Week 58: Kissu Check-up

It looks like the E! apperance didn't pan out, which doesn't really suprise me at all. Ah well. This week I continued to get by without a vehicle of my own, which is starting to get very old. Fortunately, I have a good roommate who is willing to deal with it all! Being a lead in area has been interesting, getting to know various people I haven't met yet and learning more about ones I do know.

The coolest part of my week was on Friday, we knocked-down Kissu, my summer mountain lion assignment. All trainers, past and present got to help out and watch everything and it was very interesting. The whole thing ended up taking around three hours, which was way longer than I expected, but we did a full check up as well as some closer looks at things that we found odd. The origional reason for the knock-down was a bump we saw in his mouth and we weren't sure what it was, so we were trying to figure that out, but it had dissapated due to the antibiotics he was put on. Other things we did were: draw blood, cystocentesis (urine sample straight from the bladder), x-rays on his paws and face, palpating the body, cleaned the teeth, ultra-sound on his liver (which seemed abnormal), and a nipple-ectomy. That's right folks, probably one of the strangest things, a nipple-ectomy. We removed his left, first nipple because it had some funky things going on with it, and he's male, so he doesn't need it. Here's some cool pictures of what we did:

Week 57: Drama Class

Not a lot of big or impressive things happened this week. I have no idea if the segment on E! for the fundraiser happened. I've been pretty busy and things have gotten harder since my car was taken by the hubby to replace his broken one.
The first year class has been very interesting so far. I feel that the vast majority of them are highly immature and inexperienced with any type of animal. We had some issues this week with one of them shooting off her mouth a bit too much about things she didn't fully understand and she got a good talking to from the staff about it. That didn't make her very happy, but hopefully it taught her a good lesson. There are a lot of really great first years too though and I'm glad we have most of them around. Things like this also make me wonder how our second years perceived us when we started.

Week 56: So Long, Samburu

Things are still chugging right along. Projects are being planned/worked on, animals are being trained, shows are being performed, and a certain script is still being written. Amidst it all, Samburu, our caracal (pictured below) was put down. He had been having some severe neurological issues (possibly a brain tumor, or some other degenerative disease). He was about 15 years old, so he wasn't a youngster or anything. Very sad still.
All the animals we took from the facility that was in trouble went home this week. Yeah for them still having a home!
In our vet lab, we've started learning about injections and how all that works. I know a lot of it already, but it's always good to get other perspectives and tips.
The highlight of my week was doing the Peacock Foundation's fundraiser on Saturday. It was a blast! Sprinkle's cupcakes were there, so I sampled their tasty treats for free! I also bid in the silent auction and won some gift certificates to a local BBQ joint and then a frozen yogurt place for dessert! Oddly enough, E! network was there to cover the event, so I might be making an apperence on their morning show! It was a great time and I hope I'll have enough time that I could help them out in the future.

Week 55: Someone's On Fire!

I'm sure you have all heard about how southern California is once again on fire. We aren't in trouble, but another facility was so we were housing some of their animals when they had to evacuate. That was really all that happened the first half of the week. On Thursday, I had a zoo day at the LA zoo's health center. It was pretty fun! They were also housing some animals from that same facility, so I helped care for them, and then I got to watch a few medical procedures! My afternoon was occupied by some paper presentations from a few vet students on rotations. Even those were fairly interesting (to me at least...). Speaking of medical papers, I've comitted to my topic for the paper in vet class: Chronic Wasting Disease in Wild Cervid (that means deer, folks) Populations as a Result of Predator Dessimation. That means deer are getting sick out there and part of it is caused by a lack of predators in the wild.
Any who, on Friday, we went on a field trip to Steve Martin's Working Wildlife (no, this is not the actor, and not the bird trainer.). They are amazing! I had the capuchin from the first pirates of the carribean movie crawling on my shoulder, as well as a brown lemur! We saw Bart the bear, a 1,000 lb kodiak grizzly, and some other really cool animals like foxes, lions, chimps, and more! I'll try to figure out how to hook up my new phone so you can see some pics eventually.
On Saturday, myself and a few others went to check out the Peacock Foundation, a group that works with troubled (abused, neglected, homeless) kids and uses animals to help with their therapy. They are having a fund raiser next week and we are going to be walking around with their animals! It's nothing spectacular. No one famous will be there, and their animals are just domestics and a few reptiles, but they are a great organization and I a glad to help out!