Smelly days.

Yesterday I spent the day at my favorite large animal clinic. The people there are awesome (like, they provide my lunch and/or breakfast almost every time I go out there, and nothing makes me happier than free food.. you know, besides animals). I wish I could shadow there more often (I start to miss the smell of cow/horse poop), but my schedule doesn't always allow it.

Anyway, everyone was bringing their horses in for Coggins tests, vaccinations, and equine dentals (aka floating teeth). I like horses and all, and I'm grateful for the experience, but Coggins tests and teeth floating are two of my least favorite things to help with. Coggins tests suck because of the paperwork associated with them. You have to freaking draw the horses. Like, down to every single marking on every single horse. So if you get a Paint or an Appaloosa, it takes you 20 minutes just to do the paperwork for one blood test. I mean, a lot of vets use shortcuts and stuff, but it's kinda ridiculous. Some places have just started taking pictures, but a lot of clinics around here are still using computers from the 80's.. so yeah, I don't see them hopping on the technology train anytime soon.

Try drawing every detail of that. While the wind is blowing. With a few horse hairs in your mouth. And while you are trying to avoid being kicked by all of the other horses standing around. It's not easy. (Not my picture, by the way.)

Floating teeth sucks because it's so tedious. And kinda gross. Luckily, this clinic has an awesome machine for it, but some places just use hand files to grind down the sharp tooth points, and that is just.. unspeakably horrible (imagine being covered in horse hair, sweat, blood, and saliva when you're done.. not fun). But even with the machine, it takes forever. And my job is "cheek/tongue holder". I wasn't very good at it when I first had to do it. They have really muscular tongues! And they are slippery! So it's really hard to keep them from flopping around.. I've definitely gotten better (it's a great hand workout), but those first few times were not pretty.

You have to hold onto those tongues like your life depends on it.. this man has a great tongue grip. (Also not my picture.)

 And today was my zoo day! It was quite eventful. The first thing we did was flamingo physicals. The vet handed me one to hold so she could examine it, and of course, she gave me the most ugly, feather-plucked, smelly, decrepit flamingo in the bunch (their necks are super difficult to control, by the way). And what did it do as soon as I had it in my arms? Pooped all over me (as if it didn't already smell bad enough). And then I had to go to class right after that. I got some strange looks, that's for sure.

When I got back from class, we did 3 maned wolf physicals (they had to be anesthetized for theirs). Maned wolves don't really look that big when you see them in their enclosure, but up close, they are kinda huge. They look huge, anyway. They don't really weigh that much, though (the heaviest was only 50 lbs.. they are super lanky, but don't look it because they are so furry). But they smelled pretty horrible, too. It was just a day full of lovely smells.

They're kinda pretty. If only they didn't smell so bad... (Again, not my picture.)

 I mostly helped with x-ray processing for the maned wolves. I also prepared a mammary tumor for a biopsy on one of them and gave some vaccinations, but that's not too exciting.

Then. The vet gave me a packet of this powder stuff and a syringe and asked me to go to isolation to syringe feed a mother kangaroo. The poor momma had toxoplasmosis (it's a parasitic disease caused by the same parasite pregnant women are supposed to avoid by not cleaning out cat litter boxes.. even though more people get it from gardening than litter boxes), and she was so messed up that she couldn't even stand on her own. So I mixed up her food, fed her all of it, and reported back to the vet. The vet seemed pretty impressed that I was able to feed her all of it (I've had plenty of experience with that type of thing, though). She was even more impressed when the kangaroo started trying to stand up just a few minutes after I fed her. She's still in pretty bad shape, but things are looking up for momma kangaroo.

A little while later, I went back in to check on her and discovered that the joey was out of the pouch and hoping around. The vet asked me to try to stimulate the joey so it would urinate. I was able to get a few dribbles of pee out of her, but then she pooped a massive poop right into my hand. It was pretty nasty, and I decided that I had probably rubbed her genitals enough for one day. The vet was quite pleased that I was able to cause baby roo poop, so I feel like I earned a lot of her respect today (and that, my friends, is why I love veterinary medicine.. what other profession can you earn respect by gently rubbing an animal's genitals until it poops in your hand?).

My little roo friend! This is my picture, as you can probably tell by the bad quality.

The last thing I helped with was a beak trimming on a scarlet ibis. I still haven't quite gotten his nasty fish smell off my hands, and his beak was terrible. It looked like a chunk of firewood. It took us forever to get it trimmed down, and it still doesn't look completely normal. It didn't help that he was pretty feisty and tried to bite us every chance he got. This was probably the most miserable part of my day because we wore masks while we were trimming (because no one wants to inhale rotten bird beak dust), and every single time I have to wear a mask (without fail), my nose itches like crazy. And I was holding a smelly bird, so I couldn't scratch it the entire time. It was torture! Someone needs to start adding some sort of nose scratching device to those masks. I'm sure every doctor in the world would appreciate it.

They're kinda cool looking when their beaks aren't so disgusting.