Free Store Food Bank

On Sunday afternoon some of us students volunteered at the Free Store Food Bank on Liberty Street downtown Cincinnati. Some of the area veterinarians were giving free physical exams & vaccinations, etc to the pets of low income families. I was at a table with one of our professors, Dr. Goecke. It was a wonderful learning experience. The last person to show up at our table was actually someone I know, Jerusha & some of her family members. It was great to see her since it had been quite some time... :o) They brought in a couple of calico kittens. Here are a few pictures. :o)

Wanted: Loving Homes

Well it's almost time for our rats, mice & bunnies to find new homes. They will be ready to go the first week of November. Please let me know if you want to adopt one or two or five! LOL! Rats actually make great pets...I don't know about the mice. The one stipulation is that they are all adopted as pets & not as feeders for snakes or whatever. Tim is actually letting me adopt a couple of rats. :oD

Some exciting news...we got our dogs in this past week!! YAY! We were finally able to see them on Thursday after a 48 hour quarantine. They are all sooooo cute. I was assigned a female (i'm still working on coming up with a name for her). She can't be anymore than 30 lbs & is a blond color. Which makes me bring up the whole adoption thing again...its not to early to be thinking about adopting one of our class dogs. They will be available by the end of May this coming year. Please, please let me know if you are interested. We need to find homes for all 22 dogs. They are all mutts, which in my opinion, is the best kind of dog. If you are interested I can give you some specific descriptions.

This afternoon I will be volunteering at the Free Store Food Bank downtown Cincy on Liberty St. Local vets will be giving free physicals & vaccinations for pets of low income families. I will be sure to post all about it later today. (if I'm not studying)

Well, I gotta go get ready for church.

Another field trip.

This past week has been the busiest week so far this school year. We had 3 tests, one each in Medical Techniques, Animal Husbandry & Hematology, 1 Hematology Lab Practical, and 2 A&P quizzes. Two of my tests I didn't do so well (Husbandry & Med Techniques), but I will make sure to revamped my study habits for those classes. We have to have a C average in each class. Anything under a C and we have to take that class over!!
We went on another field trip on Friday. This time we got to work with goats, sheep, horses, mules & cows. It was a really neat experience. My group mainly worked on goats & sheep. We dewormed them, gave rabies vaccines & trimmed hooves. Trimming hooves can be quite difficult...especially when the blades are dull. :o) Getting the sheep to sit on its butt was quite an experience. LOL!!!
The goats were great! Our goat was very patient with us. (most of the time)

...& more field trip pictures.

Here are a couple more pictures from last weeks field trip.


Dr. Wells demonstrating restraint techniques.

Field Trip

Friday our class went on a field trip to vaccinate some horses at two different stables! Yay! It was a lot of fun! I gave one horse an IM injection in the butt. First, I cleaned the area with some alcohol, then I removed the needle from the syringe & stuck it in the butt muscle (talk about a horse jumping out of it's skin!)...then while the horse was kicking I had to attach the syringe, aspirate then inject. My heart was pounding furiously!! I've been around horses plenty enough, but this was a new experience. :o)
We were all doing this in groups of about 4 or 5 people. I got to teach the other ladies in my group how to halter a horse & to pick out the hooves. It was fun! It made me feel good to show them & watch their faces light up. We all got to do different things (injections in the butt, neck, nose, listen to gut sounds & heart). I also got to give in IN. Of course the horse didn't like the long plastic flexible straw-like needle going up it's nose. (I wouldn't like it either) Two of the ladies in my group got to draw blood. They were so happy to be able to do that. (as you can see Tammy in the picture below with her syringe of horse blood) :P
I think by the end we were all excited for our next field trip this coming Friday. There will be goats & other farm animals besides horses at the next field trip.
Here are two pictures that I took...Laura & Tammy also took some pictures (with me actually in the picture)...so hopefully I will get them this week & will post them.
Well, it's back to studying for two tests tomorrow & one on Wed.


Laura, Katie, Christy & Tammy


Tammy with her "souvenir"

School

Well, I can't believe the 3rd week of school is almost over with. I am taking 4 classes for a total of 16 hours. Animal Husbandry & Disease, A&P, Hematology & Medical Techniques. Medical Techniques is basically what it says...we are learning how to perform medical techniques on live animals. (i.e. SQs, IMs, IPs & bio feed needles so far) Yay!! So far we have been working with mice & rats. Next week we get to work on bunnies. (our dogs are coming in sometime towards the end of the month.) :o) The two labs this week have been a little nerve racking because all the teachers come around & one will grade each of us on a certain technique for that particular lab. (we were graded in restraining a mouse & then a rat during an IP injection.)
A&P probably has the most homework out of all the classes. We have a quiz every lab in A&P. It makes it nice though to have a quiz that often. It really helps me to stay disciplined & study. One of our teachers has us look up a drug for every lecture packet she hands out. I actually like it because it is helping me to become familiar with different drugs.
I'm also Secretary of our SCNAVTA organization. It is our Student Chapter of National Association of Vet Techs in America. We are going to do fundraisers to go towards an animal charity.
It's really keeping me busy with everything combined with working. I'm in school Mon through Friday & work Mon, Wed. Fri. & Sat. & anything extra I can get in. It's going to be tight financially, but it will be worth it.
Tomorrow morning we go on a field trip to a couple of horse farms to vaccinate, etc... I'm excited. I will try to remember to take my camera to get some pictures. :D

Well, gotta go stick my head in some books. :o)