Hello again!

So, it's been a while since I last posted.  In the time I've been away, I've studied A LOT for midterms and finals, and been on vacation.  I guess I'll start by wrapping up the end of the last term.

After we discussed small animal nutrition in animal care, we had lectures/labs on cats, rabbits and ferrets, reptile handling, and fish medicine.  For the fish lab, we took a field trip to the Hatfield Marine Science Center where we practiced handling fish and learned about different types of life support systems.  We also got to touch a giant octopus, which was pretty cool.  Oh, I also did a club activity where I learned how to shoot dart guns for wildlife immobilization.

Since the winter term started, I've done several cool things.  For a little background, my class schedule now includes: physiology, gross anatomy, microanatomy, integrated problem solving, and neuroscience.  We don't have animal care anymore, which is a total bummer.  But, that doesn't mean the stories have to end.  It appears the clubs are stepping it up and offering lots of cool activities.  This week, I participated in a wildlife necropsy (necropsy=autopsy on animals), where I got to necropsy a cougar with my group.  It had been shot for being a "naughty kitty," and we were able to follow the path of the bullet: through the heart, skimming across the liver, and ending by lodging itself in the right kidney.  Other animals necropsied that night included a couple more cougars, a young black bear, a nutria (kind of a cross between a beaver and an otter), and several raptors (birds of prey).  It was pretty sweet!  The next afternoon my friend, A, and I attended a lab on trimming cows' hooves.  We had a short lecture by one of the rural practice vets from the school,  and then we went and did the lab.  He had set up tables with cadaver cow legs tied down, and we practiced doing both conformational and theraputic trimming.  It definitely takes some muscle to use those hoof knives, especially since most of them were pretty dull and the hooves were pretty hard since they were cadavers.  Also, you're forced to be ambidextrous: you have to use your left hand (and the left-handed knife) on one hoof, and the right hand on the other.  We learned how you would trim/treat a cow with ulcers or abscesses in their hooves also, since at least one of our specimens was a prime example.

The fun doesn't end there...tomorrow, a bunch of my friends and I are journeying up to the racetrack with the student chapter of the American Association of Equine Practioners and one of the equine vets from the school.  We'll be getting a tour of the backside and meeting the vets.  Then, if we want we can go shadow the vets as they do starts and finishes.  Lastly, Tuesday night several of us are going to be attending the monthly dinner meeting of the Northwest Equine Practioners Association.  It's free for students to attend, so we thought we'd see what it's all about.

Anyway, that's about it for now, but I'll try to update again soon...I'll be sure to let you know if I win my fortune at the track!