Ponies, Poo, and Gravel

When I was in high-school I was a member of Pony Club. Not to be confused with ‘Saddle Club’ the children’s show:

Pony Club was a riding club for local riders below the age of 25. Apart from the monthly meeting and events, one of the best parts of pony club was the annual camp every Easter. I rode at this camp from year 8-11 and made some great friends and learned a lot. For this reason one of the things I’ve done while at vet school is go back to the camp to share some information about horse health and horse care to the 250-odd riders at the camp. From toddlers to 25 year-olds I was covering topics such as bandaging, feeding, dentistry, laminitis, colic and taking vital signs.

When I wasn’t teaching I was worming horses, treating conjuctivitis, checking horses before and after exercise, and having the difficult task of telling a young boys and girls that their week at camp was over because their pony was just too sore to ride… Those difficult times were definitely made up for by the fun I had teaching. Anybody who works with children knows that they come up with some gems, this is the story of one of my favourites:

#HeforShe for Vets

If you have been on the internet in the last few days then you’ve seen Emma Watson’s inspiring and poignant speech in her new role as a goodwill ambassador for UN women. In her speech she calls out for men to take up their end of the bargain in the fight for female equality and empowerment. It’s an inspiring speech and if you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here. After signing up to the #heforshe pledge I started thinking to myself what role sexism played in my life and I kept coming back to my place as a future veterinarian.

 Anybody in vet school across the world can attest to the fact that more females are entering the profession than ever before. In my class alone, 85% of the students are female, and this is universal across western countries with a similar trend across the rest of the world. This is in stark contrast to the male-dominated profession that has been the norm historically. There are a whole assortment of theories as to why this is the case, and these range from increased academic commitment of females to more males pursuing high-income professions. In the end though the ‘why’ isn’t the important part, it’s how it’s approached which is the issue.

 I remember that in my first years of vet school, on visits to clinics in regional Australia, that I was treated differently to the female student I conducted the visits with. It wasn’t every clinic, and it certainly wasn’t every vet, but it was enough to be noticed. Comments like ‘Geez it’s great to see some male vet students coming through’ were fine – we are definitely few and far between! It was comments like ‘you had better pull this calf instead’ (when my partner had grown up on a dairy farm and was definitely far better at pulling calves than I was -and still is) that really stuck out. When it REALLY got uncomfortable was when I heard numerous theories about the failure of the profession due to there being too many women unable to run businesses. As a young student I listened to these comments come from good vets, employers, pillars of their communities, and I found it more perplexing

Why I Eat Meat

The question of why I eat meat is one I am asked a LOT by my vegetarian and vegan friends. “If you love animals so much, why do you eat them?” is normally how it is phrased.

Firstly. I think that the term ‘I love animals’ can be taken literally, I like animals a lot, but in my case I can’t describe that as ‘love’. My definition of love is that you value [them/it] more highly than yourself. Sure, if I had to rank myself against certain species of animals (Red Pandas anybody??) I’d probably lose out. But against individual animals? No way. If I had the choice between giving life-saving medicine to a child or to a kitten I would give it to the child without a second thought, and I sincerely hope that if you are reading this you can empathise with that position.

That answers the ‘if you love animals so much’ part, now on to the ‘why do I eat them’ part:

How To Get Through Studying: A Sort-of-guide

In one week’s time I will be sitting the first of my final exams for this semester. And it sucks.

After the best 6 months of my veterinary career to date which included attending my first state and national conferences, spaying my first cat, seeing practice for 3 weeks at my local clinic, learning a huge amount of clinical skills and booking my trip to volunteer in India, I’m back to reality. With that reality comes stress, and my failed attempts to deal with it. So far I have re-hung three doors in my house, watched a season and a half of House M.D., cooked some incredible meals, and made half a dozen study schedules. Up next on the list is painting my bathroom and finishing the next six and a half seasons of that terrifically amazing medical drama.

I don’t know what it is about impending academic doom that makes me shut off, maybe it’s the hope that if I ignore it for long enough it will go away, or maybe it is a subconscious mechanism for avoiding stress, or maybe I’m just lazy. Whatever it is I know it’s bad and isn’t a healthy way to approach exams. But, is there a healthy way to approach exams? I’ve tried to figure out the keys in the past, and here is my best attempt:

The Runaway Heifer

When people first said ‘you should put your body on the line for your job’, they most certainly had vets in mind!

My morning of preg-testing, while incredibly exciting in and of itself, gave me more excitement than I had expected thanks to one escaping cow.

The incident occurred while preg-testing my grandparents’ cows (which are lowlines – basically an Angus but a lot smaller). The experience was exciting enough as it was, as it was the first time I had preg-tested a lot of animals with real management decisions resting on my abilities.

Unfortunately some heifers (young cows) had broken into the paddock the breeding females were in so we had to draft them out, an easy enough task. Usually!

This photo is of some of the cows from a different day – this story is set firmly in overalls-and-gumboots territory

The Power of a Cow

The phrase ‘But you’re not a real Doctor” is one that every veterinarian has no doubt heard within their career. I’m only a student, yet if I had a dollar for every time I’d heard it I’d probably be able to pay off my student loans!

What this question suggests is that there is something inherently more valuable about the role of a veterinarian in comparison to a human physician. You may be thinking right now ‘of course, a human’s life is more important than a dogs.’ On this point I would be forced to agree with you. If I had to choose between giving life saving medication to a small child or to a kitten, the child would win out every time, regardless of how cute the kitten was or how adorable its little tiny paws were. This scenario is a convincing one, however it fails to capture the true nature of what a veterinarian is. A veterinarian’s role does not end with their patient; after all, a horse can’t use an ATM!

In all seriousness, the animals that we treat are not individual entities. They are members of families, sporting partners, loved and loving companions, and for many people around the world they provide a livelihood. The production of food and fibre from animals is an essential part about what makes us human. The value of these animals is the reason why veterinarians came about in the first place – the word veterinarius in latin means ‘having to do with beasts of burden’. For many veterinarians, these ‘beasts of burden’ make up the majority of their work and they can have a huge impact upon the lives of the people whose animals they work with. This is my story about how these veterinarians can change lives, and why not being a ‘real doctor’ doesn’t change the impact we can make.

My Worst Euthanasia

I want to tell you about the time I killed a wombat. This story shares an account of the most difficult situation of my student career thus far. It contains graphic content so PLEASE DO NOT read further if you find animal welfare or euthanasia distressing beyond your control. I found it distressing to experience and also write so I hope that those of you who read this find it meaningful.

The story starts with me driving along a country road by myself through a part of New South Wales that had been recently affected by a small bushfire. And as Australian bushland does, it looked about as alive as it had ever been; small green shoots of succulent grass were protruding from charred clumps where tussocks once stood standing a metre tall, new shoots of eucalyptus eager to recover from their charred and blackened trunks. It’s a view of nature that is at once shocking and inspiring – one that everybody should have the experience of firsthand. It was in this setting I saw a large male wombat chewing away – oblivious to the world – with his back to me.

Being the animal enthusiast that I am, I pulled over. I’m always eager to see native animals in the wild.

At this point my suspicions were raised. Anybody that has tried to sneak up on a wild animal (to get a photo, get a meal, or just to get a look) knows that they don’t exactly hang around. But this particular wombat wasn’t responding to my approach at all! I got out of the car and walked closer, expecting at any moment for it to suddenly hear me and tear off into the distance or down a nearby hole.

This is what I could see from my car.

 

Vet Student Catches Cat

This is a story of my first ‘oh my gosh I am going to be a vet’ moment. It happened years ago, back when I was only a term into my vet degree.

I was home for a weekend visiting my family. Partly because they were missing me (I had moved away from home to attend vet school), but mostly because I was already sick of dining hall food; and BOY can my parents cook!

The horrible state of mass-produced food for teenagers aside – I had decided I would spend some quality time with my sisters while I was home by taking them bowling. It’s a strange feeling having to arrange ‘quality time’ with people that you have spent, quite literally, an entire lifetime growing up with. But mature Zachary was going to do things right! Keeping with my new-found mature nature I had decided I would call my mother after bowling to see if I had to pick anything up from the shops; and this is how we get to a situation involving two cats, a lady with ailurophobia (a fear of cats), and one very clumsy, and now embarrassed, cat owner.

Getting In

The morning I got accepted to Vet School is one I will never forget.

It was early January in 2011 and I had just recently gotten back from spending a few weeks with my grandparents in central Queensland on their fruit farm over Christmas.  After a few days of alternating between the pool and the beach, the holiday period was winding up. My diet needed to begin changing from prawns, wine, and mangoes back to regular food like ‘salad’ and ‘vegetables’…

The shock of being removed from this tropical paradise and my battles with travel fatigue meant that I spent the night before I received my acceptance letter I was fighting a battle between sleep deprivation and nervousness This left me in a zombie-like state, and I ended up watching Disney Channel re-runs until the early hours of the morning! Eventually I succumbed to sleep so deeply that I completely forgotten what day it was when I woke up – so I carried on like a normal holiday morning. So much so that I was sitting in my parent’s room saying good morning when my mother said off-hand:

“So Zach… when do you find out about whether or not you get in”

“huh” I grunted in my typical teenage vocabulary, preoccupied with thoughts of breakfast – and then it hit me! “Bloody hell! Why didn’t you tell me earlier!!! Oh  my god oh my god oh my god!!”