How to Knock Out a Horse

I woke up the other morning and realized that our clinical year is already halfway gone. I'm amazed I'm actually still alive at this point, not to mention actually beginning to have some semblance of confidence and aptitude for this thing that is supposed to be my job (in less than 9 months). I've gotten through more than half of my clinical rotations at this point, not limited to but including wildlife medicine, oncology, cardiology, small and large animal medicine, and ambulatory practice (driving around making farm calls for things like dairies, alpaca farms, and backyard goats and sheep). Each of these has had their fair share of fantastic stories, and I should have been keeping up with them, but clinical year doesn't leave much time for things besides eating and sleeping (or attempting to). Some rotations I've liked better than others, some I was completely scared out of my mind, and some that I had early on I'm wishing I could have a do over (I could do it so much better now!). Let's fast forward past that to the rotation I'm currently on. Anesthesia.

Now I will have to admit, the prospect of this rotation was terrifying to me. With good reason. Anesthesia can be scary. You're using a lot of different drugs that can have a lot of different side effects, many if not most of the animals we anesthetize here are not systemically healthy, and things can go wrong. Heart rates can drop too low or shoot sky high, breathing effort can be sub-par, blood pressure can plummet, patients can get very cold. The scariest part for most of us, as we're just learning the ropes, is what we call 'induction'. This is where we use our drug of choice (most often propfol, of Michael Jackson fame, but there are others) to bring the animal from conscious to unconscious and able to be intubated. (i.e. you need to make this animal so sleepy that it will not protest you sticking a tube into its trachea). This can be a tense time. We like to titrate our induction drugs exactly to effect, avoiding giving more than the animal needs. Timing has to be pretty perfect; you need to get that tube in there before the animal starts waking up, gagging, potentially biting the tube. And intubation is not the easiest task. Dogs have long faces, it can be difficult to see far into the back of their mouths to see what you are doing. Sometimes the size tube you think will work is in fact the wrong size (we often have three or four different tubes on our trays, ready to go if this happens). And cats do this delightful thing where their larynx spasms if you touch it too soon, and then you are never getting that tube it. 

So, if you're good, you induce the animal, get it intubated, get it hooked up to oxygen and inhalant anesthetic, and then set up your plethora of monitoring equipment. Your heart rate looks fine, pressures are ok, animal is  doing fairly well breathing on it's own. Phew. You give a sigh of relief and get ready for the next scary part, whatever that may be.

Now if you think induction of a cat or a dog is scary (and we do), that brings me to the horses. You may be wondering how we knock a horse down, get it intubated, and get it onto a surgical table and into the operating room. Now THIS can be scary. The horse gets lead into a padded induction stall, with a swinging padded board that will be used to slowly squish the horse up against the wall so that it falls as gracefully as a thousand pound animal can fall. Horses often balk walking into the stall. It's scary in there, not wide open, and there are weird things around. Once they are standing in a relatively accomodating position, they get their premedication, which is a heavy dose of sedative to prepare them for the induction agent. The induction drug is then given when the horse is nice and sleepy, and this is where the squeeze board comes in handy. Two people at the front of the horse, four of five on the squeeze board, and you gently push the horse into the wall and cross your fingers that it just slides down gracefully. This isn't always the case. Horse can drop awkwardly, they can go down and get back up, they can freak out and kick the board out and send you flying across the room. Tense. And once the horse drops, you've gotta hustle and get the endotracheal tube in and get that thing into surgery and hooked up before it decides its not actually that asleep. A horse trach tube is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen; about three feet long with a diameter of like three inches, with the attachment on the end of the tube it looks like a giant plunger. Luckily, it's easier than you would think to get that tube in. 

Anesthetizing like a boss

But still, you're a little nervous, and while you're frantically trying to get a giant plunger down a horse's trachea, everyone else in in the stall is hooking the horse's legs up to the hoist to move it onto the surgical table. If you don't watch yourself, you could turn around and be bowled over by a horse swinging upside down by its legs. Careful.

Even scarier than knocking the horse down is waking the horse back up. They get hoisted up by the crane again and moved onto a very thick pad in a padded room with a padded floor (sound like this is about to get dangerous?). Ropes are tied to the tail and to a soft recovery halter to help the horse when it tries to stand. A brave soul gets in there to pull out the trach tube once the horse is breathing well enough, and then skedaddles out of there before he gets trapped and kicked into a wall by a delirious, gigantic animal.
The horse will lay quietly, sleeping, for a while, and you are watching through a tiny peep hole for the excitement to begin. Then once they decide they're awake, they usually don't mess around. They usually try to pick their head up first, do a little head flopping, try to roll up onto their chest. Once the animal gets itself sternal, the smart horses will just sit there a little while longer, waiting until they are ready to stand. Others are not as smart. They try to stand, lose their footing, stumble across the stall and collide with the wall. Faceplant into a corner and sit there for a while. Fall backwards into the door you are watching through and smash your nose if you get careless and let your face get too close. They often stumble around and end up standing with one or more feet on the two foot thick mat they were previously lying on, which doesn't really help the balancing situation. Some other brave soul can go in and try to slowly coax the horse to step of the mat, at which point someone beckons frantically for some students to get on the ropes on the other side of the wall and pull the mat up out of the way (this activity requires me to dangle my entire body weight on the rope). Eventually the horse will be standing well enough it can be walked by two people, one on the halter and one holding its tail, back to its stall. If all goes well, your horse is just fine. Many leave the recovery stall with scrapes and bumps from stumbling around. One horse today went face first into a corner and laid there with her face pressed into the floor for a while. Another woke up and stumbled around, then decided she was very awake and paced tight, stumbly circles interjected with angry whinnies. It can look very dramatic.
Unluckier ones than these can injure themselves, damage a surgical repair just done, hurt an eye, or even worse, break a leg. Fortunately, these injuries do not happen that often, but they are a very real threat when anesthetizing such a giant animal. We do our very best to keep the many people involved out of harm's way too, but there are many stories of broken legs and broken noses that get tossed around when everyone is sitting around waiting for the horse to start walking up. They become legendary.
After anesthetizing quite a few horse cases thus far, induction and recovery of small animals seems a little bit less scary! While an angry malamute may intimidate me before it's asleep, at least it can't ACTUALLY kill me. I think I can handle it :-)

Food Toys Galore!

Environmental enrichment is SO important for our dogs. All things considered, most of our pet dogs live fairly boring lives. They stay home alone while we are at work or school (or lucky dogs go to day care), they hang around the house after we get home, and dogs belonging to us vet students get to lay around while we study all night. So, fairly boring. Food puzzles make our dogs use their brains, and keep the busy for much longer than it takes to eat dinner out of a bowl (all of 30 seconds for most dogs). Food toys can help mitigate behavior problems and boredom, and for dogs like Myles food puzzles can even help manage/treat separation anxiety. 

Since everyone tends to ask me about food puzzles for our furry friends, and Myles and I have owned/tried MANY of them, I thought I would summarize here so that everyone could have a quick reference. Let us begin...

Wobbler

Treat ball

Fun ball

Amaze-a-ball

Squirrel dude

1. Kong Wobbler -  this toy is excellent for feeding meals, it unscrews and you can fit up to two cups of kibble in it (not anything huge like T/D, but most normal kibbles, including Pro Plan with the chunks in it). It has a very heavy sand-filled base so it 'wobblers'. Runs about $20 bucks, can be really annoying on a hard wood floor, and some dogs really slam it around. You can tape the big hole so it is smaller and takes them longer. It comes in two sizes, large and small for littler dogs.
2. Everlasting Treat Ball- this is a great toy, it comes in many sizes and many treat disk flavors. The version pictured you can place treat disks on both sides, the version I have is a half sphere and you place the treat disk on one side. It's orange, and it's called the Bento Ball. Make sure you actually go by the size recommendations for the ball, as the dog really needs to be able to get his jaws around it for them to be able to have success at it. Myles at 40 pounds and a kind of short muzzle needs the medium sized one (he has the large, it's too big). I've heard variable reports on how long the treat actually lasts, it is very hard and can be a real pain to get back in the ball when you need to replace it, and doesn't run very cheap, around $20 for the ball and then $6-7 for a two pack of replacement disks. Myles is a fan.
3. Everlasting Fun Ball- this is a squishy hollow ball that you can fill with treats (make sure they can actually come out of the holes, this toy also has nubbins you can cut with scissors to make the holes larger so your selected treat can actually fall out). Many dogs will just roll this across the floor with their noses, and others like to put the whole thing in their mouth and chew. It's fairly durable, but aggressive chewers can definitely do some damage. Fun and bouncy for regular play time, and doesn't make obnoxious lound noises.
4. Amaze-a-ball- this toy is almost too easy, but it's pretty cheap ($6-7). As with the wobbler you can tape the hole so it has a smaller opening. The ball has some divisions inside that require the dog to roll it around so the kibble finds its way out of the 'maze'. Myles likes this toy, but its a pain to stuff the treats/kibble into the appropriate side (it's an X shaped slit through the rubber) I just pour kibble through the opening hole and shake it around a little to get it inside the ball. 
5. Waggle- this is a Busy Buddy product made by Premier Pet, which makes many fantastic food toys (the treat balls are made by them also, google Premier Pet and you will find many options). This little dumbbell is hollow on either end (again with nubbins blocking the hole you can either remove or not), fill with treats or kibble. It's not Myles favorite, but other dogs love it. See this link for the full list of Premier's food puzzles- http://www.premier.com/View.aspx?page=dogs/products/toys/busybuddy
6. Kibble Nibble- Monika just bought this one for Hammie, and Myles seems to thoroughly enjoy it. Unscrews in the middle, and you can fit a whole meal inside. The egg shape makes it challenging for them to get the kibble out. If you want to use this toy, make sure you have CARPET or it will annoy the CRAP out of you, even more than the wobbler. The ridges on the egg sound like a machine gun when your insane dog rapid-fire rolls it across the floor. Again, this is made by Premier and has nubbins you can remove to allow treats to fall out more or less easily (which is one of the reasons I really love their products). 
7. Kong- everybody knows what a Kong is, so I'll just share what I do with it. With Myles' delightful separation anxiety, I will stuff a large sized Kong (which isn't as large as you think it is) with canned food, and you can freeze it overnight to make it last a long time. I will also fill an extra large sized Kong with his kibbles, and then stuff a few hard biscuits in to block of the hole and make it more challenging. The squirrel dude is the same idea as the Kong, but it made by Premier, so you can adjust the size of the hole and make it more challenging. Kibble in a Kong presents no challenge at all, but kibble in a squirrel dude is much more difficult. 
8. Kong Goodie Bone-  this is a simple toy that's fun for dogs that are chewers and transient entertainment if you stuff hard biscuits into each end. If I do that, it takes Myles about five minutes to get them out. A dog that is more into chewing rubber will enjoy this toy more. 

Waggle

Kibble nibble

Goodie bone

There are more toys to discuss, and some for kitties also, but I should probably at least do some school work tonight! Stay tuned for more!

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 :-)