This is Joseph. He kneels over like that to eat to relieve some of the pain from his arthritis.
This is Emily, just hangin' out. She's a sweetheart!
And this is Lily... She's always up to no good!
After feeding the goats and cleaning the barn, the interns had a Stages of Puppyhood Presentation. It was a pretty short, and informal presentation. We talked about puppies all the way from their gestation periods to their destructive adolescent stages! We learned about the various stages of puppyhood that are so incredibly crucial to developing their temperaments, confidence, sociability, etc. And unfortunately, if you or your dog don't do these things in the correct stage of development, it can affect the dog for the rest of his life! So luckily for me, I was able to get my puppy fix before the presentation started! I walked into Dogtown Headquarters and one of the staff members asked me if I wanted to socialize with a puppy... I said, "Say no more!!!"
This is Kavi. He's an 8-10 week old mixed breed puppy. They aren't exactly sure what he is yet! As soon as I walked in the room, he was so happy to see me! I laid down on the floor to play with him, he climbed all over me and eventually he laid right down on my chest and fell asleep. He was so precious.
Right now, Kavi is being kept separate from his siblings because he's having some health issues. He's also not eating that well, so I tried to hand-feed him and give him some treats. He did very well with the treats, and as you can see in the first picture, he knows how to sit; but I couldn't get him to eat his kibble. Either way, this pup was such a love and I'm so glad I got a chance to play with him today!!!
After lunch, the Horse Haven staff and the Piggy Paradise staff went on a little adventure. Jen, the manager of both Horse Haven and Piggy Paradise, does tutorials/informative sessions the first Tuesday of every month. Today, she was teaching everyone how to map a horse's hooves. Jen has many, many years of experience in the horse industry, so she has a wealth of knowledge about them! I couldn't quite follow all of the anatomical jargon that she was saying, but I still found her demonstration to be extremely interesting. Not only is mapping and trimming horse hooves incredibly difficult, but it's so fascinating! There's a lot of logistics that go into the entire process. Not sure if I'll ever need to perform hoof mapping in my lifetime, but I'm glad that I at least know what it is now!
This is Jen doing hoof mapping on Jewel. Linda, one of the horse trainers, is holding Jewel while Jen works! I don't know how Jen managed to do this in the 90 degree heat and beating sun! She's awesome!
To finish the day, I also got to watch Dr. Tara examine Linda's horse because of some oozing in his one ear. She first had to sedate Petey, and then she performed the exam. Even under sedation, Petey was not happy with Dr. Tara messing with his ear! She ended up finding a tick in his ear, which I guess horses are prone to, and then she flushed out his ear with saline. Dr. Tara is the large animal vet at Best Friends, and it's pretty impressive to watch her work! She's very quick, and knows exactly what to do.
Petey was falling asleep after Dr. Tara finished her exam! He was so cute.
So I finished the afternoon doing hay nets with Jackie, and the afternoon feedings for the goats with Katie. Like I said, it was an interesting day with lots of new experiences! I'm looking forward to spending more time with Linda to learn more about the horses. She's a wonderfully skilled trainer, and just like the rest of the staff at Horse Haven, she knows so much! We'll see where tomorrow takes me!
