Summer!

Wahoo! I survived my first year of vet school! So since my last update, I went through some killer finals, and my selective courses afterwards. For my selectives I took Farrier Medicine where I rode around with a horse shoer for a week and practiced pulling off shoes. I know it doesn't sound like much but that is probably one of the most physically grueling jobs. I could barely walk at the end of each day. The second week I took Advanced Equine Podiatry where we studied all about the horse foot, and practiced doing x-rays, measurements, and foot trims. One day we drove up to Virginia to a clinic that had a three-legged horse. Very cool.
So now I'm on summer break and loving every minute of it. I started a job at Banfield, The Pet Hospital, which is the vet inside Petsmart two weeks ago. They have a program for vet students to help us gain more hands-on skills in the clinics. I'll be working there for six weeks as a "Pet Nurse". I'm working about 40 hours a week and I really like it so far. I'm definitely getting great experience dealing with clients and their pets. After the six weeks, I will be going to UC Davis for another externship. I'll be doing a summer clinical rotation in Equine Surgery for a month (June 19-July 17). It sounds pretty intense, but I think it'll be a great opportunity. I'm hoping that I'll be able to persuade family and friends to come visit me while I'm there. Davis isn't that far, right? :-)
So those are my summer plans. Other than that, I'm hanging out with Hades and the cats. Hades is still doing great, chasing birds and squirrels when he's not sleeping the day away.
Here are some pictures of events I mentioned last time, plus some new stuff.

This is taken at the vet school's open house. Nikita and I worked at the pony picture booth. It was so cute to see all the little kids riding the ponies. I realized how much I miss working with kids.



Here's a couple of pictures from our last days in anatomy lab. Mandy is slicing away at Moonpie, our cow cadaver. As you can see there isn't much left of her.



Mandy, Me, and Nikita taking a picture break.



Here I'm doing a venous cut down on a dog cadaver. It was part of a CPR and Emergency Procedures lab.



My friends and I were all signed up for a mare palpation lab, where we were going to perform rectals for the first time. We were all super pumped, but unfortunately the lab was cancelled. So, we decided to take silly pictures pretending we were palpating. We called it the "air palpation". Notice the sad, disappointed faces.... ;-)



Some cute chickens from TAU. We didn't do too much with them, just learned how to pick them up and do a quick physical exam.



Here is the famous, "cow with a window" that you may have heard of. Not quite what I was picturing, but still pretty cool. They're called fistulated steers.



Shoulder deep in rumen! For our GI physiology lab, we got to palpate the rumen in the fistulated steers. It was awesome! Such a weird feeling to have your hand inside an animals stomach. Craziness.



My arm is covered in rumen contents, and I couldn't be happier. Only a vet student.



So I'm officially a southerner, because I can now milk a cow. My friend Keri works in the milking parlor at school, and she taught me all the magic that goes into milking. Another awesome experience.



This is taken at the farrier course I took. Here I'm cutting the clenches which hold the nail onto the hoof wall. You have to knock these off, or when you pull the nails out you can rip the hoof wall. And if you can't tell, I'm pretty much under the horse right now.



Here I'm using the shoe pullers to help pry the nails loose.



This is at Kanki, probably one of the best restaurants here, celebrating Chris and Alana's birthdays.



Here I am taking measurements of hoof angles at the Podiatry Clinic in Virginia.



This horse had it's leg amputated years ago, and is still doing great, trotting around happily.



This pretty much shows what Hades and I do every night when I get home. He's a cuddle dog.