some of the dogs...

so my favorite dog so far that has come through the vet hospital is a chunky bulldog named Chief!  he has the most adorable smushed face i have ever seen.  and his colors are really neat looking, too... you can't really tell from these pictures- he was hard to take a picture of, because he was always wiggling and could never stay still!  he knew how to sit, but when i told him to stay and would try to move back to take his picture, he would stay sitting but would wiggle and scoot across the floor because he really couldn't just stay still.  it was so cute!

this is another little puppy that just left today- i was sad to see her go!  she looked almost exactly like my roommate's dog Coco when we first got her... but this one's name is Princess Smoochie!  

lastly, this is Sammy!  she is a Samoyed that someone just dropped over the fence one day, so now she is up for adoption...  she is sooo pretty and so sweet!  i hope someone perfect comes along for her soon, because she has to be in a cage a lot, which is sad!  if i had my own place, i really think i would like to have this dog- i usually don't prefer bigger dogs, but she has a really sweet personality and is really playful and has the fluffiest, whitest fur!

trip to dyersburg

i had saturday off, so i got to spend the night at mary beth's in dyersburg, which was a lot of fun! she already wrote about it on hers... we went to chris's parents house, tanning, to a pet store, to the mall, to applebees, and then to hastings!  chris's parents are so cute and funny!  we stayed up with the kids watching bob the builder, and i actually enjoyed the little episodes!  after kayla and preston went to bed, we watched prom night- interesting movie... haha

the next day was preston's birthday party- there was a moonbounce, a pinata, hot dogs, cake, and presents!

there was one point where all of the men took over the moonbounce- they were all wrestlers, so they were in there for a while acting crazy and doing wrestling moves!

here's preston enjoying his cake and ice cream!

and here's me and mary beth in the moonbounce... haha

books!

I realized today that now that I'm not in school, my free time can be spent doing whatever I want! Instead of worrying about studying and stuff.  I knew I'd miss school a little, because I really like learning about so much interesting stuff- so I also realized today, now I can focus on learning about anything I want without thinking about the pressure to do well on a test or having to learn it in a certain amount of time!

So today I ended up at Hastings and Barnes and Noble, and I added five new books to my "library."

Finnegan's Wake and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer

and

The Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes

A couple of those are gonna take a looot of time to read, but I'm excited about it!  I have a problem with starting books and not finishing them, though... I went through all of my books and I am in the middle of 16 of them!  I guess I get excited and want to start reading all of them at once.

Zoo Stories, Part 1: Singwah and Dixon

Dixon and Singwah are two of the white-cheeked gibbons I worked with at the zoo!  Singwah is the female, which is white, and Dixon is the male, the black one.  This is how they would always sit together!  Singwah always would sit in a little ball with her arms crossed, and Dixon would sit next to her with his arms around her!

When I first started at the zoo, I was warned to watch out for Dixon, because he was known for trying to grab people!  He was in a hold inside and wasn't allowed outside on the islands because he had escaped shortly before I had started working there!  I wish I could have been there for that!  So since he wasn't allowed outside, he was really moody...

So on my second day, I was standing in the hold area, and I was suddenly pinched!  Dixon had swung over so fast, stuck his arm out of the cage and grabbed my arm and then swung away again!  haha!

Sometime after that, they were moved to a bigger hold and Dixon was allowed outside again, so after that he seemed a lot better!

Dixon and Singwah each had their specific song, and they would always sing together!  I miss hearing them, but I got video of it, so I could listen to it whenever I wanted.  In the background of this video, Kelly, one of the zookeepers i worked with, is training Cory(red ruff lemur) and the radio is also playing... there's not some woman in there singing.

Also, a lot of the time when Singwah would sing, she would jump and swing around and grab that rope on the shelf thing so it would bang and make a lot of noise!  She does it once in this video...

And each day, there would be a new enrichment item-- wood blocks, plastic ducks, hay, balls...

In this video, they were given hay- To make it fun for them, we stuck cheerios in all in the hay so they could dig around in it!

...

So I've been at Two Rivers Vet Hospital as a kennel attendant/vet assistant for a week, and so far, it's been crazy!

I've learned a ton so far, and I've already gotten to help the vet with shots, putting animals to sleep for surgery, and taking care of hospital animals!  And today I got to do a urinalysis on my own.  I also have a lot of dogs in the kennels that I have to take care of and a couple of cats and some birds. 

One of my favorites so far has been a black cocker spaniel named Brandy and a funny little shih-tzu mix dog named Mickey.  Also, on my first day, I got to walk a giant st. bernard named Beethoven.  He was actually really easy to handle, and he was really sweet!

There's also a parrot here, and the only thing he knows how to say is "come here"- haha!  So I'll be down the hallway, and I'll here "Come here!"  It's funny.

It feels really weird that the only thing I do is work, and there's no school or anything.  And it's a pretty stressful and intense job- there's always something to do and always something going on... unlike hastings where i sat around and read and make coffee drinks...!  

And every time I close my eyes, I see dogs!  And today when I came home from work and took a nap, I dreamt that I was working and taking dogs from the kennels up to their owners and looking at paperwork!  This happened to me when I worked at target- whenever I closed my eyes, I would see myself scanning items!  I guess seeing dogs is better.

horrible

i would not recommend watching this video, but i also really think you should-  i have known about farm animals being treated horribly and stuff, but this goes through all the different animals and the different things they have to go through.  it's really hard to watch, but at i think everyone should know what is going on. (amy, maybe you shouldn't watch it since you're pregnant...hah)

http://www.chooseveg.com/animal-cruelty.asp

so i have decided-- i want to devote part of my life to stopping this.  i don't know how in the world this could be legal, and i don't know how there could be people out there so heartless and selfish that they would actually DO it and work at these places.  but i have to do something- i am going to start researching about it... 

and i've considered being a vegetarian before, but i really like meat... :(  but i am going to try to stop eating meat.  

everyone is so concerned with money and profits and stuff that these animals are completed disregarded as living beings with souls and feelings.  the major food places are allowing this to happen, because they only care about the money and the business.

i wanna be like in boondock saints-- except i kill all the people that work at these places killing these animals.  

 

brief scenes from some of my recent dreams...

-me in a school covered in bubbles trying to find the exit

-me carving a sandwich into a star, sticking it on a stick with ribbons and giving the "fairy wand" to someone as a gift

-me wading around in some water with a hawk under my arm, dipping its face in the water so it could catch fish