Teddy

Teddy was my favorite dog. He loves to go running, take long walks on the beach and chase cars. He was always really good at making me feel better and being my little shadow. He never listened to anyone the way he would me. He could do tricks like sit, lay down, speak, and dance. He was fantastic at jumping, I used to call him my little Mexican jumping bean. He was the weirdest dog ever sometimes. He could squeal like a stuck pig if you came close to stepping on him and never quite liked being picked up or he'd do the same thing. Teddy loved chewing on bones, eating table scraps and absolutely loved anything called a treat. Teddy has been my best friend for the past 5 years and always stuck by my side. I can remember when Teddy was born, his mom was Gizmo the Pomeranian and Kaiser the German Shepherd was his dad. He had one sister who died 2 days after birth. Gizmo only lived for a few months after having him. Teddy was originally Marisa's dog, but I obviously liked him more and we bonded immediately. He was born around January of 2006. Teddy and I would hang out next to the pool all day in the summer. Sometimes he'd even swim with me. When we weren't outside he was always by my side or at my feet. When Michael and I got married, Teddy was part of the deal. So we moved him from Clarksville, TN to Rigby, ID. During the weekend we moved Teddy spent about 36 hours in the back of a moving truck, squealing his head off the whole time, poor thing. When we let him out he acted like he hadn't seen me in years. He hated car rides, which made taking him on hikes difficult. But we took him anyway. Last summer we started training him to walk with us without us holding the leash. This way he had a little more roaming room and we weren't tied down to a leash all the time. It took some time for him to understand he couldn't go home unless he was with us. Once we went hiking in September at Cress Creek and Teddy decided it would be a better idea to run away. So for 2 hours... 2 hours! we searched for him. We were in the mountains and it started snowing and we searched and searched. Finally he came back, soaked and shivering and cold. Oh I was so upset! Then there was this other time when we were hiking around the Menan Butte and Teddy ran off, dang rabbits they're just so distracting! So for 45 minutes we searched and searched. Somehow he always finds us but only on his time. Silly dog. There was this other time that he ran off and then this other time. Oh how he loved to run and especially after cars. Every time he ran off he would always come back hurt. Always limping in some way as if that would make us less mad that he ran away. Well, it always worked on me. Poor thing, I'd always feel so bad for him that I would carry him back to the car. I'm sure sometimes he would legitimately pull a muscle, but every time? He was such a good dog to me. This morning, my wonderful husband took Teddy on a walk. Teddy loves walks and I don't always take him on one, so it was nice for Michael to do that. Well, Teddy did what Teddy's good at and he ran. He ran so fast into the road that the car got him. So here's to Teddy, my favorite dog.

I love you Teddy.

What keeps me busy

This is most everyone in my graduating class of the Vet Tech program.

So it's been a while. In my defense, I've been super busy. Classes are going great! I absolutely love my vet tech classes. I've already learned and practiced how to draw blood from a rabbit and a dog. How to give a rabies shot. How to give intramuscular and subcutaneous shots in rabbits. And have seen like 4 or 5 surgeries and helped relieve the pressure from an abcess, which smells real bad. I'm gonna go ahead and leave a disclaimer here after reading through this myself: If you get your feelings hurt easily, if you can't stand strong opinions, or if you really don't want to hear the truth of it, don't read any further. I owe you that much :]
I'm the class president of our vet tech class this semester, so I helped get the SCNAVTA started. SCNAVTA is short, well sorta, for Student Chapter of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America. Doesn't that sound like fun?! That club has been actually pretty frustrating. Especially since it's a private school with a bunch of sheltered Mormon kids (no offense). But it's true. Since I've been to a different school in a different part of the country I feel like I understand a little better the strictness it takes to start a competitive club that looks great on a resume. I felt that mandatory service hours and attendance at club meetings would be a good way to make sure those in the club would truly get the most out of it. Others do not agree. I know that getting 30 different people with families and classes and jobs to have schedules that match up for meetings would be difficult. However, expecting someone to do extra for a club, which is considered an extracurricular activity, isn't that much to ask for. (Did you see the extra in there? Crazy!) I guess I'm wrong. But to those of you who think that college should be easy and that being part of a club that's supposed to look good on your resume is easy... YOU'RE WRONG! And I DON'T feel bad one bit for saying that. When you're in an interview with your potential employer and he/she asks the big question "So, how difficult would you say your major was?" And you answer, "Oh it was so easy, I just breezed right through it." Do you really think you're going to get the job???? Nope, not happening. So why would the question about the club be any different? How many people are out there right this moment with a vet tech degree? How many more will have graduated and be searching for jobs by the time I graduate? These are the things I take into consideration when I want something to set me above someone else. Now grades can be a big part of it, but hands on experience doesn't get any better. So why not enforce mandatory service hours, if it's only going to be for your benefit? And it will be fun because you'll be with friends.  Really what I should do is make the club super fun, no service hours, no informational speakers, nothing like that. Just have refreshments and games every meeting. Then I can get all the service hours I want by myself and have a resume that looks ten times better than any of my classmates..... Too late for that. Plus then I wouldn't have to hear how hard it is to go to meetings or to get your service hours. If you can't meet the requirements to be in a club, then don't join. It's really not that complicated. And I know people at a church school want to involve everyone, but that is not realistic. Make it available to everyone and let them choose. Did we not come to this earth for that very reason? Were we not given agency to be able to choose for ourselves? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I want to be a part of something amazing and if it means that I sacrifice a little now and receive more blessings later, then heck yes I'm gonna do it! Dang, I should start a debate team with this! I just want to make sure that the club we start, which will be around until the program ends, will actually be to the student's benefit. It's not just my graduating class that will have this club, it's every single person that enrolls in the program from here on out. If we, meaning mainly I, don't get this started on the right foot, how will I know it will ever get better. And if it's going to get better, why not make it now when it will benefit me the most. Being a close minded, stubborn, stiff necked person doesn't seem to go well for the people in the scriptures, just be aware of that... I really don't feel like I'm asking a lot. In high school, I played soccer in the fall and did cross country then as well. I was a boy's soccer manager and at some point broke a hip, an arm and got my wisdom teeth out. I was also taking 3 AP classes my junior year and 1 AP class my senior year. And I was in 7 different clubs, one of them being the National Honor Society. To maintain membership in this high school club I had to do a mandatory 30 hours of service a semester. Plus as a senior you had to do a 10 hour service project on top of the 60 hour yearly service required. Now service could be done over the summer, but it's much easier to teach 1st graders how to read when they're in school. This is a high school club! So when I suggested 10 hours of service a semester and got immediately shot down, you could see why I would be upset. And to make another point, this isn't the first semester the program has been around and yet I'm the one making things happen and getting the club actually organized? Explain this to me please. Kids these days, can't live with 'em, can't, well you know the rest. I understand there are different personalities and some people are real go-getters and others like to tag along. But something needs to be done. I'm not meaning to hurt anyone's feelings and I certainly don't want to feed the fire that divides the first group from the second. See there's not enough diversity at this school for people to be more understanding of strong opinions, but there's enough married people with children who think they're always right and that being married automatically makes you more mature, smarter and wiser than a single person. And this, I believe, is school-wide. So the first group is made up of 15 or 16 mostly married people and the second group has 2 out of 15 people in it that are married. And it's not that the second group isn't all sorts of willing to work with the other group. Not saying that it's all their fault.... but than again. Not quite sure how everything worked out, but I know now why I started this semester and not last fall. Now obviously I was, am, in good humor while writing this, if you didn't pick up my awesome humor then read it again! But this makes me so upset! GRRR!!! I don't know how many times I can say that I don't feel I'm asking for too much. What an unbiased rule system in which to rely on for making a brand new club? Really, is that too much. Come on. All I know is this is going to be my campaign for running for SCNAVTA president next semester. Yea, see who tops that! On that note, let's look at some more awesome pictures from school! YAY!

AW! Bunnies, so cute, and hairy, and the got big fangs!

Took Teddy and Chewy in to practice nail trimming and physical exams. He was ok with it at first....

But this is how he ended up. And he's a squealer too!

We learned a bit about the anatomy of a horse... 

Surgery's just so interesting! 

So that's what a uterus looks like!

Back to the classes are fun part, we've encountered some pretty hilarious sayings. Last week we did a spay on a dog and a few of us got to practice intubating. We'd never done it before and hadn't really seen too far inside a dog's throat. One of my friends looked inside the dog's mouth and saw the epiglottis (which separates the trachea and the esophagus). Her response to the alien looking thing was, "Oh gosh! What is that?" Hilarious! Especially because the whole class had been pretty loud til then and got real quiet just to hear her say that! So funny. Then another girl in class had taken the tape off the sterile surgery pack. This tape just so happened to say "STERILE" on it. And she stuck it to her shirt. So naturally she walked passed me and I said "Hey, you're sterile!" Then realized oh crap, that's pretty rude! So I tried to explain myself and another girl turns around and says "Don't judge my uterus!" Before all this hilarity had begun, a few classmates and I were discussing the creepiness of certain people. There is this guy that I knew from Tennessee that thinks he knows Michael and has a class in the same building that I do. I've only got 2 classes on campus, but go figure he's got to be there! Well, he's found this awesomely bad habit of asking me how my pregnancy is going by rubbing his own stomach. It's really creepy. Like really bad. Just try it the next time you're talking to someone. Yep, just talk to them the whole time and rub your stomach like your hungry, oh and you have to tilt your head to the side and nod a little as well. SEE! It's creepy, well I have a class on the second floor and there are several staircases and quite a few doors that take you outside. So every time I'm in that building I take a different way and yet he always finds me! So someone suggested to me that I should walk up to him and say "I have diarrhea" and walk away and all my problems will be solved! We'll just have to try that out. 

Other than the funny things people say, class is all together very interesting. We had muffins and chocolate milk on Thursday! And for homework assignments we get to read weird articles about animals. One talked about Lumpy Skin Disease. And yes, it really is as gross as it sounds. Cows get these lumps and swell up so bad they can't walk. So they stop eating, walking and drinking and start to rot while they're still alive. Yep, that's what I learn about. 

That's all for now. Expect another post this weekend about other recent news in my life.