Final Internship Video!

 

Many thanks to my friend Claire for giving me a crash course in how to use Windows Movie Maker, and many curses to my laptop, which crashed when I was almost done making it, thus forcing me to go back and start from scratch!

 

Anyway, here is a video of some of the things I did during my internship!  Enjoy!

  

 

Final Blog – Day 25
I really shouldn’t be listening to “Home” by Michael Bublé right now, but I am. It’s just going to make me sad because Elise and Sabrina and Evie have all left and I’m not leaving until tomorrow morning. Laura and Hayley and Ashleigh just left, and it’s just me and Sarah and Lea (office ladies) left. Tomorrow morning it’ll be me, two barn staff and maybe a few volunteers if they get out early enough and brave the cold. Anyhow, Today started much like any other, except that we had our first sticky snow of the season. It wasn’t really snow so much as sleet, though. It was really icy and slippery and Hayley and Laura decided to not bring the horses in for morning feed because they’d probably be sliding all over the place and spazzing because they were sliding and then sliding even more and possibly falling on top of volunteers and accidentally kicking interns and it just would (could) have been an awful and painful mess. So instead they caught them in the chutes and stood there while they ate their breakfasts. I felt really bad for Dharma because she came in with icicles in her mane and she was shivering in her blanket. She clearly didn’t want to go back out into the field, but Hayley said they were going to go back out to get the horse warmer blankets and, presumably, clean their manes out. Sabrina left at around 9 to take Elise to the airport. When we left for lunch, I learned by observing Sabrina and Evie that we apparently were only required to work a half day today, because neither was in any hurry to get back out after our hour was up. I packed up a little, checked my e-mail (nothing from Shane or Anthony), washed my sheets, and watched House with Sabrina while she filled out the paperwork she was supposed to have been working on for the entire internship. (Working the Oxford comma into my daily writing has proven to be a bigger challenge than I thought it would be.) Sabrina left, and Evie left shortly after. I was all alone, except for Jennie, who was (is) keeping me company on AIM as I write this blog. Also, I’m now listening to Howie Day instead of Michael Bublé, which is definitely better for me, right? I wanted to take a video of me walking from my room to the barn and giving a little tour, but my camera battery light started flashing at me, so I settled with a tour of the interns’ rooms and then went down to the barn to help with cleanup. We closed the barn a half hour early, apparently, so I just drained the hose in the barn and carried it to the locked meds room so it won’t freeze overnight. I talked to Laura and Ashleigh and Hayley for a few minutes, and they left. When the office ladies left they turned off all the lights, shut my bedroom door and turned the heat way down. So now I’m freezing and wondering if I should get into the shower or hope that the heater (I fiddled with the thermostat) will warm me up soon. I have to wash my clothes too. *sigh*
Things I will miss about DEFHR:
Guaranteed 1-hour lunch break
My roommates (and most of the interns)
That awesome candy store in Baltimore that has the “I ♥ Nerds” hooded t-shirt thing and the massive candy bars
The soft squishiness of my DEFHR-issued comforter
Razberry (Razzle-Daz)
DareDevil (DAHR-Devaaallll)
Zoey (Zoe-zers)
Ozzy (Ozzifer)
Brittney, a manager who’s actually cool
The barn staff
The efficient and individualized feeding system
The laid-back atmosphere, where you don’t have to be afraid to make a mistake

Things I will NOT miss about DEFHR:
The cold weather
Stinkbugs
Persian watch
Yogi’s crankiness
That pointless gorrham volunteer fire station alarm that goes off in the middle of the bloody night right next door so it’s really loud and wakes the residential interns out of a deep sleep and makes them cranky because they have to be up every four hours anyway to be on Persian watch so when they crawl back into bed again what they WANT is to fall right back asleep until their next shift, but NOOOOOOO the firefighters have to blare out the signal despite the fact that they don’t need to use that alarm because they have another, more efficient one that they use to actually wake up the firefighters but they still let the loud one go off anyway for tradition's sake and the only thing it does is signal a possible emergency to anyone nearby who is trying to sleep but instead must listen to the LOUD, INCESSENT ALARM
Maryland drivers, because THEY ARE SO DUMB

♥SM

Days 20 and 21
Day 20
While we were cleaning stalls in the morning, Laura approached me and asked me to go to the feed store again to pick up some more senior feed and some rice bran. I dabbled with the idea of stopping at Starbucks for a Caramel Apple Spice, but I decided against it because it was something of an impulse and I don’t need to spend the money (although Sabrina and Evie were talking about ice cream a few minutes ago and now I want to go up to Baskin Robbins even though I REALLY don’t need that). Anyhow, when I got back the vet had already arrived to look at Roulette again, because Brittney had said that she hasn’t gotten much better since she hurt herself in the field.
The day’s meeting/discussion was Large Animal Rescue with Brooke, whom I’ve seldom seen around the office and whose identity I was never even really clear on before today. The meeting was supposed to be 1-3, but we started about 10 minutes late and ended almost 45 minutes late. She did a presentation on how they generally conduct a rescue, how they keep people safe, who they generally have around what needs to be done to make sure it happens as quickly, easily and safely as possible. After her presentation we went outside to play with Pegasus, the name given to the horse mannequin DEFHR uses for Large Animal Rescue Training, and who in his previous life was apparently one of a collection of animal statues outside a veterinary clinic. Brooke and Gavin wrapped Pegasus up in a complicated series of straps that was kind of neat when it was all done, and Brooke went over the proper way to flip or drag a horse that needs to be repositioned.
After I showered in the evening I went about polishing my resume, finishing my reference sheet and finding some pictures to send off to Shane Adams. When I got to the part where I actually have to construct an e-mail and send it, I panicked a little. I mean, this is a HUGE step for me. It’s the first post-graduation application I will have submitted to a legitimate, real-world employer, and as if that wasn’t enough to freak me out, he is a somewhat intimidating guy who has the power to give me one of the coolest entry-level jobs in my field, a job that could only open doors for me as far as my dream job is concerned.
So yeah, I’m a little freaked out. And I mean “a little” in the sense that the Pacific Ocean contains “a little” bit of water and I’m “a little” bit obsessed with Great Big Sea//Hanson/Star Trek.

Day 21
The temperature was significantly higher than the previous day, but it also rained pretty much all day long. We had very few volunteers in the morning, and the vet came out again to look at Roulette… and Persian.
Persian is on stall rest again for now. Last night was the first night he has spent at pasture since he started colicking, and when he came in this morning with Maura, he wouldn’t touch his food. He had a snotty nose, a racing heart and a temperature of 103.5. He was put in a stall, with Maura across from him (in case he was contagious) and the vet came at around 10:45. We thought at first that the cough he’s had was just a result of his allergies, and he’s been on antihistamines for a few days. He’s back indoors now and still having his vitals checked, but because he’s not in any real danger the residential (sigh of relief) only have to continue checking on him when we go to bed.
We had our final demos with Sara as well. We spent some time on round pen work and some time on loading. Cayenne is an expert in the round pen, and made it look easy. However, the thought of training a horse to exercise like that is a little overwhelming. Sara says it’s a lost art – something that’s misunderstood because noobs can screw it up and that’s mostly done these days by cowboys and natural horsemen. It does look interesting despite looking difficult, and if I ever get a job at a ranch where I get to learn how to drive cattle, I will hopefully also learn how to round pen train a horse.
Razberry was very well-behaved for the loading demo – it took Sara maybe three tries before she was walking into the trailer, and another two or three times before she was doing it willingly on her own. We moved on to Isaiah, whom we weren’t sure would cooperate. He took a lot longer, because he was feral when we brought him in and he’s been shut up in a stall in quarantine for several weeks (he finally got to go out with the other boys about 2 days ago) and clearly was terrified that there was something on the trailer that was going to eat him. By walking into the trailer with him, Sara got him to understand that everything was fine (she had clearly used the same tactic on Isaiah’s brother Jethro at some point in the past).
Our final victim was Adam, whom I call “Admiral” in honor of Admiral Adama of BattleStar Galactica fame regardless of the fact that I don’t even like that show. Adam was terrified of the trailer and thoroughly confused about why Sara, whom he had before now implicitly trusted, was forcing him to walk into its gaping maw as though this was a normal part of his daily routine. Adam has his own routine. He knows it, and he likes it. He lives outside in the pasture with his buddies all night, eating hay and running around like an impish, carefree colt. He comes down the chute in the morning, goes to his feed station, eats some warm, mushy, delicious feed, maybe gets groomed and pampered a little, and goes back out to the pasture, where he stays overnight, eating hay with his friends and being a horse. The next day he does it again: Pasture, feed station, pampering, pasture. This was different. It was a deviation from the norm. It was scary and different and confusing.
I don’t know how long it took Sara to get him on the trailer, but he was awfully spooky for the whole experience. Sara followed him backward multiple times for a solid 15 feet before succeeding in getting him to step forward again. The first several times he got on, he turned around and ran off immediately. Finally Sarah walked him onto the trailer and had Alex shut the door almost completely behind her until Adam calmed down. He then walked off the trailer like a normal, non-schizo horse a single time, and Sara decided that that high note was a good one to end the lesson on.
I will be home in a matter of days. What an odd and amazing thing.
♥
SM

Days 17 and 18 (Yikes!)
Thursday had been decent except that it was muddy from the rain we had for most of Wednesday, but both days in question for the purposes of this blog were frigidly cold! I am SO SICK OF THE COLD!!! BRRRRRRRR!!!!
On Friday morning Roulette came in from the pasture lame. The vet (the same one that ultrasounded Buttercup) came in to look at her, and gave us much the same diagnoses he had given Buttercup – something that she had done in the pasture had aggravated an old injury, this time in the fetlock, and she would have to be on stall rest. I got to put the Furazone on her for the sweat wrap, which Ashleigh got a video of, though I haven’t looked at the video yet so I don’t know how it turned out.
Speaking of Buttercup, I discovered that the time when I was able to pick her stall while she was in it was actually a fluke – she was abnormally nice that day. Friday I cleaned it in the morning and was a bit uneasy about it, and upon trying again in the evening she was actively hostile toward me. DareDevil, on the other hand, was as sweet as a clueless blind horse can be. He’s awfully cute.
During the PM big feed, Hayley asked me to tend to Athena. They apparently try to keep tabs on her feathers (for non-horse people, those are the long hairs that grow around the lower legs of some horses, most notably Friesians and draft breeds) during muddy spells so that she doesn’t develop mud rot. Hayley gave me the task because I’d expressed an interest in working with Athena in order to increase my confidence and experience around heavy breeds. However, I don’t think I want to experience them while they’re having anxiety spells in tiny stalls. Athena is accustomed to being outside, and is only in a stall for perhaps an hour each day. The stall is too small for her, but she has to be separated from the other horses when she eats because she’s the alpha mare of the heard and we don’t want things getting dicey.
When she saw me enter her stall, I imagine she assumed I was there to turn her out. She let me run a curry over her, but when I started cleaning her feathers she started pacing. She went around in circles, turned herself around, and moved around so she could see out the window. It got to the point where she was pawing (and those are some MASSIVE hooves to be pawing with), shoving her nose at the door and not staying still for more than 5 seconds or so at a time. I decided then that perhaps it wasn’t a good time for me to be playing with her, so I reported to Hayley that she was a little to antsy for comfort and wouldn’t let me touch her feet at that time.
Speaking of Hayley, she didn’t end up teaching me how to drive the tractor, but volunteer Don did! It seemed to be simpler than the one we used in Bud’s class two years ago to help Sam drag the arenas, but I can’t be sure. I drove it into the gelding field, and he let me drive it around a few times by myself (he even took some actions shots for me), and I felt like a serious farmer girl for a little while, even though I wasn’t really doing anything except driving around in circles and loopty-loos while the horses stared at me. He also showed me how to move the bucket, but I didn’t get to use the lever other than for raising and lowering it when I needed to go around corners.
The other thing I did Saturday that was sort of different was computer-y stuff for Brittney. Well, I was one of three people that were doing computer-y stuff for Brittney. She showed Elise, Ashleigh and me the program the farm uses to keep track of every horse that comes in (and believe me, there is a LOT of info that gets recorded, right down to each horse’s care on a day-by-day basis). She needed us to make 3 copies each of the files of every horse we took in from a certain case recently so that she could present them to (I can’t remember who she said, but I’m probably not supposed to anyway, so maybe that’s not a bad thing).
Persian, for those of you who are wondering, is much better. He’s getting ¾ pound of feed now and a flake of hay several times a day, and is being turned out with Maura for a couple hours a day. He’s also back to what I imagine is his old attitude, which almost makes a person wish he was still sick. He’s an aggravating and frustratingly crotchety old man horse, and I can’t imagine how Hayley and Kaitlyn came to love him as much as they do. I had to give him his electrolytes orally on Saturday, and by the time I finally got them into him I was way over my frustration quota for a single horse. We didn’t even have to take his vitals Saturday night – Sabrina just ran out into the cold to give him some hay when we got back from eating at the Greene Turtle with Hayley and Kris and Will and Leslie, at which I had a lovely chat with Will about science fiction and fantasy in film, TV, and books.
And that made me extremely excited to get back home. Not for any particular boy-related reason, but just, you know, because.

♥
SM

Day 14
Hayley had me pick Royal’s feet and put his boots on him. I wasn’t thrilled because the boots annoy me, but she said to think of it as acquiring a new skill. So yeah, I now know how to put that particular type of boot on a horse, but, given the choice, I would personally pick something that is more aesthetically pleasing and comfortable-looking. After that party I used Thrushbuster on Cayenne for the first time. I want to state for the record that almost feel like I should go into detail about the experience, because something about it puts me into Barn Hours Write-Up mode. There is nothing interesting to say about it.
I then started stall cleaning, finishing Roulette and Zoe and starting on Royal before Hayley came into the barn with a special favor to ask. I wasn’t sure it was wise to trust me with such a task (and I’m not sure why she asked me specifically) but I agreed anyway and headed to Brittney’s office to get directions to the feed store. I was to fetch 15 bags of Senior feed on DEFHR’s tab (which was good because the total was about $280). The experience went fine, nobody died, and, although I did miss the on-ramp to 70E on my way back, I felt like a real horseperson doing real horseperson stuff.
When Evie and I got ready to prepare the PM feed (for some reason nobody did it yesterday), Hayley noticed that the sweet feed was moldy. Apparently people had been refilling the freezer whenever the feed got low instead of when it was empty, which resulted in the feed at the bottom never coming out. So instead of preparing the PM feed, Evie and Hayley scooped out the freezer and had Don (volunteer) drag it outside so they could wash it with Sabrina and Kara. Meanwhile I tallied up how much of each feed we use on a daily basis for future reference.
At some point after I finished my figures it was lunch time. We couldn’t rotate lunches today because we were scheduled for another session with Sara, this time on evaluating a new, unknown horse. She showed us how to get a horse used to having his feet handled, how to teach him about respecting personal space, and gave us tips for lunging and saddle breaking. Wall-E is still fairly green and hasn’t been ridden since coming to DEFHR, but he picked up lungeline work very easily and didn’t mind having the saddle on him. Next week we’re supposed to learning about trailer loading, which doesn’t sound like much to most horse people. I’m excited, though, because it’s actually something that I have virtually nil experience with.
The buckets were already set out and started for tomorrow’s AM feed, so I finished filling the buckets and adding the supplements to them while everyone else was consulting the meds sheet and grooming horses.
After work I decided that I needed to go grocery shopping again, but I stupidly thought I’d take another stab at finding the local WalMart. You guys know how in Ohio, our WalMarts are extremely pretentious, sprawling themselves across massive parking lots that are clearly visible if not from space then at least from the nearest intersection? Well, Marylanders like their WalMarts to be hidden and virtually inaccessible to the non-local. I ultimately failed in my quest and dragged myself back to Woodbine to shop again at Food Lion. I saved about six dollars with my Brittney-provided Food Lion MVP card and bought no overtly unhealthy food. Yay me!
I’m going to go downstairs and get a drink of my wonderful and healthy Simply Orange orange juice before I go to bed.

♥
SM

Days 11 and 13 (Day 12 was a day off)
I have to write this blog before I get to lazy to write about what happened today. It was pretty interesting and different.
Saw my first live and up-close castration, and I didn’t get sick at all. Well, I think I may have gotten sick just a smidgy little bit, but it only happened when people mentioned getting queasy and was hardly noticeable. Some of my pictures and videos are kind of disturbing, so when I put that bit in my final video for Kelly, I’ll have to put a disclaimer in there.
First, I want to insert what I had written for Saturday.
“We got a new horse in last night. Brittney named her Addison (her name has to start with the letter A because she’s out first new horse of the year), and she’s somewhere between a 1 and a 2 on the BCS scale. From what I heard from the Animal Control people, she was not intentionally neglected, but had an owner that has a severe, chronic illness and couldn’t take care of her horse anymore. Her daughter looked after the horse for a while, but when taking care of her mother became a full-time job, the horse sort of fell by the wayside. When the woman saw pictures of what had become of her horse, she was extremely upset and signed her over immediately.
We stayed afterhours to wait for the veterinarian to come in and examine her. She was due in at 4 but didn’t get there until almost 6. I got two videos of her work (the lighting wasn’t ideal, though) and several pictures. I’m not allowed to post the pictures until she officially gets signed over to DEFHR, but since I haven’t been posting pictures anyway, that’s probably not a problem.
Today Brittney let the residential interns sleep in and we didn’t have to be at work until noon. The weather was positively absolutely unbelievably BEAUTIFUL all day long. The temperature was hovering around 60, and when the day ended at 5 it was just starting to get chilly enough for me to put my hoodie on.”
That was Saturday’s post. Now… on to the castration!
Javier was supposed to be here at 11:30 to start Emmett’s castration, but he ended up not getting there til after 12, and didn’t actually sedate Emmett until after 12:30.
I’m not sure what to say about the castration itself. There was a lot of gushing blood, a lot of surgical instruments being clamped to scrotal skin (it was like Saw for horse people), and a lot of people crowding around for pictures and videos. Apparently one of Sabrina’s professors was really excited about her getting a video of the procedure. At one point I almost stepped on a piece of scrotum that Javier had tossed to the side after making his first incision. Emmett was extremely wobbly during the procedure, so much that Brittney warned us to watch where we were standing/kneeling, in case he completely lost his balance and toppled over.
Javier explained what he was doing every step of the way, although I couldn’t repeat it here if I tried, mostly because of Javier’s accent, but also because I want to finish this blog soon and I can’t remember everything I did catch through said accent.
After he had them both out – they were unusually large, according to the more experienced bystanders – he cut one of them open to show us the insides, and many of us had pictures taken of us holding them. It was really inappropriate how excited some of the interns were, and Hayley said (and had been saying) that, as a woman, there is something rather empowering about watching a castration.
After the castration was over and he was hosed off, Elise reminded Brittney that she’d wanted to have his teeth floated. Javier agreed to do it, so while Emmett was still drowsy (he ended up getting another dose of sedative because he started to wake up while Javier had his hands in his mouth). Javier had us all put on gloves again so that we could feel the hooks on Emmett’s teeth. He was badly in need of a float, and Javier had an electric float that, when he turned it on, hurt the teeth to listen to.
*ASIDE FOR NON-HORSE PEOPLE*
In their natural environment, horses are of course adapted to take care of themselves naturally. They don’t need regular dentist or farrier visits, as their diets and home turf do a fine job of wearing down their teeth and hooves as needed. However, when subjected to the conditions we provide for them (living in a stall, working on soft, firm footing, eating soft grass, pelleted concentrates and hay, etc), the wear on their hooves and teeth is inadequate for self-preservation. This fact is the basis for careers in farriery and equine dentistry.
Horses that develop hooks:
http://www.pro-equinedentistry.com/images/hook_side_view.jpg
or ramps:
http://docmarx.com/wave.jpg
or break or lose their teeth, find themselves in need of dental work to keep their top teeth meeting their bottom teeth appropriately and functioning normally, and to prevent any injury to the tongue or lips. This is where floating comes in. The term “floating” is misleading, and I’ll bet you’re picturing what I pictured when I first heard the word. It would be more simple to call it “filing”, because that is essentially what it is. The dentist/vet uses a file (float), strikingly similar to the one the farrier uses on hooves, to file the teeth so that, as mentioned, they meet normally and comfortably in the mouth.
*END OF ASIDE FOR NON-HORSE PEOPLE*
Emmet’s adventures with Javier were by far the most interesting thing that happened today, so that pretty much everything else kind of passed in a blur.
Have to get to bed. Very tired. *yawn*

♥
SM

Days 8 and 9 and 10, I Guess. Apparently I Screwed up Somewhere. I Think I Skipped a Day.
On Monday I was groggy from lack of sleep, sniffly, headachey, and my body didn’t really want to work at all. Even worse, I felt like my brain was lagging behind my body and I was at least 5 steps behind everyone else all day long. It was like the straight timeline of our daily routine was suddenly whipping around like a trapped snake and I was struggling to keep up with it. Also, every little annoyance seemed to grieve me inexplicably.
Tuesday morning was really nothing eventful. I went into Wall-E’s stall to give him a quick brush and he was exceedingly grouchy; I couldn’t clean his hooves out because he kept threatening to bite me. I gave up on the enterprise and went to the feed room to report his swollen and weepy right eye, and Kathryn showed me how to put an NSAID medication in it. He needed several applications throughout the day, so he got to stay in his stall rather than go out with the other geldings. I’m sure he was ecstatic about that. I want to know what his glitch was, though. He’s my favorite little guy at this farm (you should hear how I say his name when I address him – sometimes I call him Fuzzy Wuzzy Wally Bear – it’s embarrassing), but I can’t be terribly fond of him if he’s going to start biting.
Speaking of horses being mean, I tried my hand at grooming Yogi, an unnecessarily grouchy bay mare. Luckily Kathryn spotted me and warned me that she has a mean streak. And indeed she does. There isn’t much coat area you can cover with a curry when you have to keep an eye on the horse at both ends so you don’t get either kicked or bitten. I don’t know whether this is a good or a bad thing, but I saw my first actual cow kick ever. I’ve always heard about them and sort of imagined them, but I honestly don’t think I’d ever seen one in person before. In any event, I returned to the feed room and announced that I have entirely too much respect for the integrity of my ribcage to attempt to groom Yogi. I was not chastised for this, but can you imagine what would have happened if I had done such a thing in Colorado? Aaron would have chewed me up like fresh bacon in a dog pound.
We all got to go to lunch at noon because our first seminar/meeting/informational talk was scheduled for 1pm. Jill popped into the kitchen shortly after we left and said that she was going to start the meeting at 1:30 or 1:45 to give us time to eat (technically we didn’t need that much time, but no one said so), so we got an extra half hour of lunch break-ness. YES!!! I used the extra time to start this blog.
The meeting lasted about an hour, and we learned how Jill deals with problem volunteers, how much work it is to keep them occupied (this is especially important when the farm serves a babysitter function for parents that like to drop their kids off at 8 in the morning and pick them up at 6 that evening), and how to pair volunteers with chores, horses, and other volunteers that they will be compatible with. During the time we were in the volunteer lounge discussing these things, the snow and wind outside whipped into a frenzy and we were even more grateful than we thought that Jill had given us an excuse to come in from the cold, because it was downright FRIGID! It was easily below freezing for pretty much the entire day, we had a few snow flurries, and the wind was deadly. We got two random spits of sunlight, but no one wanted to go outside and enjoy them because it was so damn cold out there.
When the horses were eating and we were ready to consult the meds sheet, I asked Kathryn if we were going to put more drops in Wall-E’s eye, and she said that Brittney wanted to test it for ulcers first. It was the first time I’d seen or heard of a fluorescein dye, but it looks very uncomfortable and I don’t blame Wall-E at all for resisting us when we tried to stick it in his eye. It is a wee strip of paper that contains a green dye that leeches into the eye when it comes into contact with the eye’s fluids. From what I understand, in the presence of an ulcer the dye will migrate from the corner of the eye to the corneal area, highlighting the ulcer.
Our Wednesday talk was with Caroline, and it lasted a lot longer than Jill’s, with question after question from the interns. She is the Development Coordinator here, which means she’s in charge of forging financial partnerships, securing grants and donations, and organizing fundraising events. Her major bits of advice were 1) Be creative, 2) Find yourself a rock-solid mission statement (it’ll make it easier to know when to say no), 3) Don’t be afraid to ask, and 4) Asking is the hardest part!
The other big thing that happened yesterday was the farrier/vet visit. I was asked to hold Ozzy for the farrier, but he was being a total butt and wouldn’t stay still. Andy and Yogi were also scheduled for hoof work, and of course all three of them are horrible for the farrier. The vet was scheduled to come out to help, x-raying Andy’s feet so that the farrier would be better able to figure out exactly how to proceed. I got to see a working portable x-ray for the first time, and was fascinated watching the vet and farrier work together so closely. I’d recently read some advice from Stable Management Online about how important it is to have service professionals that work well together, so it was interesting to see a relationship like that in action.
Last night Sabrina and I had to get up to check Persian at 3am. I thought, “Crap, I’d better jump down right now and plug in my camera battery in case something happens tomorrow that I should be taking pictures of.” But did I? If you know me, I shouldn’t have to answer that.
This morning (in stark contrast to yesterday morning) was crazy. When Sabrina was sent to Persian’s stall to check on him, she found his lying down in his stall with his head against the wall. Immediately all 9 interns, Brittney (the barn manager) and two of the maintenance guys were out there working to help him stand up again. We ended up having to drag him away from the wall and flip him over, let him rest, then prop him up with hay bales and entice him with a bucket of feed. An hour later he was on his feet, a little unsteady, and the vet was there checking him again. He said that an imbalance of electrolytes from fluids could have caused the weakness in his hind end that made it difficult for him to get back up (he’s doing blood work to confirm or deny this), or it could be arthritis in his neck pinching his spinal chord. He did brief lameness, neurologic, and blindness exams ( backing, circling, tail pulling, eye poking, walking over an obstacle), then sedated him for another rectal exam. He then took out the catheter and wrapped Persian’s neck up.
On behalf of all four of the residential interns, I wish to say that we will be SO FRACKING BOUNCE-TASTICALLY HAPPY WHEN PERSIAN DOES NOT NEED NIGHT CHECKS ANYMORE. We miss being able to sleep through the night. This is yet another experience that will serve to remind me that I do NOT want to have children.
In other news, Today we had a brief hands-on seminar with Sara on training horses. I was paired with Yadin, which was frustrating because she was spazzy about being away from the herd and didn’t want to pay attention to me. I had a certain degree of success with her, though, and although the last exercise looked quite complicated, she was surprisingly good at it. I have decided that there is a reason I did not pursue a degree in training. I don’t think I would have the patience for it.
I think I’ve covered all of the basics of the past few days, although Elise just came in and said that Persian’s heart rate is still elevated and that Brittney is calling the vet again for advice. We may be on 2-hour rotation call again. GAAAAAHHHHHH, HORSE!! JUST GET BETTER ALREADY!!!!

Going to bed now. As of now, Sabrina and I are getting up at midnight. Hopefully I’ll get to sleep tonight. ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzzzzz…

♥
SM