Agility Adventures

At the start line

Myles and I very new to this awesome sport they call 'Dog Agility', and I thought it would be fun to share our follies as we start to learn something that takes years for dog-handler teams to master.
We began training in the middle of last winter, so only about a year ago, and when I remind myself of that I always realize how great our progress has been in such a fairly short time. Our instructor tells us that she trains a dog for at least a year before trialing, and many people train for much longer. With me being the most impatient person on the face of the earth, we started trialing in October, roughly nine months after we started training. Obviously with such a short history of training there are many things we have yet to perfect. And by many, I mean almost everything. By some stroke of genius he seems to be becoming more and more consistent with the weave poles, finding the entry and not popping out of the poles prematurely, and actually appears to thoroughly enjoy himself, bouncing through and barking every few strides. I think I owe this weave pole independence to our pole set in the backyard, where he gets his frisbee thrown to him when he completes the poles successfully. This gets him very excited about the task, and adds speed and rhythm. At our most recent trial, he blew me away with his weaving. Found the entry all by himself, had speed and rhythm, and even hilariously peeled out turning out of the poles because he had too much speed and excitement. All of this progress from initial frustrating sessions attempting to teach him what exactly the poles mean, thinking he would never get it. Amazing what they can learn when we put the time in to teach them!
Standard Run
Check out the video of our Standard run at a USDAA Intro trial, with his good dog weaves.

We have been to three trials, all of them USDAA (US Dog Agility Association), and all of them in New Hampshire, the first two at All Dogs Gym in Manchester, and the third at Riverside Canine in Nashua. The first two were regular sanctioned USDAA trials with titling events and all levels, and the third was USDAA's relatively new 'Intro' program, that gives new handlers/dogs and introduction to competition in agility with a little less pressure and more leeway.
Myles has shown improvement at each successive trial, and I could not be more pleased. Our first trial I was very nervous, but luckily had my best friend and original agility mentor there to help me with walk throughs and plan my runs. That first trial we competed in Standard, which is the course everyone thinks of when they think agility, complete with jumps, tunnels, contact obstacles (A-frame, dog walk, see-saw), the tire, the table, and other fun stuff; we also competed in Jumpers, which in USDAA is just jumps and tunnels, a fast, fun course, and Pairs Relay with Maryanne and her Boston, Fenway, which ended up being disastrously hilarious. Myles' excitement level was through the roof; barked himself out of the weave poles several times, then ran off course to say hi to his friends, who were waiting patiently at the start line. Needless to say, we were eliminated from that run! For his first trial, he really did great. He ran happy and fairly fast (lost a lot of time due to our combined lack of experience and his level of craziness) and paid better attention to me than I thought he would, especially at the start line. He has proven to be fantastic at the start line, sitting steady while I lead out and focusing on the task at hand. There are videos from that trial somewhere, and if I can locate them I will post them. No qualifying scores that day, but we finished our runs and the dog was a happy camper. We got to bring home some blue and red ribbons by default, but it still made me smile. A good day!
Our second trial Maryanne was supposed to be there, but something came up with one of her dogs at the last minute and she couldn't make it. I was lost without my buddy, and was fairly panicked because we were trying Snooker at this trial and I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily, our instructor Betty was there, and she helped me plan out a potential course. Snooker is a game that requires the handler to plan out the first half of the course, alternating a designated 'red' jump with another obstacle, gathering points, and then completing a closing sequence. You get whistled off the course if you do almost ANYTHING wrong, and that day at least the first ten competitors got a whistle before making it to the closing sequence. I had come up with my initial plan without realizing that there were 'combination' jumps that require you to do both in a row in order to get your points, so I had to redo my whole plan during the walkthrough. I was flummoxed! Our run was a mess from the start, I got turned around at the start line and then my angle made him knock the bar on our second obstacle. We almost made it to the close, but he entered the wrong end of the tunnel that started the closing sequence and we got whistled off. And after that hilarity, at our next trial we got a first place and qualifying score in Snooker. Check out the video here:
Snooker Run
It was certainly not pretty, but he didn't knock any bars and he did a good job!
At that last trial, I brought my fantastically dedicated boyfriend Jared (who had been to every other trial also) and my best friend Kathryn who was a little skeptical at first but ended up immensely enjoying herself, as I knew she would. This particular trial was very low stress, very fun, just two courses and maybe two dozen competitors, a nice short evening. Jared has become an excellent collaborator, looking at course maps with me, using terms like 'just throw a rear cross in there' or 'blind out of the tunnel to the see-saw', which makes me smile a ridiculous amount. He was planning out our Snooker run to maximize our points and playing to Myles' strengths, and gives us excellent critique after our runs; 'just cue him earlier for the poles next time' or 'book it once he gets into the tunnel'. Mind you, this boy has absolutely no training in dog agility, has zero background in dog sports, and works in a computer lab. And he knows what he's talking about! Such a good sport.

Crossing the finish at our first ever run, at our first ever trial

We have had a lot of fun in these initial trials. The atmosphere is incredibly supportive; everyone is friendly and approachable, and everyone is there to have fun with their dogs. I regularly get comments from spectators that he looks like he's having so much fun, and I'm so lucky to have him.
The time spent at trials is really a lot of fun; a place where people don't ask me if Myles is a Bernese Mountain dog, they ask me what kennel and bloodlines my Aussie is from. The give me encouragement and advice, and for someone like me who has been a perfectionist for all my life the support helps me realize we really are doing well, and that this is a sport that people spend their lifetimes perfecting. Trialing really is addictive. When I leave a trial, the whole drive home I'm replaying the courses in my head and itching to get back out there and try it again. I set up sequences in my backyard that we struggled with at the trial and work them a million different ways. I lay in bed at night running courses in my head. It's such a fun thing to do with your dog, and Myles loves it. Once I start my clinical year of school in March, time for agility and trialing especially is going to be extremely limited, but I will hopefully be able to squeeze it in here and there, because we will certainly miss it terribly.
Before then, we've signed up for a short course on distance handling in January, and will hopefully be able to fit in another session of our regular classes. Stay tuned for more agility adventures!

One more (half of a) semester...

The TCSVM class of 2013 just finished our last full semester of classes, and we could not be more excited. I can't even believe the sheer amount of knowledge they crammed into our brains in four and a half months. We learned how to perform abdominal ultrasounds, how to spay a dog, how to perform safe anesthesia. We put in catheters and took skin biopsies, put in feeding tubes and set up IV drip sets. Thinking back over the last two and a half years and everything we've learned since then reminds me why we put in the long hours sitting in class, taking exams, and studying until our eyes fall out.
We start our clinical year in March, and I have to admit I am fairly terrified. I know what's I'm in it I will love it, but the thought of putting into practice all of this knowledge is overwhelming. Even scarier is now planning everything I want to do in our elective weeks during the next year. There are too many things to do, too many places to go, too many logistical nightmares to figure out. One of those biggest logistical nightmares that has been plaguing me since the beginning of this year is what I'm going to do with my dog while we're working 16 hour days. I'm realizing now why they tell you to think really hard about getting a dog in vet school. And a dog like mine does not take to being alone for 12 hours at a time. Love that residual separation anxiety.
So what am I going to do with him? I still don't know. Beg my boyfriend to home him for a week and drop him off at daycare in the morning and pick him up at night? Farm him out to his breeder? Give him to his second mother? Our longest rotation is four weeks, Small Animal Surgery, with unpredictable hours, never any guarantee to have time to run home during a 'lunch' break. And for many of our rotations we will be up so early most normal doggie day cares are not open yet. Dilemma of the century, I say. If anyone has any brilliant ideas, feel free to share, because in all honesty worrying about my dog is stressing me out more than having to figure out how to be a doctor. Which is terrifying.
What else is there? Apply for externships? Apply for internships? Impress the clinicians so you get good letters of recommendation? Don't get kicked in the face by a horse? Don't lose a thermometer up a cow's butt? Oh and sometime in there, study and pass boards. No big deal. And try to maintain your relationships with your family, friends and significant others. I won't have time to do any agility with Myles for a year. What will I do without my weekly escape to classes with an entertaining group of humans (and dogs?) I was really enjoying our test schedule this semester of Friday tests... weekends were full of fun for the first time in vet school. At least we won't have to come home from eight hours of class and study until we go to bed, right? Right? Upper classmen offered us a survival guide when we came to vet school... is there a survival guide for clinics? Because that seems to be way more necessary now.
For now, I need to relax, sleep late, and cram all the fun and real life things into our two week vacation like hair cuts, car inspections, agility lessons and visiting everyone we've been neglecting all semester. And seeing as I didn't post all semester, there will be no guarantee I will write again any time soon. Maybe another post during the break. Stay tuned!

Dog Sports: Part 1

Since I don't have any qualifications or enough experience to start teaching people about dog sports, I figured I could share my experiences over the last year as a dog sport novice.

While I never had a dog growing up, I was always someone that wanted to do things with my dogs. I knew about agility and obedience, but it wasn't until the last few years and a friendship with my dog-sports crazy roommate did I realize the sheer breadth of activities available to dogs and their owners. Agility, flyball, obedience, rally, earth dog, dock diving, herding... and the list goes on. When I got my dog in November, I was so excited to try a few of these things with him.

So far, Myles and I have tried three dog sports: flyball, agility, and rally obedience. For those of you not familiar: flyball is a relay race with four dogs on a team that run over four hurdles, grab a tennis ball out of a spring-loaded box, and run back over the hurdles. Team with the fastest time and no mistakes wins. Agility takes the dog over an obstacle course of jumps, tunnels, weave poles, a see saw, and other obstacles. Rally obedience is toned-down regular obedience. Handler and dogs walk around a course and perform maneuvers such as sits, downs, about turns, and walking around the dog while it stays.

Flyball course

Let's start with the sports we've tried and have kind of veered away from, for various reasons. We tried a flyball class over the winter, to introduce us to the sport without having to join a team. The class was taught members of a local flyball team, who competed often and had trained many dogs. First, you teach them how to run the hurdles. Since we had done some beginner agility, this wasn't a problem for Myles and he picked it up fast. We then started foundation work for teaching the dog a proper, efficient turn at the box. In a race that comes down to hundredths of a second, a fast turn can make all the difference. Myles could execute a turn fairly close to the box, but just wasn't interested in the tennis ball, which made getting him excited to do drills with the box pretty difficult. Any breed, pure or mixed, can do flyball, but it really helps to have a dog with very strong drive for the tennis ball and plenty of energy. While not too keen on the tennis ball, Myles loved running the hurdles, especially when there was a dog running in the lane next to him. He especially loved to go into herding mode and chase down the dog in the other lane, which is decidedly not allowed. That behavior had to be gotten rid of quickly! Somebody stood between the lanes and yelled whenever Myles seemed like he was veering into the other lane. That seemed to work.

The other student in my class was a big male boxer, who was not at all interested in Myles, not pleased with Myles' little herding game, and was very possessive of his tug toy (the humans bring tug toys to entice and play with the dog when it reaches the end of the hurdles). His human was actually the mother of the owner of the dog (or something) and was always keen to point out to me how her dog 'just needed to do a job' and was 'so focused, look he doesn't even care about your dog'. Needless to say, when Myles was racing down four hurdles, grabbing the tennis ball from the ground in front of the box and racing back over, her dog was still working on grabbing the ball and coming back over one hurdle. Focused, huh? :-P
To the delight of everyone involved, especially the instructors, the boxer was brought to class one morning with a fantastic, hacking cough, which culminated in him hacking up white foam all over the mats and everyone in the room freaking out and telling her to bring the dog outside. His cough was classic for kennel cough, which is SO contagious that even after we had disinfected the entire area I was tempted to just take Myles and go home. That dog should absolutely never have been brought to class that morning, and while Myles never came down with the cough, several of the dogs on the team, who practiced in the arena after class was over, had kennel cough by the next weekend. Class was cancelled for weeks. Ridiculous.

An excellent box turn

After a few classes, Myles seemed to be doing well, but just didn't seem excited about it. He had fun, but I could tell it just wasn't holding his attention. Additionally, if we really wanted to pursue flyball we would have had to find a team to join (which can be scary, and not entirely accessible to outsiders) and it would have been a time and money commitment that I just wouldn't be able to handle with school. Additionally, that specific environment (and I know teams differ, of course) was a little too intense for me. I decided flyball wasn't our thing. Not at this time, at least, and probably not with this dog.

Stay tuned for our adventures in rally and agility!

When People Are Harder to Train than Dogs

Over the course of this summer, I've had my first experience offering behavioral consultation, and the willing participants were my downstairs neighbors. While still an ongoing process, we finally made some excellent headway, and I learned just how frustrating training people, and not just their dogs, can be.

While owner compliance is an issue in all of veterinary medicine, compliance is especially important in behavioral medicine. Owners need to follow specific behavioral modification protocols, and it can often feel overwhelming if they are not given clear instructions with only a few things to do at a time. I've sat in on many behavioral consultations this summer and offered plenty of my own advice to clients, but had not had the opportunity to come up with a plan and follow the case through. My neighbors provided the perfect opportunity for me to test out my skills. They have an unruly little dog, and both needed and wanted my help, and were willing to listen.

The main issue we were facing with Mimi was her reactive barking. She was both territorial and fear aggressive, barking at me from inside the house whenever I was in the driveway, barking whenever I walked up and down the stairs to my apartment, barking at anything or anyone that moved around outside. Needless to say, the barking was annoying and disruptive, and she was very hard to distract or control when she was having a fit.

Communicating through our landlord, I determined that they did want my assistance and in fact were thrilled that I offered to help. We started out with some basics to help them gain more control over Mimi. They went to a basic obedience class and Mimi quickly learned to sit and down, and would respond quickly when not distracted. I offered several suggestions to help with the barking. I wanted them to use a Gentle Leader, but for whatever reason at that point in time they weren't very interested in that option. We tried things such as distracting Mimi from whatever stimulus would trigger her to bark with positive reinforcement, such as calling her to them to do a command, receive a treat, or play with a toy. This worked to a limited extent, but Mimi needed something a little stronger to discourage her. I filled a soda can with rocks and taped it shut, and this was to be used by throwing it on the ground and startling Mimi out of her intense focus. When she stopped barking, she was to be praised and rewarded. This also worked, but the soda can wasn't always handy, and distractions didn't always work. Her barking was better in the yard and when we went in an out of the house, but there was still a long way to go.

During this behavioral modification plateau, I complained to my boyfriend, 'If they would only just listen to me and get a Gentle Leader, we could fix all of these problems!'. I was very frustrated, but not just by them. Like so many clients seeking behavioral advice for their pets, they received some bad advice from other sources. They told me that upon a trip to Petco to purchase a Gentle Leader, they ran into the trainer from the class they had been taking there. When they told him what they were there to purchase, he then told them a Gentle Leader would be 'no help' for Mimi. Upon hearing this, my brain almost exploded and I'm sure I made a terrible face, since cases like Mimi's are practically number one on our list of cases for which we recommend a Gentle Leader. They had also been instructed incorrectly to use a clicker to interrupt Mimi while she was barking, which was not at all effective and was not the correct use of the clicker. But this is what they had been instructed to do by someone other than me. At this point, I'd pretty much given up, and was prepared to accept that I wasn't going to get the outcome I wanted and I just needed to grin and bear it. The end. Frustrating, but such is life. People only do what they want to do, and you cannot make them.

Then out of the blue the other week, my neighbor comes up to me and says they would like to buy a Gentle Leader and would very much like my help fitting it on Mimi and learning how to use it. Of course! I jumped at the opportunity. Victory was mine! Now we just had to get the head halter, and use it. They bought a Gentle Leader in the smallest size manufactured, and one afternoon in the yard we fit it on Mimi's tiny head. I attached the flat lead to the ring under her chin, and took her around the yard to see how she would deal with these contraption on her face. Like most dogs, she wanted to paw the strap off her nose and rub her face in the grass. To stop her from doing this, I simply gently pull upward on the leash, hold it until she stops, and then release the tension on the lead and praise her when she stops.

We had excellent timing, as I was expecting my boyfriend to arrive shortly, and this was an event that would normally trigger a flurry of incessant, reactive barking and lunging at the end of her leash. Normally, Mimi was impossible to control in this situation and you could not interrupt her frenzy. Right on cue, Jared pulled into the driveway. As soon as Mimi moved into her usual tirade, I put tension on the leash, told her calmly to 'stop it', and kept tension on the leash until she relaxed. This took what felt like a long time, maybe 30 seconds of just waiting her out, with much flailing on the end of the leash. It may look terrible, but the halter doesn't hurt the dog, and the dog quickly learns that you are in control, and they need to listen to you. After Mimi was able to calm down, she was allowed to greet Jared calmly. She knows him and likes him, but her instinct to react noisily always takes over first, and that is what we are hoping to control.

I handed the leash over to Mimi's owner, and after watching me work with Mimi, she had it down. Mimi would try to rub the halter off her face, her owner would calmly tell her to 'stop it', and pull up on the lead. Her timing was excellent, and she was not afraid to assert herself as the leader. After a little while, Mimi laid down calmly at her owner's feet, and we commented that this was the most relaxed we had seen Mimi outside in maybe forever. I told her this was a common effect of the Gentle Leader. When the dog realizes you have taken their 'six guns' away, they relax and defer to you. A dog like Mimi wants to take control of every situation, and using the Gentle Leader tells her that the humans are in charge and she does not have to be. Perfect.

They were thrilled, I was thrilled, we were ecstatic at how quiet Mimi was. A wonderful  side effect of the Gentle Leader is that it actually closes the dog's mouth, shutting down barking before it even begins. This was an excellent breakthrough for Mimi and her owner, and I could not have been happier. I had shown them how they can effectively and humanely take control of their dog, and they were incredibly grateful. We are now looking forward to a much quieter household, and Mimi was looking forward to a much more calm and collected existence, without the stress of feeling like she had to be in charge.

A very successful consultation, made all the more gratifying by Mimi's owner looking at me with the utmost respect, and saying, 'You are awesome'. Thank you.

Is Vet School Making Us Depressed?

Today on my Facebook feed,  an article posted by the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) caught my attention. The article was titled 'Veterinary Students More Depressed Than The Rest'. Here is the link to it: Vet Students More Depressed.

I actually laughed out loud when I saw the title of the article. While unfortunate, I am not surprised. The article found that veterinary students are more depressed than medical students, undergraduate students, and graduate students. Of all the students, we are the most depressed! Go us!

The study, performed by Kansas State, found that 32 percent of first year vet students are depressed, compared to 23 percent of first year medical students. The numbers increased in second and third years, and then decreased in fourth year. The article offers some possible explanations for why us vet kids are so much sadder than every other type of student. They say things like 'vets deal with euthanasia on a daily basis, which human physicians do not deal with', and 'vet students need to learn many species and not just one'. While the second option makes sense, and is an argument we frequently use to prove that vet school is indeed harder than med school, the euthanasia explanation doesn't apply to students. As a practicing vet, yes, but as a student, no. We are sitting in class all day, every day. Even in the fourth year, when we will actually be in clinics and will actually be facing these issues, depression rates go down.

So why are we so depressed? Let me offer several explanations. First off, the work load is horrifying. In our first year, after the initial adjustment period, we had an exam every single Monday for the entirety of the first semester. Not only is the stress of major exams enough, these were Monday exams, so those weekends that would normally offer sweet respite from the stress of class were absolutely crammed full of studying. There was never a break.

From personal experience, and from seeing others go through it, another major issue many of us faced was relationships we had brought to school with us. To make it even harder, mine was long distance, and there was a major disconnect between us regarding how much I actually had to study and how much he thought was enough. This relationship ended with perfect timing the week before finals of my first semester of second year, notably the most horrifying semester of veterinary school potentially ever (apparently this upcoming semester may rival it, but we will see). Similar circumstances befell many of my friends. Even if the relationship weather the vet school storm, it is incredibly hard to balance school with life, and often times the non-student partner just doesn't understand.

What else makes vet students depressed? Fear of the future? Our incredibly massive debt that is hanging over our heads every day?  Especially at this wonderful time of year when we receive our financial aid packages and we get a stinging reminder about just how much money we will owe; my personal package for this year totals about 57 thousand dollars. When most of us graduate, we will be facing nearly a quarter of a million dollars in debt. I have absolutely no concrete concept of how much money this really is, but in my mind I will be paying back loans until I am dead (and when this happens, I so nicely won't have to pay them back any more! How generous! No paying back my debt from the grave.) Thinking about having to repay this much money is enough to make anyone depressed.

Then they have people come for lunch talks, and tell us how we don't make nearly as much money as human physicians, how our debt load is so much greater, how we are screwed in 'a tough economy'. Great, guys, great. You know your students are depressed, you maybe want to try to cheer us up a little??

Yes, veterinary school is tough. I'm actually surprised I haven't had more teary stress-induced breakdowns than I have. But for those of us who really want to do this, we love it. We love to learn, we love to solve puzzles and work up cases. We love animals, and their humans (sometimes), and we love to help them. We trudge through this grueling assault because we know it will be worth it in the end. To help ease the burden, we long-suffering students need to learn to lean on each other, to be open and helpful to our colleagues, open up to our families and ask for their help, and lean on our significant others who support, encourage, and gasp, understand what we are going through.

Nobody said it was easy, but we chose our path, and it will ultimately be worth it. We just need to make it that far :-)

Attack in the Exam Room

I almost got myself attacked in the behavior exam room today. Luckily, it was an 'almost'. Stupidly, it was definitely my fault.

It was our last appointment of the day, and we were seeing a dog with a history of aggression. It seemed like a pretty typical aggression case, as far as they go. After seeing a few weeks of cases, I had been lulled into a false sense of security that our exam room provides. The dogs are out of their element, not on their home turf, and the dogs with aggressive pasts tend to keep to themselves, or eye us warily from across the room. I've been in the habit of mirroring Dr. Dodman's behavior, more or less ignoring the dogs, not talking to them or looking them in the eye, and usually not petting them in any manner (unless its a friendly dog with no aggression in its history). This keeps the dogs more or less at ease, and keeps us humans safe.

We started off the appointment learning that this particular dog became aggressive in certain threatening situations, such as a person approaching the dog's food, making direct eye contact for too long, and petting over the top of the head. These behaviors were mostly directed to strangers, though the dog would occasionally lift a lip to its owners. The dog was also aggressive to other dogs when on leash, and was fond of humping other dogs at the park.

The appointment went on as usual. We came to the discussion of using the Gentle Leader to control the dog when he saw another dog on walks, and we fitted one of ours on him to make sure it had been fitted and was being used properly. Dr. Dodman tasked me with making sure the dog, who I will call Ringo, didn't keep trying to rub the head halter off his face while he showed the owners a short video of the Gentle Leader in action. He handed me the leash, and whenever Ringo tried to rub the halter off I would tell him 'stop it' and apply gentle tension to the lead. When he stopped, I release tension from the lead and tell him 'good boy'. All fine. Ringo had showed no signs of aggression thus far.

We determine that we should check Ringo's thyroid hormone levels to see if that could be contributing to his aggression. My fellow intern crosses the room to go see if the technicians are free, and Ringo follows her across the room and begins to growl. She stands still, looks away from him, and his owners are able to interrupt his mood. We place a muzzle on him, for the safety of the technicians, and I take him across the hall to get his blood drawn. We decide on a jugular blood draw, and the technician and I have Ringo sit, and while I hold his head up, petting him and talking to him nicely, the tech does a perfect stick. I notice Ringo's pupils are almost fully dilated, which I attribute to the stress of the blood draw. He was a perfect patient, so whining, no growling, no struggling. I take his muzzle off and bring him back to the exam room, still wearing his Gentle Leader.

Ringo is very happy to greet his owners after this unpleasant event, and starts rubbing his face on the floor in attempt to remove the head halter. Since I had been tasked with this earlier, I called him over to me and picked up the leash, ready apply tension when needed. I tell him to 'sit', and he sits perfectly next to me. Thinking about how good he was for the blood draw, and remembering the Gentle Leader video (and Dr. Dodman) stating how firm petting over the head and neck can calm the dog down, I start petting his head. I look down at him and marvel that his pupils are still so big, attributing that to the stress of the blood draw, and then immediately notice his lip is curled menacingly. His pupils are so dilated because he hates what I am doing, and is about to tell me so with his teeth. In that "Oh S@#!" moment, I remember what I had forgotten from earlier. This dog does not like being pet on the head by strangers, and will attempt to bite.

I don't remember exactly what the dog or I did next, but in my next conscious memory I'm holding the leash vertically above the dog, holding his head straight in the air. I eventually manage to stand up out of my chair, and begin to move toward his owner to hand off the leash. He isn't giving up. There is growling and head shaking, and my heart is pounding. I give his leash to his female owner, and he's still not done proving to me that I had offended him greatly. He's still growling, and I'm pretty sure I let out an embarrassing little shriek when he lunges at me on my way back to my chair. I sit back down, and he settles down at his owner's feet, and I notice his pupils have returned to their normal size. Yikes.

How does the peanut gallery react to this little incident? Ringo's owner looks at me and says 'I'm so sorry!', to which I respond, 'No, it's ok, that was my fault'. Dodman asks what happened. My fellow intern says 'petting over the top of the head'. I nod in horror at my obvious mistake. Dodman looks at me and says 'I'm sorry that happened to you, but now we have seen for ourselves that you guys have a problem that definitely needs to be managed'. This wasn't just one snarl and warning snap, this was a prolonged attempt to attack a human that had committed a grievous infarction against a confused dog. I sit back in my chair and try to play it cool, but my heart is still racing and I notice as I play with my nails my hands are shaking slightly. I hope my face isn't bright red, as it has a tendency to be when I'm feeling stressed. Phew.

The rest of the consult goes uneventfully, and I walk the clients back out to the waiting room, pretending like I hadn't just encouraged their dog to attack me. I walk back into the exam room, and Dodman is standing there chatting with my two fellow students, and tells me 'We were just talking about your close encounter. Of the third kind'.
'It was totally my fault' I say and try to explain it away, feeling slightly dumb and embarrassed. Dr. Dodman doesn't imply that I did anything wrong, and just comments that I should have stood up immediately to take control of the dog. I explained to him that my mind had gone blank and it was a reflex to do what I did. He says that was the right thing to do, just stand up next time. If my brain had been communicating with my legs, I would have done just that. I'm mentally kicking myself. A lot of things had led up to this incident. I was the bad guy that pulled on his leash, I was the bad guy that took him to a scary room to get stabbed by a needle by a stranger. I had a bunch of strikes against me to begin with. Whoops.

The only thing that got hurt in this encounter was my pride. I kept telling myself that I knew better (which I did) and I shouldn't have caused that reaction from this dog. I'm always my own harshest critic, and obviously pride myself on my knowledge of animal behavior. I felt like I had let myself down. Clearly, I made a simple mistake, and after a day full of appointments and boat loads of information, a critical piece of information had slipped my brain. But nobody got hurt, nobody got mad, and I most certainly won't make that mistake again. I know that dogs don't like being pet over the head by people they are unfamiliar with, I consciously avoid doing it, and will never do it again (especially in the behavior consulting room). I've never been holding the leash of a dog that has tried to go after me, and have learned how to react in this situation.

All in all, that ended up being our most exciting moment of the day, and like I said before, the only thing that got injured was my pride. Now I just need to swallow this pride and add this to the filing folder of important life lessons.

I owe you one, Ringo.

Animal Testing

Caught ya with that title, didn't I? You were probably expecting some thought-provoking, passionate argument about animal testing. Nope, not today. This is much less serious and much more fun! In the last week or so, I've been performing a little 'animal testing' on my dog, Myles.

During many of our appointments at the Behavior Clinic, Dr. Dodman spends a lot of time instructing owners as to how they can enrich the home environment for their dogs. Suggestions like food puzzles, music, leaving the TV on, and having a window for them to look out are common place. He also suggests olfactory stimulation, which can be very exciting for our furry friends who live in a world of smells we cannot even imagine. Owners are always intrigued when he gets to this part of the appointment. He tells them to take normally boring, neutral toys (such as rope bones and fake sheep skins) and add an interesting scent to them.

Now, what the heck kind of smell could I put on one of these things that my dog will like? Owners often have a quizzical look on their faces at this point. We all know dogs love to smell things we more squeamish humans deem 'disgusting'. Surely you don't want me to rub the scent of road kill on a rope bone for my dog? While they would certainly love that, Dodman suggests more human-tolerable options. Take a dab of vanilla extract, he says, or extract of anise, and rub it on a rope bone. Weird, huh? Through most of these appointments I'm sure I have the exact same puzzled expression on my face. No way dogs like the smell of vanilla. We humans usually think this smells fantastic, and things that we like to smell are generally things that dogs find aversive.

Curious one day after yet another appointment in which we discussed olfactory stimulation, I decided to test it out on my own dog (poor dogs belonging to vet students always get volunteered for poking and prodding in the name of education!). I took one of the one dollar rope toys we have from Target, took my vanilla extract, got a tiny dab of vanilla on my finger (remember, their sense of smell is SO much more powerful than ours, don't want to overwhelm them!), and rubbed it on the rope. I brought it over to him and held it out in front of his face. He sniffed. I put the rope down on his bed and walked away, waiting to see if he would do anything with it. I turn around a few minutes later and he's sniffing the rope intently. He picks it up, tosses it to himself, throws it around, and starts gnawing on the end of the rope. Wow, I'm thinking. He actually likes it. Who knew? Dr. Dodman, obviously. I would like to try anise, but as this is something that I think smells terrible, I don't have it hanging around my house. Other, more obvious suggestions for stinky stimulation include things like scent lures for hunting dogs. I did some internet searching for available scents, and found some things like 'waterfowl', 'pheasant', and some mammalian game. I'd be interested in trying these out on different dogs, and seeing which types of dogs prefer which types of scents. There are some we might easily predict, like Retrievers and waterfowl scents, or terriers and the scent of some rodent, but it would be fun to try out a bunch of different smells and see who prefers what.

I want to hear from you guys reading this too. Try a little experiment on your dog! Buy a couple rope bones for a dollar each at Target or Walmart (they may be that cheap at the pet stores too), get a couple different scents, and test your dog out to see which one he likes the best. Try weird things too! Get creative, and comment about it here. Dogs don't typically like smells we consider 'clean', like citrus scents, so just keep that in mind, though you can try it out to see for yourself!

Get creative and have fun with your dogs, in the name of science!

Here are a few things I came across online... next time I'm near a Bass Pro Shop I'm going to take a look around, but here are some ideas to get started!

A few bird scents
Who knew they made a squirrel extract?
Raccoon??
There are some crazy things out there...

C = DVM. What is that even supposed to mean?

Some of you may be wondering what the heck the title of this blog is all about. C = DVM is a phrase commonly thrown around at school, typically following a particularly gruesome test or during a hectic week when someone simply can't make as much time to study as they would like. This little quip is based on the fact that you can finish veterinary school with a C average and still get your DVM degree. I'm not quite sure what the exact academic rules are, but I believe you are allowed to get one D in a course, but if you get two you need to retake one of them. If you get a failing grade in a class, you need to retake that class. But all C's? Smooth sailing, it looks like.

So why do we say this to each other so often? To ease the pain of a very trying, rigorous, slap you in the face educational experience? To give us comfort during hard times? Hand in hand with 'C = DVM' comes some variation of the following phrase, 'Oh, C students always make the best clinicians anyway. A students make poor clinicians and end up in research or something like that'.

I began to think about why people say this, and whether there is any truth behind it. The belief seems to be that students who get A's are too nerdy and studious to be able to successfully interact with pet owners, and that C students are somehow suave and charismatic, able to woo clients with their charm even if the medicine isn't 100% solid. Obviously there are no hard and fast rules; I definitely know students who get A's and have no social skills, and I know students who get C's and have no social skills. There are people I look at and think there is no way they are going to make it as a clinician, and others that are so great at talking to people but I wonder how they are passing their classes.

That being said, I don't really know how most of my classmates do on tests, quizzes, homework, etc. It's not something we really talk about. I barely talk about grades even with my closest friends. Yes, grades matter, but the truth is grades don't always reflect a student's grasp of the material. Medicine is all about problem solving. You take pieces of a puzzle, you put them together, and you treat that puzzle (which can be a new puzzle in and of itself). Students that are great at remembering facts and then regurgitating them are not always good at synthesizing them. That is the art behind the science.

We are eagerly (and terrifyingly) counting down the days until our class enters clinics, where is will quickly become obvious who is good at synthesizing and who is not. I've gotten a taste of that problem solving, what I like to call 'real medicine', over the last year, through a case-based selective on Neurology every Tuesday, and then this summer in the Behavior Clinic. Just today at the Behavior Clinic I suggested a treatment for a dog who's issues I thought were being compounded by her anxiety, and my idea ultimately ended up being the treatment we settled on. I gave a little fist pump when Dr. Dodman said 'Looks like your treatment wins!'.

This is what I really love; seeing a problem, putting together the pieces, and solving it. I can't wait until our class enters clinics in the coming spring, and I am crossing my fingers that this clinical experience truly helps us develop our critical thinking skills.

C = DVM? Perhaps, but somewhere in that equation should be hard work, dedication, and a passion for learning (oh and for animals too!). C = DVM....I don't like it. How about Me = DVM? That encompasses a whole lot more than just my grades...that includes everything about me that makes me unique, and gives me my own special take on veterinary medicine. Yes, Me = DVM. Let's go with that.

The Real Dog Whisperer

This summer, instead of working a 'real job', I'm spending a few days every other week with Dr. Nicholas Dodman at Tufts' Behavior Clinic. With the interest I've developed in behavior over the last year, and my desire to goof around as much as possible this summer, Dr. Dodman's schedule of seeing appointments Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of every other week is perfect. I'm learning a ton, and I have plenty of down time (which was a necessity for my last summer free from school).

I've spent two weeks at the Behavior Clinic so far. It is usually me and a gaggle of other students, usually a senior student, sometimes a selective student, and a summer intern from UMass undergrad. Everyone is wearing white coats, and this can sometimes be an intimidating audience for clients. Little do they realize that the only one who really knows what they are talking about is the doctor. Each of us has a different point of view to offer, and the doctor is kind enough to ask us for our opinions during client visits.

My first day in was slightly nerve-wracking. I had been told to report to the 'behavior room', which is exam room 4 in the Foster Hospital for Small Animals at 9:30 am. I get to the room, peer in the window, and don't see anyone I recognize. Two students in white coats, and two clients with a large Golden Retriever. Not seeing anyone I know, I stand in the hallway, perplexed. Am I in the right place? At the right time? Who can I contact? Just as I am about to abort the mission, Dr. Dodman rounds the corner. I sigh in relief. 'Dr. Dodman! I was looking for you! I'm the student who's going to be coming in... I saw people in there and I didn't recognize them...so I didn't want to barge in...' He says, 'Yes, they're called clients, that's the reason we're here. Now put on your lab coat, lose the bag, look professional and let's go in!' It wasn't mean, it was fact. Those are clients. Put your coat on. Put your purse away. We are professionals.

Ohhh boy, off to a great start. I'm worried I've just blown my first impression for someone that I practically idolize. This guy is the real deal . He's famous. He's an author. He's on Animal Planet. He has groupies. Don't screw this up!

I'm pretty quiet through our first two appointments, just taking everything in and making mental notes (as I had forgotten an actual notebook). Dodman addresses me and the other students while he's talking to the clients, including us in the conversation. We run late that morning, leaving us only about 20 minutes for lunch. Of course I have to run home to let the dog out, which will make me late for our first afternoon appointment. Great, I'm thinking, that's another strike against me.

I'm about ten minutes late for the next appointment, which is made increasingly awkward by our need for an extra chair, as Dr. Ogata, former behavior resident, is also sitting in on the appointment. They gesture to me as I open the door, and I scoot out in search of a chair. I look in the surrounding exam rooms, and the first brilliant idea that comes to my mind is to knock on the door of an exam room containing a uniformed police officer and a muzzled, huge German Shepherd. He is alone in the room. I knock, he unlocks the door (the door was locked? Good call, Lindsay) and I ask for a chair, apologetically. He seems slightly amused. I take the chair, and slink back into the consulting room. Awesome. And this case appears to be an especially difficult one; a recheck for an aggressive dog who hasn't been making a lot of improvement despite a lot of retraining and pharmaceutical intervention. The couple had a young baby, and were frustrated with the lack of progress. Understandably. Dodman smoothly comes up with a game plan for them, and sends them out hopeful.

Through that first week, I like to watch how he interacts with the clients. He puts them at ease; he makes jokes, tells stories, shares his own life experiences. He doesn't put blame on them for their pet's behavior, he doesn't reprimand, and he doesn't overwhelm. They have an enormous amount of respect for him. I hope to someday mirror his ability to interact with worried pet owners.

My third week in, at the end of an appointment, I'm getting together a package of handouts and business cards for the client to take home. Dodman asks what I've got, I tell him, and he turns to the clients and says, 'She's really got it together, doesn't she? On top of it!'.

Looks like I didn't blow my first impression after all.



More stories from the consulting room to come...

To Misplace A Dog

Yesterday we lost Angus, my best friend's big doofy Golden Retriever, for about 20 minutes. It felt like hours.

His owner, who I shall call Kmoore, remained extremely calm and collected while we searched for him, shaking a bowl of kibble and calling his name. Four of us and two dogs had just gotten back from a fantastic low tide walk down the beach and out to a little island and were feeling a beautiful day/good friends/summer vacation buzz. That buzz died pretty quickly when Kmoore turns to me and asks, 'Is Angus in the house?' I look around at the three other wagging tails and laugh nervously when I realize the furriest of the tails is indeed missing. With four dogs running around in a small space it's pretty easy to overlook one of them. She and I had both thought that Angus had been the first to enter the house. I guess not.

The four of us immediately began the search, with the other two girls at the cabin joining in. When it became apparent that he wasn't in the immediate vicinity, my heart sank. I checked the beach, I checked the island (where Angus had been especially enamored with a big dead fish), I checked the awkward outbuilding near the cabin. No luck. We split up, and I see Kmoore jog up the street with a very worried look on her face. The minutes tick by, and when I hear the others still calling for him from a distance, my heart sinks even further.

Goose gone swimming, right before we lost him. 

Where we were was pretty isolated, and no one in the neighborhood had seen him, which was odd. After another lap around the beach, I conclude that he has to be somewhere really stupid, where he either can't get out or can't hear us, and he can't be far.

Turns out he was in exactly such a place. Angus had wandered into landlord's house that was adjacent to our little cabin. He had been intrigued by the path up to that house all day, and must have dashed up to the house as we made our way back to the cabin. The door must have been left ajar, and Angus's curious nose had led him astray. One of the girls finally walked over to check the house on the off chance he was there, and she found the screen door open but the front door closed. Despite this, she let herself in, called for him, and around the corner trots Angus (eventually), absolutely covered in fleas from the infestation in this house, and totally unperturbed that he had caused us so much anxiety. Now he gets to sit outside, tied to a tree, to wait for his 'mommy' to come back.

Angus's little misadventure drove home for me just how attached we become to these fuzzy creatures, and how much we depend on their continued presence. More than we'd like to admit to ourselves sometimes, I think. They make us so vulnerable. One minute they're there, the next minute they're not and you feel your world and your happy weekend crashing down around you. Walking around with Myles during our search for Angus, I just stop and turn to him, look at him standing on the beach, looking back at me, and ask him worriedly, 'Where's Angus?' He looks at me and gives a little whine, knowing that something is wrong, but not knowing what. In the car ride on the way home I turn to my boyfriend and say 'If that was Myles, I would have been absolutely losing my mind'. I applaud Kmoore for keeping it so together while we were looking for her missing dog. I don't think I could have been that contained. Maybe she is just stronger than I am, because I know she is just as attached to her dog as I am to mine.

And of course when you find the dog, very much as you would with a child, you feel a wave of relief along with a surge of anger at them for running off, and you talk to them as if they can understand what you are feeling. Angus sat outside for a few minutes, tethered to a tree, and his relieved owner looks out the screen door and says to him, 'Yeah Angus, you feel sad huh? Well that's how I felt.' And she turns to me, joking, 'I don't think he's getting the message, do you?' Nope. He's not getting it, and of course she knows that. As much as we humanize our dogs, they don't understand how much their unexplained absence tears us in half.

From the moment we realized he was missing, terribly thoughts starting swirling through my head. He's hit by a car, laying on the side of the road; he fell off that slippery rock by the beach and hit his head; he swam out too far and couldn't make it back. I don't think it's just me that has these thoughts, but man, are they terrible. And I realize, oh God, Myles didn't even have his collar on because it was so wet from swimming. He had no ID if it had been him that wandered off. I envy those that can stay outwardly chipper and optimistic and stomp down the panic and keep it in a deep, inaccessible place.

We like happy endings. 

When we had Angus back, everyone played it cool, acting like we hadn't just had a brush with a major crisis. Angus was back, that was all that mattered. All was right again. Hugs all around for the humans, and when I got back home that night, I hugged my dog extra hard, and remembered how fleeting and precious our time with our dogs really is.

I have 'first post' writer's block...

First post on a blog about veterinary school... where to begin?
With two years at Tufts' Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine under my belt, so many stories come to mind I don't know what to share first. The funny? The disgusting? The horrifying? The enlightening? Perhaps a story that happened outside of school?

Maybe for this post I'll stick to what prompted me to create this little 'blog' in the first place. I've always loved to write, for my own enjoyment, and it's been a while since I've had the time. Or energy.

It's the beginning of July of my last summer vacation (ever) and am having so much fun not working and not studying that I'm having heart palpitations thinking about school starting up again in August. But this year, my third year, we will actually be learning how to be doctors. After two years of intense background knowledge, our third year will be crammed with medicine and surgery courses, our first surgical procedures, and more examinations than we can handle. It will be terrifying but fantastic at the same time. We complain about it, but we love it at the same time (at least I do!). That is all well and good, and we can talk more about that once school starts again (which will definitely be way too soon).  In the mean time, you get to hear about my summer vacation and my dog. Hopefully it proves interesting, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I have retained my writing skills somewhere deep in my reptile brain.

Wish me luck!