I always forget how long it has been between my postings, but then I remember how quickly time has gone by since I have been here on the island. It's quite astounding really. In two days I will be finished my last class of first semester of vet school, and finals start on Saturday! Seems like just yesterday I was walking into our lecture hall trying to remember at least two peoples names, and having no clue what the semester was going to be like. Now I walk in knowing everyone's names. I figure this will be my last blog post until after finals are done and potentially the last one until once the holidays are over! I am looking forward to going home and seeing everyone and my dog and cats of course. I am also going to RELAX and watch horribly crappy television for as much time as I can!
At any rate the real purpose of today's blog is a bit more serious than my frivolous fun planned for break. One of the neatest things since I have gotten to school has been the ability to go to lunch lectures. Some people figure that you are already in class from 8:30 til 4:30 (say nothing about the extra time you then study at home or after class), why would you want to go spend your free hour at lunch in another lecture? The answer, for me anyways, is that sometimes the topics are just that interesting! I'd say at least once a week I go to a lunch lecture- often more than that and I have walked away with cool information on topics we might not get exposed to until later in school. It also gives me the opportunity to explore things in veterinary medicine that I might not have considered- like rehabilitation physiology, or maybe a specialty in something else? We've had talks on ethics, cows, current events, nutrition, dentistry-- all kinds of interesting things. Sometimes the speakers are not as dynamic or exciting as others, and there are definitely people who only go if free food is provided and (even worse in my opinion) take the free food then don't even stay for the lecture, but in general I go to the talk if I am interested.
Today we had a speaker on something that I think is severely lacking in most vet school curricula, and something that I am strongly considering as a part of veterinary medicine I want to enter. We were fortunate enough to have Dr. Karen Overall come present on introductory veterinary behavior. She made some of the best points I have heard throughout the talk and sadly we only had her for an hour- I could have followed her discussions for a year and not been bored I think. Some of the key points that she made included that "The best way to get a dog to perform behaviors you like is to tell them their brilliant. When they are doing behaviors you like tell them!" She pointed out that she often sees clients whom she tells this to and they respond by saying yes they can do that, yes they will do that... but they don't. It's easy to ignore the good behavior, and pick out the things you don't like- but if you reinforce the positive behavior then you are constructing an environment in which the dogs know what is expected of them! Seems like common sense, but I admit to falling into the category of correcting misbehavior rather than proactively praising the good.
Another big issue that she presented was the behavior of animals in a clinical setting. Regardless of what you are doing as a veterinary team member- and regardless of your interest in behavior- there is no denying that seeing animals come in the clinic is often a state of stress and frenzy, much more so than a relaxed come state. Having worked in a clinic for the 6 years I did I admit I routinely saw frenzied animals, and restrained panicked animals. When you stop to consider the ramifications of taking a panicked animal, poking it with needle(s) while they are being held by strangers, it makes you realize that you are doing nothing proactive to avoid inducing a further state of stress- and this has been measured by bloodwork. She talked about the scale and how it induces fear in animals and talked about steps to make the scales, waiting rooms and exams much less stressful.
I was totally fascinated. I've always been interested in behavior in animals, dogs in particular, and I've heard and followed many theories but I'm not sure I've seen a talk with such concise, common sense points made. It reinforced the idea that maybe what I really want to do is get into veterinary behavior as a specialty! There is tons of time to decide these things, and it would be somewhat of an uphill battle given the lack of residencies in the field, but it certainly is something I want to consider!
As an aside, we had a lecture in another class the other day about dog behavior. I have a problem with lectures that are given with the preface that they read about the topic to learn about it. Sure, reading and researching DOES involve studying books to surmise information but on a topic of dog behavior it bears to reason that there are controversies surrounding the issue and several view points on the topic. To take a few books and summarize the topic in an hour lecture is probably not doing it justice. Thankfully the majority of the information that was presented was current and relevant. Secondly, if you are going to bring statistics into the presentation about bite cases by breed then you should probably be prepared to stand the heat. As a classmate astutely pointed out "Just because people are seen in the ER for dog bites from large breed animals more frequently doesn't mean they are more likely to bite, it just means they are more likely to inflict the damage that requires medical attention." I second her point, and also wish that breeds were NOT brought into the discussion. In my opinion any dog, of any breed, can bite at any time given the right (or wrong) circumstances. By bringing breeds into the discussion you end up with results like breed specific legislation. I know there are people who disagree with me and I know there are "statistics" stating that more bites occur from certain breeds, but in the grand scheme I try hard to remove to breed from that statistic. Do I think breed plays no role? Absolutely not- but the difference is that I think the breed plays a role in the characteristics for the breed- things you can look to as trigger points for certain behaviors- like herding. To consider a bite as a one sided breed based issue is to remove looking at all circumstances surrounding the bite- including the people involved and their actions.
And on a last semi-related note of this now long and rambling post-- on Friday Cesar Millan will be on Anderson Cooper's show-- at least here in Canada and I assume it's probably the same at home? I don't like this man, his tactics, or his "dog training." I wish I was going to be home to watch the show because sometimes the man manages to talk himself into a corner and I chuckle when he can't answer a tough question about his tactics. To illustrate my point I've included the link to a You-Tube video below. It's short, and not anti-Cesar Millan, well at least not inherently. In the video about half way through you will hear him ENCOURAGING the owner to kick her dog. Lightly of course. Even she questions it and thinks of it as abuse until he tells her that the dog is hurting her so ya know hey. How something like this is acceptable is beyond me, and yet he is a man with a TV show and tons of uneducated followers potentially setting themselves up for failure and dangerous situations when they try to use his dominance theory tactics. Below that I included a link for a longer (12 minute) interview with Dr. Overall... about halfway through that she speaks pretty eloquently about the dominance theory and training with force.
In the mean time it's off to study for finals for me! Snow is falling outside, I have Christmas music in the background and I'm looking forward to a trip home in 16 days!
LINKS:
Cesar Millan- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fAD2T_bAdY
Interview with Dr Overall- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKNNbQjTjco
Animal Behavior Resources Institute- http://abrionline.org/
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