Day 1, April 17

Today was my first day at Adventures in Veterinary Medicine. My mother and I arrived at the Admissions Office, and we were directed to the second floor where the registration took place after all the students had gotten a free AVM T-shirt and water bottle. After the registration, the parents left. We then were split into groups (Canine and Equine, I was in Canine) and toured around the campus by our group leaders.

After the tour we went to the the horse barn to visit a cow named Portia who was a Bovine Rumen donator. The protazoa digest the food in a bovine's stomach, and when all the protazoa dies/is taken over by another bacteria the bovine will die of starvation, no matter how much it eats because the food isn't digested. She had a plastic hole in her side that opened into her stomach to give the vets easy access to the protozoa in her stomach. After we left the barn we went back to the Admissions Office to have a lecture on 'Animals and Public Policy'. I found it really interesting.

Then we went to the cafeteria and had lunch. After lunch we went back to the barn where we had met Portia to have a class on 'Approaching Large Animals', where we learned about how to approach large animals. Then we went another class about 'Large Animal Handling' and we learned how to tell if a cow was pregnant, how to make a cow pee (don't ask), and also about the various diseases and viruses that cows and horses get.