FitzpatrickLand!

On our last day of training, Beth and Dawn showed off their prepping groove…

As we wound down our classroom session for the day, we tried to decide on dinner plans so all of us trainees could go out together. A vet from Florida and a group from Michigan are here this week too.

Dr Saxton recommended an outing to Jack of the Wood for yummy pub food and live music. On Wednesday nights a group of folks get together and play old time mountain music.

It turned out to be a great place with yummy food and fun music. Here’s a snippet of the music (I’m not sure how to share the yumminess of the food)

And yes, that’s a little girl on the left playing her tiny banjo!

Another day flew by in a flash! Even though our team only had 14 surgeries today (the snowy weather struck again in outlying areas and hardly any transport animals came in again), we had plenty to keep us busy.

I got to work on budgeting with Quita… Jenny worked in surgery and got to go on a transport trip with Jeff to help pick up animals… Beth and I got to learn about managing our inventory and keeping clients happy from Daniela… Dr Holt keeps getting faster… Dawn got to intubate her first dog – I missed the photo : (… We all had training in emergency procedures with Dr Saxton…

Here are some more highlights:

Dr Holt and Dr H with the amazing Dr Brestle

This is Humane Alliance's transport dog room - all the dogs who arrive from their transport program are housed in here. This is a huge space and very busy room when it is full.

Jenny got to do recovery today

This puppy was the winner of my Cutest Critter of the Day prize. Not hard to see why, is it?

Me saving this poor dog's life with my newly acquired doggy CPR skills. I was too short to manage this while standing on the floor like everyone else did and had to hop up on the table.

I can’t believe tomorrow’s our last day with these great people. If I’m ever in this area again, I know where I’m coming to visit!

Marissa and Melissa demonstrate induction and intubation.

This is actually from yesterday, but I’m just getting around to posting it.

Another day of surgery is winding down.  We’ll begin anesthesia class soon, but I wanted to get today’s pics up…

The calm before the storm. This is where our team is training with Dr Brestle, Joey and Melissa. And yes, our surgery suite is the one the public can view!

Catheter 101

This is the way we thread the needle...

Today was big red dog day. I think our team ended up with all of them! This one was particularly cute.

I loved his lips and wrinkles

That was a lot of lip to hold up for intubation!

Classroom time with Jenny, learning our software.

Marissa intubated her first dog!! Yeah Marissa!!!

Dr Holt ready and excited for her next surgery

Both vets hard at work

Humane Alliance's cute courtyard. It's obviously still VERY cold here. It's 23 degrees at the moment!

Off to class!

Wow. The morning routine here is intense. There is the initial hustle to get all the animals looked at before they get picked up so any weirdness can be checked by a vet before going home. Then it’s the critter shuffle, transferring cats to crates to be ready to go and then cleaning cages to be ready for the new arrivals.

At 7:30 the doors open and there is a group review session of the post operative instructions, which saves tons of time in the discharge process. Then individual animals are checked out. I loved the army of staff ready behind the counter to tackle the crowd and get animals dispersed as quickly as possible.

Then as the last animals are leaving, the new arrivals begin pouring in the doors. We checked in 64 animals across the front counter within ONE hour this morning. Wow. These folks certainly have this down to an art.

Then we pick the day up where we began yesterday’s schedule… vet exams in the back to begin the surgery day, and dealing with the mountain of paperwork we just finished generating from check in.

Right now our surgery team is on their last of eight dog surgeries for the day, then we’ll break for lunch. After that Jenny and I will continue working with the software developer to finish configuring our database and continue our training while our surgery team will finish the day with their 11 cat surgeries.

It was a light surgery day today since the weather here wasn’t very cooperative. It is still way below freezing and it was barely snowy here, but outlying areas weren’t as lucky. Today’s transport only had seven animals, so everyone should be getting done early today.

Wow! I can’t quite believe today is over already – it flew by faster than I thought possible. A huge thank you to everyone at Humane Alliance for making our staff feel welcome and for everyone’s willingness to explain everything to us. We can’t wait to do it all again tomorrow!

Here are some highlights from the day:

Prepping our group's first dog, the first surgery of the day.

We're ready to get started!

Around 10am the transport truck arrived with more animals for today's surgery schedule

About 50 animals from humane societies around the region came in today.

Jenny, the computer whiz, logging today's surgeries

Ok, puppy, time to close your eyes...

That worked nicely!

Intubating our sleepy puppy

Expressing bladders is oh so fun

Beth attempting the tricky upside down intubation technique

Watching the pro to learn his secrets...

Our surgery team did about 20 spays/neuters today and over 100 were done at the clinic today. Tomorrow we get to go in at 7:00am to help with discharge, so we can see those same animals go back home. And then check in the next day’s and do it all over again. Can’t wait!

“Welcome to Asheville, where the temperature is not even close to warm.” I don’t think that’s exactly how the flight attendant phrased it, but that was the gist of the weather report we got upon arriving in sunny North Carolina this afternoon. It was 22 degrees when we left the airport and is now around 16 degrees.

After our flights had landed and everyone arriving by plane had gathered luggage and assembled, we headed to the hotel to meet up with Dr Holt who had arrived shortly before. Her holiday vacation had already brought her to the region, so she was able to meet us without adding extra flights to her trip.

The other six of us had to get here on two different flights since our tickets were booked at different times and the holiday weekend had filled up plane seats. Thankfully neither of our layover cities (Chicago and Houston) had difficult weather and we ended up where we were supposed to be, when we were scheduled to be there.

After settling in at the hotel briefly, we headed out for dinner. Wanting to make it an early night and save exploring for another evening, we opted for the restaurant across the street so we wouldn’t even have to drive.

The frigid wind didn’t deter us. We were however, momentarily stymied by the lack of any crosswalks to guide us through the massive six lane intersection. Thankfully traffic was light and we could just run for it when the lights were cooperative. Running also had the side benefit of getting us out of the cold sooner.

Here we all are after dinner, having survived our return trip across the street, back at the hotel and ready to call it a night.

WHS's clinic crew, finally all together! (and able to smile after a full day of travel) From left to right: Dawn, Beth, Jenny, me, Marissa, Dr Holt, Dr H

Looking forward to our first day at Humane Alliance tomorrow!

In the morning we head to the airport on our way to visit Humane Alliance’s spay/neuter clinic. A full day of cross county travel isn’t always the most fun, but hopefully the day will be relatively uneventful and we’ll all make it where we’re supposed to go, about when we’re supposed to be there.

Thankfully the weather looks cooperative in Asheville. Their high tomorrow is only supposed to be 30 degrees, but at least it’s not snowy. Glad I packed my scarf!

I can’t wait to see Humane Alliance in action and spend four great days with the staff. Our list of questions is lengthy, but we’re ready with notebooks, cameras and eager minds to soak up as much as we can. The alarm goes off in less than 5 hours, so it’s time to rest.