Humane Duty

I talked with a friend tonight.  I know her through multiple sources: she lived with my college BFF's family , she knows the people at my family's barn...etc.  And my 6 year old daughter has loved her since the first meeting.  This woman, newly graduated from a college with a great horse program, is a wonderful instructor.  My daughter has taken one lesson, and though she fell off due to over balancing, has ID-ed the reason she fell off (horse tripped and she was too far forward), wants to go back and correct the problem.

Recently, we stopped in at a local place.  After seeing their stallion standing in a stall in at least 12 inches of manure, a horse with a swollen eye/emaciated (glaucoma or cancer), and the lead instructor riding without a helmet and with a 5 inch shank bit (for every pound you "pull," the horse feels twice that per inch), AND the horse was behind the bit, it assured me that this was not the place where I could sub some lessons for my daughter.  Oh and the mini-horse had such over grown feet that I would tern them as elf feet.

I was lucky enough to take college classes in equine production, training, physiology, and teaching riding lessons.  I know how to start a new rider.  I know how to build up an advanced rider.  In addition to being a vet, I can do these things....if only I could afford a pony for my daughter.

So, I talked to "daughter's riding teacher" tonight after my daughter found her name in my phone and called her.  And we shared stories of riding without helmets.  Things that are, to us,  as uncomfortable as getting in a car without a seat belt.  We talked about horses (and other animals) that needed to rejoin the great grape jelly bean in the sky and we talk about the stupidity of riding without a helmet.  I have come off of a horse so many times that when I started having seizures and my neuro guy asked about head injuries, I just laughed.  Most of the injuries occurred with a helmet.  So, good there.  But some were when I was futzing with my helmet and it fell off.  There are so many times that I would have been dead without a helmet.

Distance be damned, I will drive my daughter to my friend who cannot even get on a horse without a helmet vs the place where the woman rides with no helmet, a 5 inch shank, and the horse's head behind the vertical.  Because my daughter loves her for her artistic and crazy colored hair....  and I love her because she believes that true equitation covers all disciplines and she believes in effective riding.

And this is true for your vet.  Just because everything looks ok at first glance and parents tell you that thinks are great, find someone that you really trust.  If they are far away, that is a pain, but it is likely worth it.  Because I will choose someone that will give my daughter what I would like to give.  Common sense, forward thinking, and workman like riding.  I want her to be safe, but on the cutting edge of equitation.  I want her to be able to ride anything.  I guess as a parent, I expect some perfection.  Ok, maybe a little over-reaching.

Spring, death, and no vet med

Every time of year, I find myself in an incredible depression.  Spring should be a happy time, full of parvo puppies, unwanted litters of kittens dumped on your door step, and equine dystocias.  The night before last, I had a dream about a spring festival that my high school has every year.  Since 1904, my school has had a May Day festival.  The sophomores pray for fertility by dancing around a may pole (why the FUCK does the school want the sophomores to be fertile anyway???) and the seniors wear ball gowns and are presented to society.  Yes, it was a girls' school, though the thought of 18 year old boys in ball gowns makes me laugh.

I started the school as a sophomore, meaning that I was on tap to practice the fertility rite of dancing around the may pole (the obligatory orgy usually associated with this type of festival is frowned upon by the school and the parents).  Well, back to the dream.  I dreamed about the very sweet girl that was the May Queen in our senior class.  She was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans and this year's seniors were insisting that she could not participate without the ball gown.  I was arguing that of course she could, she was Mary Smith.  Unlike many schools whose elected fall queens, prom queens, etc, our class chose someone that was unfailingly sweet rather than the obligatory cheer leader.  Oddly enough, at an all girls' school, there was a distinct lack of the "mean girls" phenomenon.

Well, back to the dream.  It turns out that yesterday was indeed the May Day celebration at the school.  It also coincided with the 20th anniversary of the sudden death of my father.  My father was on his way back from a golf tournament.  His plane hit a sudden snow storm in the mountains of North Carolina.  It was missing for several days before it was finally found.  While some people held out hope that he and the pilot would be found alive, I was pretty sure that it was not going to end happily.

The last time I saw my dad, I was a spoiled 16 year old.  I passed him on the road, him in his work truck and me in my car.  I honked and waved and sped up because I didn't want him to give me flack about going out with my friends that day.  I purposely avoided him.

The next day, while he was playing in the golf tournament, I was very distraught.  I told my mother that something huge was about to change.  I asked her, "What if I told you that tomorrow, the most important thing in your life would be gone?  What would you do?  Everything is about to change."

That night, my dad was not back on time.  About 4 AM in the morning, I heard my mother scream and start wailing.  She had learned that the plane had gone down.  For several days, they searched for the plane.  During this time, I continued to go to school and practice the may day dance.  The plane was found and both my dad and the pilot were dead.  A family friend went to ID the bodies so we didn't have to.  But after practically predicting the event, my family looked at me differently.

So yesterday was the 20th anniversary and my subconscious knew it.  The only good thing that really came out of that situation was that my inheritance allowed me to finally buy a horse.  And that horse was a better incentive for good grades than any other possession.  That horse got me into a college with a riding scholarship.  And that school got me into vet school.  My dad always wanted me to be a brain surgeon.  And while I have poked on some brains when examining a skull fracture, I am not a neurosurgeon.

Sorry for the downer post.  And sorry for the minimal tie in to veterinary medicine.  But I am just writing about what is going on in my life.

Tangling with a bush hog

In decades past, many prospective vet students were from agricultural backgrounds. With the increase in companion animals, there has been a relative decrease in both students coming in from a farm animal background as well as a decrease in those graduating from vet school and going into large animal practice. As such, sometimes on a farm call, the client will say something assuming that everyone knows what he/she is talking about, but the students that have little farm experience are lost in the dark. This story comes from an American student that did her first 3 years of vet school in the Caribbean...which might or might not have contributed to her communication issues with a rural southern farmer.

Farmer: Well, Doc, old Bessie here tangled with a bush hog and lost.

The students proceed to do an exam on a horse with a large laceration.

During the discussion of how to treat, should a tetanus vaccine be given, our staunch suburbanite student asks: Are bush hogs indigenous to (southern farming community)?

"No, seriously, are they indigenous or not?"

For those that were not either raised on farms or have family members that like playing with large scale yard gear, you might not have ever heard of a bush hog. Basically, it is big piece of farming equipment with pokey sticky things that jut out to create a hazard for horses. And anyone that knows horses knows that if there is one bush hog a 100 acre field and there are 10 horses, at least 2 will get mauled by the bush hog, even though it is standing there minding its own business.

Any who, lucky for the vet student in question, she had a great sense of humor and withstood the 3 months of ribbing that followed.