Lessons from the clinic

I haven't written much about my summer job since I write under my real name, and discussing specific cases would be a serious breach of patient/client confidentiality. That said, I can write about interesting things that I've learned this summer that I didn't know before. Here is the first installment of What I Learned on my Summer Vacation: Toxic Things.

There are a handful of items that most people are well aware of that are toxic to animals. Chocolate is a no-no, and recently everyone seems to have heard that grapes and raisins can be poisonous. But here are a few items that still surprise people when they hear about them...

Lilies: You tend to see newspaper articles and such about lilies being toxic to cats around Easter time, but they get forgotten about the rest of the year. All species of lily, including tiger lilies, stargazer lilies, and day lilies can cause acute kidney failure in cats. Without veterinary treatment within 48 hours of ingestion, prognosis is poor. If you have cats, or are giving flowers to a friend who has cats, please avoid lilies.

Pennies: Pennies minted after 1983 are made primarily of zinc, which can be toxic to dogs who eat the coins. Zinc toxicity can cause anemia, GI irritation, and organ failure. Keep pennies out of reach of puppies or dogs who like to snack on non-edible items!

Sugar-free gum: Many sugarless gums and candies are now sweetened with xylitol. While safe for humans, xylitol can cause a release of insulin in dogs, dropping their blood sugar to dangerously low levels. Clinical signs of xylitol toxicity include lethargy, seizures, and loss of coordination. Signs of toxicity can be seen after ingestion of as few as two pieces of gum in a small dog.

Onions: While I'm a big fan of adding fresh fruits and veggies to your pet's diet, onions are one to avoid. Onion ingestion can cause anemia in both dogs and cats, leading to lethargy and weakness. Signs can show up as long as a week after ingestion, so don't assume that if your dog is okay the day after eating some onions, he's out of the woods.

If your pet eats something unusual and you aren't sure whether or not it's toxic, you can call the ASPCA's Animal Poison Control Center for help. They're open 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, and they save lives!

Home again

We're back from the woods, and what a great trip we had! The weather was perfectly sunny and warm almost every day, with a little wind and some nighttime storms thrown in for variety. As usual, photos do a better job of describing the trip than words, so here we go...


As Chris wrote earlier in the week, Winnie had the misfortune of cutting open her paw pad the day before we left. It was a fairly deep cut, and in a really lousy spot to keep clean and still while it healed. For most of the trip, she wore a sporty blue bandage secured with a few layers of medical tape. Thank goodness we practiced bandaging on her last semester!





When we first arrived, we were greeted by fields of yellow and orange hawkweed, daisies, and lupine. They must have really enjoyed the cool, wet spring, because we've never seen the flowers quite so prominent along the roadsides.









Chris and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary on July 1st with time on the dock, a little fishing, and a strawberry rhubarb pie. And we didn't mention wedding plans once :)











We had the best fishing we've seen in a few years, and caught enough smallmouth bass that we couldn't even finish our bass lunch. I played around with the ugliest lure that I've ever used- a silly floating frog that we found at a campsite last summer. It actually caught a fish!
















Even with an ouchy foot, Win could still enjoy a nice paddle.
















We ended our trip with a visit to hidden trout stream, where we caught the first mess of trout that we've had in a couple of years. It's definitely my new favorite spot for trout.



















Mmm, 16 nice brookies!










Winnie must have learned this trick from her old friend Moose- if you see them packing the car, you better pack yourself or else they might forget you!

Summah time

It's been 25 days since second year ended, and the closest I've gotten to thinking about school was pondering my shiny new third year mailbox in the Pomeroy Center as I biked past it on the way to the farmer's market this morning. Our class rep was ambitious enough to convince our clinical pathology professor to send out summer review problems, which I haven't even opened... And I keep meaning to flip through some flashcards to keep my brain engaged, but haven't gotten around to that either.

It's fantastic!

Instead, I am getting some much-needed practice in the clinic learning practical skills, like how to restrain dogs, how to talk to clients, and how to take radiographs. Not that they don't go over those things in school, but you really can't learn it all without getting the chance to do it on a regular basis. Hopefully getting more confident with the basics will help me out when I reach clinics in school- it might be easier to answer questions that clinicians fire at me when I'm not busy wondering something stupid like, "Wait, is a 25 gauge needle bigger or smaller than a 20 gauge?"

In other news, Chris and I both got the entire first week of July off, so we get to head up north for our 5 year anniversary, a little camping, and hopefully more successful fishing than we had at the end of May!

Best. Summer. Job. Ever.

I almost ended up collecting ticks all summer. I almost ended up testing samples of calf diarrhea for bacteria. Instead... I am doing this!

1/4 of the way to a DVM

I finished my 20-hour-long preceptorship this afternoon, which was the last official assignment of my first year! Part of me feels like the year flew by, and another part feels like St. Olaf graduation was soooo long ago... Both are probably true. At this time last year I didn't even know that I was accepted to vet school!

I'm still waiting to hear from the St. Paul shelter about summer work, but I did get accepted to the Widlife Rehab Center's internship program for the second half of the summer... Short-term plans are sleeping a lot, hanging out with Winnie, and learning how to get around St. Paul by bike. Come visit me while I'm not stressed out from school for a change!

Good things come to those who wait?

Hmm, as I was moments away from sending in my application for the Golden Valley shelter job, this email popped up in my inbox:

Hi guys,

The St. Paul shelter just announced that we will be hiring 2 Vet
Students for the summer to work as Vet Techs. Your knowledge will help
us in the shelter environment and you will gain experience working
beside our Vets and Techs.

Pass this along to anyone who may be interested.

Uhhhh.... Mine?

Life at the end of the year

Today was the very last lecture of my first year of vet school...! It doesn't quite feel like the end of the year because we still have a few things to finish (a talk to high schoolers about the link between animal abuse and violence against people, a practical exam on conducting a physical, 14 hours' worth of my preceptorship, and a behavior final), but at least there's no more sitting for hours in room 125! Winnie spent two whole days at school this week as an unwilling volunteer for the physical exam labs, but after being palpated a hundred times, she had a great time hanging out with everyone else's dogs all day. Since my parking permit expired with the end of the undergrad school year last week, I've had to park off campus, which gave me and Win a good reason for a nice long morning and afternoon walk every day.

I've been poking around for jobs for months now with no real luck. I keep following leads that sound good, but end up falling through or not sounding as good as I thought they did. My newest idea is working as an animal care person at the Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley.... wish me luck! At the very least, I got the six week long internship at the Wildlife
Rehab Clinic, so that will give me the clinical experience that I really wanted this summer. I also signed up for a shift at the Miracle of Birth center at the State Fair... yay baby animals!

We had our housewarming party on Saturday, which was both a lot of fun and a great way to force us to unpack and clean up. I think we counted 23 people who came. Thanks to everyone who made it! We'll post pictures soon.

Summer plans

I survived the Organology final today (yay), and for the first time in ages I changed an incorrect answer to a correct answer, instead of the other way around. Wee! Take that, Cushing's disease. Now we've finished both Neurology and Organology, and soon Animal Populations will be over. We got our Pharm and Virology exams back yesterday, and I was very happy with both grades! Too bad classes can't end right now, my GPA would be very happy if they did. The rest of the week is pretty calm. Tomorrow I start my preceptorship at Normandale Vet Clinic in Edina. One of my classmates has already worked with the vet that I'm paired with, and said he's a really great guy, so I'm excited.

Starting my preceptorship has gotten me thinking about what I'll be doing this summer. I've sort of been planning on looking for work in a clinic to boost my clinical experience, which I am lacking in right now. I need to call some clinics to see if anyone is hiring just for the summer. I know Banfield clinics do a summer work program, and I considered it for a while, but it would require selling a small portion of my soul, so I dropped that idea. I'm going to try calling the Como Park clinic soon. They're one of the premier bird clinics in the area, so I hope that means they see lots of other exotics too. They're also only about 5 miles from our apartment!

My other idea for this summer is to do an internship at the Widlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville. I spent one summer there a few years ago as a volunteer in the Mammal Nursery and really enjoyed it- and that meant a once-a-week commute from Northfield to Roseville! It would be a lot easier coming from St. Paul. The internship also counts as elective credit for school, so although it's unpaid, I get class credit. Chris and I talked and decided I should go for it, so my application is going in tomorrow. Wish me luck! I'll keep everyone updated.