Lossing Hope

Today Dear Readers,
             my 15 year old faithful Friend, Protector, and the smartest dog I've ever know, Hope, will die. In 2004 I was going to my first day of volunteer work at the Lincoln county humane society shelter, I was 11 and my mother and I had shown up on the wrong day and it turned out the shelter was closed it was one of the coldest Decembers in southern Tennessee with lows in teens, it was not ideal weather to be a puppy on the side of the road. So when a man pulled into the parking lot with a small brown-black puppy I knew it couldn't stay in the drop off pen over night so we called one of the humane society bored members who gave us the okay to foster her for a while, and as I tucked her into my jacket I decided that her name would be Hope, and when on the drive home she threw up a mix of cat food and bacon grease I knew that she was feeling a little better. when we got home we spent about an hour setting up a pen in the barn with a heat lamp and blankets food and water it was a great spot, but after the third time that she beat us back to the house we decided to let her stay in the house for a bit to tire her out but then this weeks old puppy ran to the door and started whining and when we opened the door she ran out and did her business before returning to the door to be let back in.
Fast foreword several months and Hope and I started obedience school and after graduating that we did a bit of agility, (which did not last long because she was to smart and would refuse to do parts of it). Hope went to one 4-H dog show and even went to a school with me once for one of my meany educational talks, she did not really enjoy the travel so she got set up as the first and only house dog of my family. She lived out the rest of her life as the family protector and no deliver driver would leave there car if she where outside, she would greet me at the door every time I came home from collage, and more recently vet school.
Recently she has been slowing down and over the last break I built her a ramp since she was having trouble using the stares to go out side, a few days ago she suffered a stroke, which she looked like she might pull though but unfortunately she just does not have the strength to keep going. Hope has had a powerful and lasting effect on my life and I can honestly say that without Hope I would not be where I am today, I would not be the same person as I am today.
"Hope I will miss you but gods going to need you back now, Go to him with no pain"
I love you Hope.   

Life, Death, and Everything Inbetween Or. Priority's

Hello Dear Readers,
lately there has been a lot of talk of priority's in vet school, which I have come to realize effects us more then those attending school closer to home, also I realize that not everyone shares my views on these matters so please understand that I am not calling anyone out, (please don't take offense as non is intended) so if you think that this post might  hit to close to home Please stop reading now, YOU have been warned (even though I believe that I will only be covering topics superficially as always).
When you decide to leave the country you call home to attend vet school, you leave a lot of things you care about behind with no promise that things will be the same when you get back, we all hope and pray that our family's, animals, friends, and homes will be okay during our time on island. Sadly life is never that easy and loses do happen, and then there is a choice that has to be made what is more important to me, that which I am losing or that which I am learning. Unfortunately there is not a clear universal answer, with the most solid answer being that it Depends. There are exceptions as for any rule, and mine is for my family I would find a way home if the worst where to happen.
(Maybe I should explain the two big issues with going home for us on Island Money and Time, Money is the easiest to think of off hand as we all owe a lot of it to the government, but money is also the easiest to dismiss and spend on a flight since we owe a lot of it to the government. Now time is something that is not considered at all till you realize that you have missed a week of classes, labs, and studding for them, it is possible to keep up with some of that work but it would be extremely hard to do.)
So let us ignore the exceptions and focus in on the one most common scenario the inevitable, impending, death of a pet which while sad and some times heart breaking at the thought that your best friend that you raised, cared for, played with, and cried with. could just be gone when you return months later after finals, to realize that while everyone else has already stopped accidentally calling their name you still do multiple times a day, and you still look for there food dish, or to walk with them. For the most part we know when we leave which animals are at a higher risk and when that call or text about that animal comes in we are more ready for it, however if something unforeseen happens you get blind sided by grief.
So now that everything has been laid out I can finely talk about priority's... unfortunately they tend to change, would I fly home to see Hope (my first foster dog turned best friend) one last time before she died? Honestly no, I have said goodbye to every animal on my family's farm every time I have left for school, does this mean that I wouldn't be sad? No, I would be incredibly sad, and I know people who would absolutely spend the time and money to get home just to hold their animal friend once more and that's fine there hearts our bight, but in our field of work that can be deadly.
So to rap up let me explain somethings to the People that find my dealings with death a bit odd, when I was a kid growing up my family would take a once yearly visit to St. Jude's children's hospital for my older brothers check up, inevitable he would be back somewhere being tested and I would play with the other kids, most of which had cancer and would not live to be an adult. Now I did not understand this at the time, it was meany years later after I had been volunteering for my local animal shelter for several years, and been raising rabbits, chickens, etc.. I had fostered over a hundred animals, and I had seen death I had seen plenty of it before I was 13 or so and all that death before hurt it hurt for weeks I have a very big heart. But the thing that really changed my how I deal with death was a adult sheltie mix named Hank, I spent weeks training Hank so that he would be more adoptable and it worked he was adopted, but weeks later when I came in to do my vol hours at the shelter Hank was back and I ran out and we played for a couple minutes he still remembered his training, then he was put to sleep... you see the person who had adopted him was older and he had gotten out of hand for them, so he came back and unfortunately at kill shelters they can't afford to keep dogs around for months on end waiting to find just the right home (and I will have to talk about how I support all humane shelters even if they have to put animals to sleep), it was this moment that I realized that you can not cry for every animal lost, as you would quickly run out of tears. But that you should be thankful you got the time to make memories of the good times and bad, since then they will never really die....... TTFN

Goodbye Maria you where an amazing first goat, and very good at escaping.