inspiring and a real boost for when I ask "why am I putting myself through all this??".
Then on friday evening, I drove myself and three of my classmates up to Atlanta. We *finally* made it - all of us were exhausted from a long day of classes - to our hotel room. It was kind of a dump actually, but thats life sometimes! The next morning made up for it, in spades!
We got to Zoo Atlanta at around 8am, and our first stop was at the elephant barn. The keepers there gave us our first "activity" of the day. You may have guessed from the large shovel that our activity was to scoop up all the elphant poop in the barn! And nerdy vet students that we are, we not only got *excited* about this - but we actually posed to take pictures. Many many pictures.
We also got to meet an elephant, first in the barn where we were shown some of the behaviors the elephants have been trained, Kelly, the one we met - was trained to over 60 verbal commands (most of which were useful ones like "present ears" or "front leg up" but also included things like "wave bye bye!" and "disco").
The trainers used positive reinforcement and whistles (the same concept basically as a "clicker") to train the elephants - with amazing results. Everything is voluntary, and the animals (in general) aren't forced into squeeze schutes and most impressively - a lot of them no longer have to be anesthetized just to perform simple procedures like blood draws. Many of the animals at the zoo have been trained to present a tail or leg and will willingly submit to some veterinary procedures while they receive yummy treats. It's pretty amazing. More about that later. Next on the trip, was perhaps one of the most amazing moments. We were offered a chance to touch the elephant for ourselves, and feed her!!
Elephants are amazing creatures. They have their own vaccuum attachment! That wonderful trunk! She essentially suctioned the food off my palm, and then blew it into her mouth. I knew they could do that...but to actually feel the suction and hear her blowing food into her mouth was just amazing. I was tickled, although that's probably obvious from the photos.
It may not be entirely evident from the photo, but I totally had elephant nose goo on my hands!
We also had a chance to go to the Panda exhibit, although we didn't all fit in the panda "area" so we had to be content to take pictures through the glass, although we did get a talk from the head panda keeper about their recent-ish panda birth and witnessed a training session with their male panda (which actually didn't go that well, he wasn't in a very cooperative mood so they terminated the session early). Most of their training is done with "protected contact" - that is, they always have some sort of a large fixed barrier between them. With the pandas, the trainer stood behind a mesh-wire door and was attempting to get the panda to target and to present certain body parts that would be useful during an exam (like ears, eyes, chest, paws, etc).
We then wandered around the zoo for a while, and saw some Kune Kune pigs and a Meerkat lookout, amongst other things.
Next on the list was Rosie, a black rhino, who believe it or not walked into this special schute of her own free will - and it was never closed so that if she wanted to back out she could at any time. She seemed to enjoy the attention, and did not balk at all the people watching her training session. The rhino trainer actually did use clickers! No whistles, as she had learned her training techniques with clickers and felt most comfortable working that way. I never could have imagined a clicker trained rhino, but she was. She responded to many of the same verbal commands the elephants did, like back up and leg up and target. It was truly amazing. She was a clever cookie.
She had some kind of ulceration around her lips, and had no problem presenting her mouth for the keeper to examine and point out the lesion.
The last part of our trip was by far the most impressive and...mind-blowing.
Yes, that is a fully grown male lion. Yes we were *that* close to it! Luckily, those mesh doors looked pretty strong. The lion took to roaring occasionally, and everyone would (not pausing in their picture taking of course) take a couple steps backwards. I've never seen a lion so up-close - and he deserves the title "king" of anything. Yikes is all I have to say. The lions are somewhat harder to train than most of the other animals (lol cats) but they will still voluntarily present their paws and get up on a table and present their tails for blood draws. This was where things got exciting. The lion got up on the table for blood draws...and then the keepers let us HOLD THE LIONS tail!! I saw the vein they get the blood from, and held a live twitching lion tail in my hands. It was a heady feeling. The highlight of my month, at the very least. It was wonderful.
You can't tell too well, but that is in fact me...just before I got to hold the lions tail. Flipping amazing.
We also got to meet a crotchety old lioness, who you could tell was thinking "meat popsicles" in her head everytime she deigned to glance in our direction.
I caught her at a slightly undignified moment.
That was pretty much it for my Zoo Atlanta trip. It was amazing, and well worth the roundtrip 11 hour drive. I had a blast! I'm really starting to appreciate how many amazing opportunities are out there for students in vet school. Not just the awesome hands-on labs, but school clubs and volunteer organizations really give us so much to do. I can't imagine being anywhere else or doing anything else - what could be better than this?!?!
Another great experience - I had an awesome time at operation catnip this morning (a trap neuter release program that is run at my school) but I'll write more about that tomorrow (when I'm *not* in class!) because now it is time for more sleeping!