I've tied more knots in things over the last two days than I have since suture week at vet school. Knot after knot after knot after knot. But we have to: it doesn't matter how brave your rescue attempt is or how fast you make it to the victim, if your knot bites it, so do you. So practice we did. I thought I would show you a couple of teaser pics from our water day. This is Bobby, our willing disaster victim. Bobby routinely tumbles into rivers, falls down cliffs, and needs to be lifted from ... Read more »
Archives for 2012
Shelter Drive By: Snorgles and Food
So before I left for Nicaragua, I wanted to make sure I got my shelter drive-by done and set in honor of our Shelter Appreciation Week Blog Hop. If you missed the post talking about why we are doing it, click here- please consider featuring your own local shelter this week so Blog Paws can make a $2000 donation! Get your posts done this week and then join the Blog Hop! The whole point of the shelter drive by is to keep it simple. Simple is doable and unobtrusive and repeatable. I brought a ... Read more »
Be the Change with a Shelter Drive By! Small effort, big reward
As many of you have heard, it's National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week, though to be fair the news cycle has been dominated by other events. Such is life. As regular readers may remember, I usually end this week with the Blogathon, a 24 hour marathon of posts with prizes and fun, and potentially zombies. But life happens and things evolve, and as it so happens I will be on a plane on Saturday, on my way back to Granada, Nicaragua. I am doing a one week course in Technical Animal Rescue ... Read more »
Flash Mountain
All right, all right, I know this has been a very emotionally draining week for everyone. Some of you may be hung over. I wanted to talk to you all about National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week, and I will, but I think I'll wait until everyone has calmed down a little from whatever ecstatic/ despairing/ ambivalent coma in which you were left yesterday, and for today, I'm just going to talk about Disneyland in a nice, calm voice. Pretty, pretty lights. Benign Mouse. Yes, I went to ... Read more »
Disaster Response, Sandy, and Good People
It's been a rough week, right? I think everyone can pretty much agree with that. There has been an awful lot of awful going on. That being said, it's also been an earth-shattering shake-by-the-shoulders to everyone mired in the mud leading up to Tuesday's election that maybe it isn't the only thing in the world that matters. Oh yeah, there's an election tomorrow! I almost forgot. Amazing how quickly things become less important when people's lives are getting washed away on a large ... Read more »
Discombobulated
dis·com·bob·u·late transitive verb \ˌdis-kəm-ˈbä-b(y)ə-ˌlāt\ : upset, confuse <inventing cool new ways to discombobulate the old order — Kurt Andersen> We are now in our new apartment. Just like that, I flew out to Atlanta one day, I came back to a packed house, and the next day we said goodbye and left a decade behind. I would have had a little more mental space to process this, but then a hurricane hit and I felt too guilty and concerned about other people's devastation to ... Read more »
Blogger Disaster Response Team-Activate!
I just flew home from BarkWorld and boy, are my arms tired. No, really, everything is tired. It was a great weekend I promise to post about, but for now let's just say that I zipped out under the farthest bands of Hurricane Sandy, came home to a house half packed for movers, and just kind of realized tomorrow I'm leaving my house of the last 8 years. I am myself a bit of a disaster. But in the big scheme of things, much more dramatic events, real disasters, are taking place. My thoughts and ... Read more »
Postcards from Purgatory
I am saying goodbye to my house next week. I didn't think I would be so suddenly sentimental about the place, given how keen I was on getting out of it for the last year or so. But now that it's time, I realize that wow, there's a lot of memories here I'm leaving behind once and for all. We brought home two new babies to this house, celebrating milestones like first birthdays and first steps and first days of school. This is the only place they've ever called home. We said goodbye to two most ... Read more »
Instant Stress Relief: Awesome Penguin is Awesome
I don't do stress very well. I get antsy. I eat too many cookies. I spend a lot of time staring vacantly into space listening to my heartbeat drum in my ears as I resist, with variable success, the urge to overreact to every little thing. You'd think I would be better at dealing with this sort of thing by now, but of all the curveballs I've weathered in life, this particular move has really unsettled me in a way that makes me entirely sympathetic to those who are simply steering clear of me ... Read more »
3 Ways to Show your Tech You Love Them
Continuing with our celebration of Veterinary Technician Week, I wanted to offer all of you a quick and easy 3 ways you can make your tech shine like the top of the Chrysler Building next time you go to see your vet. Because they deserve it. 1. Bring food But make sure you specify those cookies are for the TECHS. Because I have seen it. I have seen plates of cookies come in for the vet, and the vet does not interpret "for the vet" as "for the team" and takes them all home. NOT COOL. This was ... Read more »
Have you thanked your tech today?
This week marks the 20th iteration of National Veterinary Technician Week. I can't tell you just how happy I am to see this group of professionals get recognized for the work they do. They have one of the most ridiculously challenging jobs on the planet for what is, comparably speaking, miniscule pay, high risk of injury, and often emotionally draining work. As so often happens in many professions, vets get all the glory and all the kudos, the cookies at Christmas and the hugs for a job well ... Read more »
It’s Bad Poetry Friday: Emails and spam
This is what happens when you leave me alone in the first rainstorm of the year with a bottle of port, a pile of Dr. Seuss books, and a backlog of emails asking, asking, asking, asking for me to once again be a Nice Veterinary Writer/ Pet Blogger and do some more free work. Mostly, it's just a silly Friday I need to Apologize to Dr. Seuss Once Again kind of post. I dedicate it to all of you who know this feeling all too well. E-Mails and Spam I'm Dr. V. Dr. V is me. That Dr. V! That Dr. ... Read more »
Good thing we didn’t get those chickens
I've made it no secret that I want chickens. A bevy of Bantams. Little fluffy fancy egg layers that would make me feel, in some teensy way, a bit more connected to my food production. Our house is in a rural enough area, and our yard large enough, that a couple hens running around would be no big deal. But my husband said no, and out of respect for all the other times he also said no but I went ahead and did it- whatever it was- anyway, I respected him, this time. But then we sold our ... Read more »
Wordless Wednesday: Happy Place
When the going gets bad, the prey runs. When it comes to fight or flight, I'm a flier. Unfortunately, there are lots of stressful situations- moving, for example, in a mere three weeks with no particular place in mind as of yet and two large dogs to manage in the process- where flight is potentially a less than optimal response. So in those cases, I hold in my head a file folder of Happy Places to which I can retreat, if only for a moment, if only in my head. A Total Recall, if you will, of my ... Read more »
I’ve got a crush
Crushes are a terrible thing, really. I mean, they are fun at first, when you get that wobbly-in-the-knees breathlessness, those daydreaming flights of fancy that knock you off balance. The heady combination of possibilities and "wow, we are SO well matched" wonderment can be downright addictive. But when the object of your affections doesn't reciprocate, those overwhelming feelings can instead be downright painful. Perhaps, one might think, it's better to go with the safe choice instead of the ... Read more »
Super Special Thursday Giveaway: Canine Cool Hipster VIP Red Carpet Bag!
There are blogs that I like, and blogs that I love. There are blogs that I read and think, wow, this person is the bomb and I love what they are doing and I wish I had done some of that too. Those are rare. Joanne's is one of them. The Tiniest Tiger has been a voice for conservation for years. By drawing parallels between our feline friends in the foyer and the majestic cats on the prowl in the wild, Joanne brings home issues that are near and dear to my heart. And because she is smart and ... Read more »
On the eve of a ten year reunion
My ten year vet school reunion is coming up this weekend. I'm not going, not because I don't want to, but because I just couldn't manage to get the weekend away. It kind of stinks because I really did want to go and see what everyone has been up to over the last long decade. I'll admit I wrestled with feelings of inadequacy in the months leading up to this. I have friends in the CDC and friends heading prestigious academic departments at vet schools and friends running huge practices and me, ... Read more »
The start of a beautiful conference
When Mike Arms asked me to speak at the first ACES International Conference here in San Diego last weekend, of course I said yes. One, I always like the opportunity to get to speak about social media, one of my favorite topics. Two, I was honored by the invitation to contribute to a really exciting endeavor. And three, well, I really just wanted to go to the conference. Helen Woodward Animal Center has been running ACES conferences for years, a series of lectures designed to help shelters and ... Read more »