I don't smell like an ashtray!!

Last night was the first night I went out since Denver passed a smoking ban in all public restaurants and bars. It was soooo nice! I didn't have to come home and rinse out my hair or keep my clothes I had worn in another room just to have a good nights sleep. I am so excited to go out now.

Things are ok at work still. There was an incident that happened that bothered me. Unfortunately, in the vet world, you come to realize how many dogs out there are not trained. And it gets frustrating when they won't let you do what you need to do. In this business, we have to restrain animals and hold them down sometimes, and outsiders may see this as "mean" or "forceful." However, restraining an animal correctly doesn't hurt the animal, in fact, it's meant to keep the animal from hurting you or itself.

The other day, however, one of the techs who I really like otherwise got frustrated with a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy who wouldn't let her take its temperature so she grabbed it by the scruff and pinned it to the ground. It cried out and she told it to "stop it, I'm not hurting you, scruffing you doesn't hurt." Being the type to just say what's on my mind, I said that it probably does hurt since it cried out, and she snapped back at me. She later apologized, but I was shocked and was upset that she did it in the first place. Especially to a puppy. We all lose our patience, but we need to know when to walk away and take some deep breaths.

Back in the day, trainers used to tell people to do the alpha rollover (like above - pinning the dog down) to get "dominance" over the dog and to show it who's in charge. Nowadays, behaviorists and good trainers know that this is ridiculous and does more harm than good - and it's a great way to make a dog aggressive. I'm just surprised that at this facility, which is so up-to-date on medicine, is so behind in behavior.

It just sucks because 98% of the time, she's wonderful to the animals, but that really made me mad. Maybe it's time they had a little CE class on Animal Behavior. Because the way some of them act around dogs, someone's going to get bit one of these days, and it won't be the dog's fault.

Anyway, sorry to vent. I'm sleep deprived - although I took about 4 naps yesterday! It's been raining non-stop for about 2 days now (reminds me of Erie!) and it's getting depressing. I wanted to take the dogs somewhere but that's not happening. I guess I'll have to clean :(