Our girl found herself a home!

Update from Shy's new home: Did great in the car during the hour + drive to her new digs. She was a little overwhelmed at first (completely expected), but eventually settled down and has taken to her new place and new crate with a comfy new bed. She has a new collar and everything - lucky girl, she deserves to be spoiled as much as humanly possible. Her new people did great giving her insulin this morning as well - Shy is an angel for it as long as she has some kibble to munch on!

Pictures as promised:

The staff saying good-bye and giving kisses to Shy Shy. You can see how much we love her!


Her new people :)



Last night I also met a young guy who brings his handsome black and white pit bull to the animal hospital. He is enlisted in the Army and set to go south for basic training in the next couple months, so he is desperate and doesn't know what to do with his pup. His dog is young and rambunctious, but a pretty nice dog - so he has that going for him. I have been trying to get involved with a rescue that works directly with military men and women to foster their dogs when they are away on leave, both foreign or domestic, so I emailed him the sites that he can contact to (hopefully) get set up. I feel like lately my life has just revolved around placing pit bulls in homes, not vet school, but its okay for now. I'd love to get much more involved in the future (i.e. after graduation) in these organizations - so hopefully I can return some favors for you all that have been so generous to Shy.

Vet school drama time: So we have these numbers that are used to post our grades after exams. That way, we can all check our grades, but keep it anonymous at the same time. Yesterday, our pretty cool radiology doc emailed us a list of the class and where we would be taking our radiology exam tomorrow (it is taken on computers in the labs). She accidentally included all of our "secret" numbers in with that list - so we all became in possession of each others secret numbers.

Oh my gosh, it was like the world was ending.

Within 5 minutes, she said she received 28 emails informing her of this awful, terrible, huge, grave mistake. People literally had meltdowns about it. People of the vet school world - no one cares what your grades are except you. Frankly, I don't care if you are last in the class or first. And if people do actually care - they really need something better to occupy their time and worry about. Because of this tragedy, we all got assigned new numbers. Which will be null and void in about 2 months anyway... even though my paper says I'll need it for the next three years. Administration, you could have taken 6 seconds to revise that paper to make it look like you are actually sending it to the third year class and not the first year class... but I digress.

Well world, my new number is 3363. Yikes! I said it out loud! People might see this! I don't care who knows my grades because I'm still here. I will graduate in 2012 and I will get the same degree as the person ranked number 1 in the class and the person ranked 123 in the class. I fall exactly in the middle - and its a pretty sweet place to be.

Enough drama for today. Who would like to learn about radiology? Anyone? Anyone? Tough, because I don't really know anything. But in a sick sort of way, I'm enjoying sitting in the quiet library with my Starbucks Venti Cinnamon Dulce latte... even if I'm not actually studying at the moment.

Shy might have a home!

I don't want to get my hopes completely up, but a friend's sister and her fiance are taking Shy on a "trial run". They came tonight to pick her up! I didn't want to even say it out loud, but now that they actually have her with them, I feel like I can breathe a small sigh of relief. KJ and I went over to the animal hospital to meet with them tonight and to have KJ's mom go over all of the vet info. Our friend JU came with... because her sister is the one taking Shy! Hopefully this means that we will stay updated with her and get to know how she settles in with them! I had to hold back my tears - full of hope and joy for her, knowing that she is going to a real home that really wants to love her and take care of her. At the same time, she has filled such a part of my heart that I will miss her so much. I have gotten used to her being in my daily thoughts and actions... maybe now I can concentrate a little more on school, since that's what my $40,000 a year loans are paying for!

Trying to post pictures, but its not working - I'll update soon when it works!

My Saturdays

First of all, I've been checking the ChipIn page multiple times a waking hour and I'm speechless by how much was donated in one day - almost 50%. ALMOST HALF. IN ONE DAY. Can you believe that? And my vet school friends have been so generous on top of that. I know they don't have money, but the little that they have to spare, they gave to Shy. It sounds very silly, but I can't wait to go to work today and see her, and tell her what you all have done for her. Obviously, I know she can't understand me... but I wish she did. She is such a sweet, loving lady and deserves a great family - Are you out there future family???

KJ and I work every Saturday at the animal hospital (and occasionally during the week if they need a hand and we don't have class (okay, lets be honest - we skip class to help). I thought I would hate working every Saturday - I used to sleep in when KJ would go to work and I'd have the entire morning to myself. But at work, I get to apply what I'm learning in school every Saturday. I get to play "Puppy Doc" for four hours and practice what I'll eventually be doing. KJ and I have been getting more responsibility and opportunities to "practice" vet med - if we are free, we get to handle suture removals, nail trims, x-rays, etc. I think we make a pretty good team. Which is nice, because we'll be working very closely together for the next 30 some years!

After work and lunch today, we'll be headed to the library to begin the studying extravaganza. Did the administration not realize that February 6th is Superbowl Sunday? Did they not realize that I am about to marry the biggest Steelers fan on the planet? I'm sure if they had, our exam schedule would be far different - who doesn't love Superbowl Sunday? Football, food, beer... Puppy Bowl VII. Unfortunately, we have our Small animal surgery exam on Monday, Radiology on Wednesday, and Cardio on Thursday. Kind of a tough week, but it looks like this will be the worst one all semester. It doesn't even compare to the multiple 4+ exam weeks of years past! I guess we also have our take home Nutrition exam to do (which is pretty simple) and we had our take home Swine exam due yesterday. We also have a Large animal surgery quiz due and our requests for 4th year rotations due Monday... I've done everything except take the exams, but there are people in our class freaking out about it all. Its really not THAT bad, but they complain and that is why our class has the reputation that it does. Unfortunately, the ones that bitch and moan vocalize their opinions, while the rest of us just sit quietly... I know that this is part of what Facebook is for, but it gets tiring to see people complain about EVERYTHING :)

Anyway, keep up the donations! And passing along the link (you all are fabulous for doing that too!). And if you or someone you know are looking for a wonderful dog to become part of your family, please let me know. She's ready and waiting for you.

Overwhelmed!

You, blogger friends, are AMAZING! We are 20% of the way to our goal for Shy's surgery and it is all because of you! I still have to give my own donation, and KJ donated this morning - he handed me his debit card and gave me an amount, but the message on the ChipIn page is actually from him (he is a wonderful, wonderful man). I'm so full of love and happiness that I can't sit still, I just want to do good deeds for everyone today. And I will. I'm on my way out the door to the gym to meet up with friends (still have to run those 5 pesky miles today... I have 10 planned for Sunday) and I will see where the day takes me!

Generosity

Here I am, sitting in Radiology lab/class. In between classes just now, I checked the blogs that I love reading daily (Two Pitties in the City, for one) and A posted about Shy again and created a button on their blog that directly links to Shy's ChipIn page for her cataract surgery. Before I knew it, I had 7 donations totalling just about a hundred dollars - from my mom, and 6 people that I have never met. To my mom and those 6 people - Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know I am sitting in class right now, but I can't stop my eyes from welling up with tears, I'm actually on the verge of sobbing. I can't even fathom the generosity of people - strangers - that I don't know, but share our same love for animals and are willing to share their hard earned dollars with Shy - to help a dog that they have never met, except through pictures and videos.

Shoot, my nose is running now... this could get embarassing as I sit here sniffling...

Thank you A - thank you for all of your help to get us this far - to get Shy in the minds and hearts of the online community. I can't thank you enough for you generosity and your presence in the blogging community. I never realized what an awesome community that bloggers form - we all have our own lives, but it is so amazing to see into the lives of other people and for those same people to give their time and money for such a great lady - sweet sweet Shy shy :)

Link to Pitties in the City and Shy's post.

Shy's ChipIn Page

More later... I AM in class after all :)

The Great Midwest Blizzard of 2011...

... was awesome! We didn't get nearly the same amount of snow as my parents did, up near Chicago (only 12 inches here) - but the ice and thundersnow combination was enough to historically close the University of Illinois - for the fourth time in 30 years. What did we do? I fed the animal at the normal time (6:15), slept again until 9, then woke up and worked on our now take-home nutrition exam (Bless you Dr. P). Rewind to Tuesday at 3 (nutrition class). Dr. P walks in and announces that he has good news... and good news. The first? No class that day - the storm had already started and conditions were getting nasty to drive in (class also goes till 5, so sometimes it is dark when we leave class on Tuesdays/Thursdays). The second - he would be giving his first ever take home exam. Granted, Dr. P's exams are pretty basic and simple to begin with - this class is kind of goofy because we already took nutrition first year... and this class is very similar to that one. I think he recognizes that most of our classes can be incredibly difficult and tries to make his easier on us - and in turn, we adore him. If I get a 100% on the exam, I get an A in the class (apparently equine nutrition didn't go so hot for me) - and 100% is completely doable, I just have three questions that I'm not completely sure about, so those need to be looked up still.
Continuing on with snow day - KJ woke up at 11:30 (boy, he must have been tired!) and we snow-suited up and took the pups on a chilly walk outside. The pups didn't love it, but we had fun and made snow angels in the front yard. Our dogs are big babies - they even had their winter coats on. We shoveled for a little bit (even though most of it had been done by the nice old neighbor's snow blower - our neighbor is great) then watched movies and ordered chinese food and hung out in the living room until late last night. Overall - very good snow day. Bad diet day - but I have a 5 mile run to get me going at some point today. With the weather at 0 degrees, I think I'll stick to the treadmill...