After 3 sessions at my local Animal Hospital I have completed the 15 hours required for this project. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity and overall it was both an amazing and insightful experience. I saw animals who’s lives were sadly lost but I also saw animals given a second chance at life and even a new family. It was sort of like an emotional roller coaster. When I had arrived on Saturday it was already off to a hectic start. A family brought in this sickly looking black lab who the day before had been bleeding out of her mouth but than began bleeding more than before in more orifices. The cause of this poor dogs sickness was one of two options (neither sounding pleasant)... it was either an auto-immune disease or a case of rat poison ingestion (neither of which are necessarily good). The dog’s urine was filled with blood and she just had this defeated look on her face. The one way to possibly treat both was with a blood transfusion (the blood they actually used was the same blood that one of the vet tech’s dogs donated while I was there during my first mentorship) which is rather costly but thankfully the owners took the chance and went ahead and allowed the transfusion to be done. I left before I was able to find out the result but the grim situation seemed a bit brighter before I left because as the transfusion was occurring the lab was drinking water and eating charcoal infused food. Also I learned that just like humans dogs have different blood types and can have allergic reactions to different types of blood so to start off they only allow 1 drop every 20 seconds to be administered for the first 30 minutes and if there is no allergic reaction they move it up to 1 drop every 4 seconds for the remainder of the transfusion. There were some dogs taken in for heart worm testing and soon after they left I saw something that shocked me. There was an adorable oldie who’s face had been eaten away at by a bacterial infection called chronic perifolliculitis which the owner let cause this dog pain for around a year. I just couldn’t fathom how someone could be so cruel and wake up every morning and look at your companion in pain. It just boggles me. It was such a sad sight and one that I’m sure to remember. The rest of the day was just consultations varying from a vocal cat to a chihuahua with biting tendencies. There were two dogs while I was there that sadly were euthanized. One I wasn’t in the room for but the other I was and it was one of the most touching things I’ve ever witnessed. The client was a white bulldog who was clearly loved by his family. His body however had mass tumor cells throughout and at this point the only thing that could be done was surgeries and procedures that would take quite a while to recover from just to buy some time and ultimately the owners came to the decision that it was unfair and to let him cross the rainbow bridge (which to me was the right decision). As he fell asleep one of the family members was singing “you are my sunshine” and it was such a sad and touching moment and although I wanted to bawl my eyes out I contained my tears as much as possible. To end my day a St. Benard was randomly dropped off and the staff was told his wife would be back later and that was all the info that was given. Poor old man was covered in infected regions that after shaving the hair around them looked like broccoli. Again just like the black lab I wasn’t there to see the results but I’m hoping for the best. Besides my mentorship I completely finished my book Zoobiquity (which you will be hearing about in the next section). Also I finished my hours as stated above but not yet have had my sheet signed by my mentor so I’ll be back to get it signed so I can move on to the next parts of my project.
Zoobiquity: by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers - Pages 139 - 167 (Scared to Death) | Pages 168 - 203 (Fat Planet) | Pages 204 - 225 (Grooming gone Wild) | Pages 226 - 248 (Fear of Feeding) | Pages 249 - 272 (The Koala and the Clap) | Pages 273 - 300 (Leaving the Nest) | Pages 301 - 314 (Zoobiquity)
This book was about a cardiologist with a superiority complex and a new found interest between the connections between human and animal health. From self harm to animals seeking narcotic escape it really does cover about everything. This book not only helped me gain a better understanding of various animals but also us as a species and why we do what we do. It really is shocking to me that veterinarians and human doctors don’t coordinate together to treat patients because there have been “discoveries” made by people doctors that at vet school would be taught in an introductory class. Many decide to look at differences instead of similarities which in terms of the whole people vs. animal debate is apparent. I mean Zoobiquity even correlates some of our own behaviors that some may think are unique to us to insects. Yes. You heard me. Insects. The purpose of this book is to describe the relationship between living things and how we could diagnose and treat all species and gain a better understanding of living creatures on this planet by exploring our similarities instead of focusing on our differences.
Quick Summary of What I’ve Read Since my Last Post...
I was constantly not achieving my reading goals this week which I’m not exactly proud to admit so I probably did more reading for this blog entry than I did for each other entry combined (which I didn’t mind because it’s quite interesting). Even when I was reading one or two chapters a week I would spend an hour or so going into specific details of every chapter and honestly if I did that for this entry it would take me like 6 hours (since I read 7 chapters but the last one was pretty short) and this blog would be (incoming hyperbole) a novel. Now for a brief summary.
The chapters I read focused on the themes of cardiovascular issued leading to death due to shock, the obesity epidemic in both humans and animals (the proportion of overweight/obese animals/humans was honestly quite shocking), over-grooming (known to humans as self harm), eating disorders, STD outbreaks (focusing on ones that occur almost simultaneously in the Animal Kingdom as well as in people (the number of Koala’s with Chlamydia are extremely high)), and the dangers of the risks of growing up and “moving out” (which was honestly not what I was wanting to hear especially considering how soon I’ll be headed off to college) and to top it off ends with a chapter with the same title as the book which ultimately wraps everything up. To me the most interesting of the chapters I just read had to be Grooming Gone Wild. Never before had the thought of animals intentionally inflicting harm on themselves even crossed my mind and before reading this I honestly thought that self harm was unique to humans. Some of the examples and stories in it like painting the gorilla’s fingernails “Ferrari red” after surgery and putting wads of gum in his hair to prevent him from self harm was very interesting. The one chapter I found redundant though was Scared to Death. It seemed to repeat quite a few themes from the chapter The Feint of Heart. Overall the final section of the book was very insightful and quite entertaining.
“Our essential connection with animals is ancient, and it runs deep. It extends from body to behavior, from psychology to society -- forming the basis of our daily journey of survival” (Bowers & Natterson-Horowitz, 313)
“Overwhelming fear responses to entrapment and threat may not be all the different whether you’re a zebra facing a glowering Cape buffalo or a white-collar criminal facing life in prison” (Bowers & Natterson-Horowitz, 156)
“We’re responsible for not only our own expanding waistlines but for those of our animal charges as well. And even just living around us humans can make animals balloon” (Bowers & Natterson-Horowitz, 171)
“Obesity is a disease of the environment” (Richard, 175)
“Like human anorexics whose hair becomes brittle and patchy, pigs afflicted with a condition called thin sow syndrome grow hair that is abnormally coarse and long” (Bowers & Natterson-Horowitz, 239)
“While thinking of a human with chlamydia make us grimace or blush, koalas with chlamydia likely make us feel sympathetic, or at least impassive” (Bowers & Natterson-Horowitz, 270)
Would I recommend this book?
To put it simply I would have to say depends on who it is who is interested in reading it. To someone who may identify as immature you many want to wait a bit to pick up this book or if you already have knowledge in this field you may find it to be a bit elementary. Since I came in with minimal knowledge and an appropriate amount of maturity it was actually quite enjoyable to me. If you have a passion for animals like me and also enjoy learning about them I would highly recommend this book. I’d probably have to give it a 4 out of 5 stars (mostly for the fact that it can get pretty repetitive).
Was it helpful to my purpose?
This is where I sort of have mixed feelings. It certainly isn’t a book on how to become a veterinarian that’s for sure (so if that’s what you’re looking for I’d look elsewhere) but it really lets you learn more about conditions that animals may have and how they are treated/relate to us. I found it entertaining and learned quite a bit so in that sense it was a success. It also makes you look into different aspects in the medical field that before reading it, you probably would’ve never even thought of. Yes since this is a career exploration project a book simply about “how to become a vet” may have been a better choice on paper HOWEVER since there was also the mentorship (where instead I learned hands on what it takes to be a veterinarian) it think that through experience I learned everything I needed to in terms of what it takes so it would be a bit redundant to read about something I had already experienced. So along with the mentorship I believe Zoobiquity was a great choice in terms of a non-fiction book for this project. Also one more thing. It’s also great because of how well researched it is. The works cited is like 70 pages long which shows how much research went into this book.
Now that my hours are complete this week I need to get in and get my mentor to sign my slip that indicates that I completed all 15 hours. I will accomplish this by contacting her and scheduling a time for me to go in and get the signature. Also after already finding some research material to use for my I search paper throughout this project I plan on starting the rough draft. In terms of unfinished business I can’t think of any off the top of my head. I’m actually quite proud of what I’ve accomplished and am on schedule. For my backup plan if I don’t get my sheet signed I’ll just get it signed next week (since this week is only the soft deadline).
