k-hope everything is ok with your man. did you get the apt. thing figured out?  btw, since i know we both like robert jordan's books. do you happen to like celtic music, horseback riding or british punk rock? just a shot in the dark for other common interests. 

K- that's so great you got him to pet a horse! I finally got dear hubby to ride with me two years ago for the first time. He was very sore, but said it was "kinda fun." Then last year, he took me up to Wisconsin to a friends to ride all day for my birthday! It was great. I've never owned a horse, but used to work summers at stables in exchange for free rides .  This past year I took a road trip with a friend up north. We stopped at one stable to pet the horses out by the road, and this guy drove out in a pick up truck with a rifle! Then he saw we were two girls, and he said we could stay and pet them. 
As for punk, I really like the Clash and White Stripes. Those are good ones to start with.
Btw, I'd love to be your clone/sister because you have great hair! I finally posted my avatar, so you can see my color and texture is a little like yours-I just don't have the length yet.  *sigh* someday!

The long term plan you mentioned sounds great-owning a stable, house, and a shop. Or if it's too much money-just own the stable and live in it! Priorities, right?

Also, I'm deep into book two now-which is really good. These books are highly addictive.

Oh, Jdog, I know about the muck smell, and the dancing. When I lived at the end of a tiny dirt road in North Carolina, the school bus drove down and turned around in my yard, driving the full length of one side of the pasture to get to the turnaround. Every day my gelding Faran would wait for the bus at the far end of the field, and gallop alongside all the way to the end nearest where I got off the bus.  You know, sometimes I still dream that I walk outside, and he's somehow still mine, outside waiting for me. Those are the dreams I hate the most, simply because when I wake up they're not true. You fellow animal lovers probably know what I'm talking about when I say that in your life,there are a few special animals that come into your life, that are more precious to you than anything else. A perfect partner, who understands what you're thinking, where you want to go, or do, even before you do. Who is so in tune with you you almost don't have to ask for a lead change, or a fearless jump over a raging creek...  I trained him from the ground up. I was the second person ever to sit on his back. Two days after we got him home, I had my appendix out and had to take a week off of school. I was told, no riding!!! by the doctor. heh. He said nothing about standing out in a pasture for 8 or so hours, grooming and petting a horse. (after two days, when I toughed it out enough to stand upright without yelping, anyway)... Every moment I wasn't at school, doing homework, eating, or sleeping, I was with that horse. He was my only friend during that period of my life, and he was my best friend.
There was a move from a farm where we were paying for 157 acres, and getting use of 2 (the other 155 were also leased out to a hunter who flat out said, he would not care if it was a deer or a horse he shot, as long as it was meat), to a farm where we had a 10 acre pasture, and roughly 50 acres of trail to explore, and a few more companions (we were taking care of some people's horses for them), and it was one of the best times in my life.

After the house we were renting caught fire (we were at my great grandmother's funeral in Massachusets) (oh, it happened seven days after my 15th birthday, by the way), we had to board him at a stable 60 miles away. At 15, I wasn't exactly old enough to drive to see him, and no one cared to take me. We were paying for him to have a stall at night, and turnout during the day, along with feeding twice a day and grooming once. When I finally begged enough to get my stepfather to drive me out to the farm almost two months after we brought him there, he was thin, scarred up, covered in burrs, and frightened of everything, even me. It turns out that C. the owner, was leaving him in a pasture day and night with five agressive mares who stole his grain and chased him away from the hay, kicked the crap out of him, and regularly chased him into fences, bramble bushes, and once, into a tractor left in the field.  Unfortunately, my parents wouldn't do anything about it, because they didn't want to pay more, to bring him to a better stable closer to home. So they instead, simply refused to pay the bill. Which meant that I came home from school one day and was "informed" that C. had sold him to pay back boarding. And wouldn't tell my parents who she sold him to. Not that it would matter. they wouldn't have done anything had she given the name.

Kiraela wrote on Jun 21^st, 2007 at 11:55pm:


So true. Still lost 11 years on....

Yet the enormous number of people including vets who haven't a clue where you're coming from. What is it with them ! Have they never known real trust ? Or don't know or recognise what it means even when it's right under their wretched noses ? I'm 6'4", about 220 lbs (little fat !) and the times I've wanted to ****** callous creeps half my size..... !!!!  

It's the one thing where the heart has always ruled the head for me, which is what makes it so very difficult to hold back physically when you see animals suffering.

Oops !  My very first rant !  Apols....

Quote:


Oh yes, but I think it's so very much more than that as well. Other than animals born with awkward temperaments and so on, what else can most animals or pets do, or what other options do they have when around humans except to trust ? And it's that that just makes me melt inside every time.

And why I have never been able to understand how people can abuse such deep trust either. Perhaps if one's an animal lover on this scale, one's own best friends in life are those who respond in exactly the same way ?

Acadia, wow, 6'4.  Ok, just so you don't hurt me, I thought I would tell you that I adore all animals and used to be a vet.   

Kiraela, your story about your horse broke my heart.     As you said,  once in a while you meet a special animal.  Joey is mine.  I have 4 others that I love dearly, but Joey....well you get it.  There was also a horse for me named Rosie.  I am pleased to report that Rosie lived a good life and died peacefully in her pasture.  Sniff, sniff.

I can't believe that a grown woman would pick a cat up by the tail and bite it!!!!  Good God, what is our world coming to?

JD

From the time I was little, I always wanted to be a vet. When I was about 14, though, I realized there was no way I could do it. I just... get so upset when any animal is sick or hurting. Which, I guess, is the reason I wanted to be a vet in the first place but.... I couldn't gain enough emotional clarity to work. I barely kept my calm when Faran had a large bite on his whithers, from my mother's freakishly large mule. I think, now that I'm a little older, I could maintain that clarity, but... I don't know. I just have so much admiration for anyone who can do that job and not go insane. *gives applause to joeydog*

Thank you ladies.  You are very kind.  

I will try to answer some of your questions, but frankly, one could write a literal novel about it.

I will start by telling you that vets and even techs (nurses) do kill themselves.  They literally euthanize themselves.  Clean, quick, painless...but you have to do it right...since if you just put a needle into yourself you would pass out before you could get a lethal dose in and you give yourself brain damage without succeeding.  There is a trick....but that is too morbid to get into.

Grief counselling was not offered to vets when I was in school.  I did a 2 year tech (nurse) course via correspondane when I went through.  That might have changed but I know that here in Canada,  the nurse is sent in to deal with that part of things in most cases.  No money in grief counselling...and I hate to say, but a lot of vets are like many doctors...out for the almighty dollar once the money bug hits (it does not start that way).  That is not all of them, but some do.

We have a saying in my old field as a vet.  We used to say that Christmas and spring was time for house cleaning...in other words, we saw a lot of euthanasias at those times of year.  I think it had more to do with people trying to hold on to their pets through Xmas and until spring (since the winters here are harsh)...but they hold on too long and we get a flood just before those times of year come.  The second year I practiced, I euthanized 32 animals in 10 days...after the last one...that I knew needed to be euthed 10 days earlier and who a I spent hours with each day, I sat on the floor next to him (Copper) for about 10 minutes.  One of the vets saw I was missing (she was also a friend) came to find me and saw me there.  She knew something was wrong and started to come to me asking me if I was ok.  I told her to stop when she was about 10 feet away from me and to turn around and leave me alone for a few minutes.  I would have totally broken down had she offered my empathy.  When I told her the number of euths I had done, she told me that any I got for the next week, she would take for me.

I had to euth animals just because people no longer want them.  I remember a guy coming in and asking me to euth his beautiful healthy, 9 month old cat.  He said she had kittens and now he wanted one of the kittens.  I tried to get him to sign her over to the Humane Society but he claimed nobody would look after her as well as him so he wanted her euthed....can you imagine!!!!  Her name was Sassy.  Oh, just in case laws are different where you are, animals are considered property and we cannot refuse a requested euth.  Actually it makes sense...better I do it than the ower drowns them...I do it painlessly and with love.  With all of these types of euths, I told the pet and myself that what I was doing was far kinder than the other options...and once they had died I would whisper into the animal's ear (the nurses hated doing euths with me),  "Meet me at Rainbow Bridge, I will take you home."

My tricks for clarity you ask?  Well, I worked in 24 hour emergency hospitals.  That way I never got attached to an owner, never nearly killed an owner who was completely useless...and for those moments when I was sad or angry...2 minutes later a life or death situation would come in and for 20-45 minutes I had not time to think or feel about it.  My health stopped me from doing the shift work involved and I lasted about 9 months in a normal clinic between the boredom (after being used to the adrenal rushes) and the fact I had to deal with people who cared SOOOO much but I could not stop the cancer...or the people who cared so little they would not give the animal its insulin because it was too expensive...but would not euth the poor thing.  So, now I am a toxicologist...but I still treat my own animals.  I have a little deaf, white, diabetic kitty (Adam) who has certainly made me do emergency work over the few years I have not practiced.

Ya, it is hard.  I guess the key is that we rationalize that we are their best hope for life, or maybe their best choice for death.  You will laugh, I never cried at my job (although I saw many vets cry, male and female) and yet every Friday night I came home and watched the Humane Society show about the things horrible people did to there pets....and I bawled.  That was my release.  My family always asked why I watched it when it upset me so much....maybe because I needed the release.  And when I bawled, I grabbed my Joey and cried in his mane while he sat there and said "there, there Mom" while my other dog had a nervous break down and needed me to reassure her that all was well.  LOL.

At the end of it all...I lost animals that could not be saved for whatever reason...but I saved many...and 5 of them live with me and share my life.

I hope I have answered your questions...and I think now I will go cry in Joey's mane.

JD