A lot of animals come into the vet. These past two weeks probably had some of the strangest and surprising animals come in. First there was this beautiful black cat with bright orange eyes, brought in for a declaw. He had the most luscious coat, super thick and silky soft. I commented on how cool he was. Dr. Hagler responded by asking me if I knew what kind of cat it he was. It's always weird to me how there are different types of cats, for dogs it's normal, but cats I just don't think of being specific breeds. Anyway it turns out that this particular cat was a Scottish fold, and apparently, this cat cost $3,000. I mean seriously.. $3,000 for a cat. I'm such a cat person, but that just seems absolutely ludicrous. Going with the theme of cost, there was a very cute little Labradoodle girl puppy, these dogs are apparently very expensive. I am against breeding dogs, even though my family has a pure bread dog straight out of Italy, I personally would never go out of my way to contribute to the cruel industry of dog breeding. This little girl, still just a baby, could barely walk, when she moved she was in pain, and you could see that by looking at her mannerisms. Dr. Hagler said a while ago that the best way to tell if there's something wrong with a dog is just by looking at them. This puppy was dull and sad. Dog breeding, like many things, is run by money, the more dogs produced, the more money. This leads to inbreeding. When animals, of any kind, are inbred, the recessive traits of a "family" are brought to the surface. We recently covered this topic in AP Biology, so it is somewhat fresh in my mind. In zoos, cheetahs are being bred with horrible problems that shorten their life span, and would make it impossible to ever be released in the wild because they simply would not survive. The same is true for bulldogs, which have terrible hip and breathing problems, if you've ever heard a bulldog breath it sounds like an old man with emphysema and a terrible cold just finishing a marathon. Thanks to inbreeding practically all German Shepherd's suffer from hip dysplasia. And thanks to inbreeding, this poor baby girl would probably have to be put down, or live a life of pain and suffering.
Currently at the vet, my days consist of greeting the crew, waiting for them to finish declawing a cat or waking up a dog (the surgeries they do are almost always in the morning so I see the aftermath), and then being assigned a menial task. I don't want to sound bratty and entitled, but it seems that the newly earned responsibilities from the previous weeks have turned into tasks other technicians don't want to do. I am not opposed to taking out trash or sweeping up, but I didn't sign up for a janitor job. I would be very happy with taking out trash along with other things like drawing blood from animals, setting up slides to be looked at under microscopes, or running blood tests, but unfortunately taking out trash, sweeping, unloading boxes, and organizing products have been taking up all my hours. Recently I met with Mr. Fitz and talked about where I stand currently with my third space. I talked about how I felt like they may be taking advantage of the free labor and that I thought my time was kind of being wasted. Mr Fitz asked me if maybe it was me and not them, which is definitely a possibility. I guess I could ask for more opportunities, but it is difficult when I am constantly assigned other tasks. Here are some other questions Mr. Fitz asked me: Who am I to these people? Am I in any way an irritant? Am I in the way? Am I just there to do interesting work only when they are too busy to do it all themselves? After all, the rest of the time, it seems that they want me to do the boring stuff like clean up and trash collection while they are doing the interesting stuff. Have I done anything wrong socially or in my work or does the above really answer it? Obviously these are not questions I can answer, but I definitely need to consider these as my last few weeks come to an end. A couple of specific events stood out to me recently. The first was something that happened with a cat that had been brought in. I think the cat needed its teeth to be examined or cleaned so the veterinarians needed to nock him out. At the vet they frequently anesthetize animals but I had never seen one done like this. They basically cornered the cat into this tiny box and then put the lid on. the cat was terrified and was pressed up against the glass. I wanted to take a picture but was too afraid of getting in trouble. It was honestly shocking. The most frustrating part about all the things I've seen at the vet that I disagree with is, is that the animal never has a say and the animal is always at fault. I'm not saying that veterinarians are bad people, because what they do does usually help the animals, but humans in general just possess such a superiority over other animals we forget that we are animals ourselves. On a much happier note, a three legged dog came in. That kinda sounds bad.. I'm not happy that he has only three legs, but I am happy that he is doing so well. His leg had to be amputated because he had cancer in his femur (I believe). Missing a leg does not stop this dog at all. He wags his tail and runs around without a care in the world. He comes into the vet every now and again for check ups. They make sure his cancer isn't coming back and treat him like their own. It's definitely a more positive side to veterinary medicine that I easily forget happens. In a couple of weeks I have my presentation. I get absolutely terrible stage fright, so this presentation will be very difficult. I struggle doing 5 minute presentations with groups I don't know how I'm going to stand up in front of a group of people and talk for 40 minutes alone. Regardless of how prepared I am I know I will still be terrified. Recently I noticed, while I was giving feedback on another wise presentation, that I was talking very fast. Even in that situation I was pretty nervous, which is why I was talking so fast. Someone told me, after another wise presentation, that if you notice that you are talking to fast hold onto something and look around and you will slow down. That is definitely something I will do during my presentation. I need to do some research on how to be comfortable and confident, or at least seem like I am.
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AuthorMy name is Emily Burch. I am a student in the WISE program at Miramonte. This is my WISE journey (I think that's a good word for it). Archives
May 2015
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