TAMU Vet School Open House

TAMU Vet School

I just love the opportunities we have with Girl Scouts! Regan has wanted to be a vet for as long as she has been old enough to want to be something! Every year the Texas A&M vet school hosts an open house, and we finally got in this year! It gets booked up and super crowded, so it's a big deal to get in. We had planned on going up the day of, but since we had to check in by 7:30, we decided to go the night before and spend the night in a hotel, and that was it's own little adventure, let me tell you!

We got to our hotel around 6, and got our room keys, the plan was to check in and take the girls to the hotels indoor pool. Well, I walk into our room, and see a pair of cowboy boots, an open duffel bag, and men's clothes all over the room. We jumped back out as soon as possible, hoping there wasn't a man in there wondering who just walked into his room! Well, we finally got the room situated, but the hotel pool was broken, so we had nothing to do until bedtime, but we watched Princess Diaries, and I think the girls were just having fun being at a hotel!

We got up bright and early on Saturday and headed to the Vet School. We got to sit in on a lecture from a vet who told us what it takes to become a vet, what type of classes you need, how much schooling is required (8 years of college and vet school, yikes!) and what you can start doing now to get prepared. Regan even took notes!

Then we had Teddy Bear Surgery which was the cutest thing EVER! They suit the girls up in doctor scrub gear, gloves, face mask, hair net, shoe booties, paper gown, everything, and then you take your teddy bear to surgery. You tell the vet student ("doctor") what's wrong with your bear, and they will tell you how to fix it. Regan decided at the last minute that she didn't want her bear to have open heart surgery so she gave it a broken arm. They splinted the bear's arm, wrapped some padding and then put a cast on it. She loved it!

Then we got to see some live animals, an owl, a 1 month old, tiny baby warthog, a porcupine, we went to the breed tent and saw all kinds of dog breeds, and then we went to an interesting room. It was the room where they dissect horses. They had tracks on the ceiling with big hooks, and against the wall are giant freezer doors, so they were explaining to Regan how they open the doors, use the hooks to slide the dead horses around over the grates and then dissect them, and then slide them back into the freezer. Surprisingly, Regan was not disgusted like I was! The room had all kinds of animal parts out on display, cow heart, cow stomach, horse teeth, dog lungs, all kinds of parts, and Regan would grab and feel and touch each one. She was very fascinated and asked a lot of great questions.

Then we had a tour of the small vet clinic. It was really neat, they had a different "specialty" in each room, so we learned about all the different ways they treat small animals, and Regan even got to perform an endoscopy to remove a penny from inside a dead dog! She got to hold the camera and thread it down, and pinch the thing to grab it, like a claw game. They showed them how they draw blood from a dog, how to use a defibrillator, and then we got to watch a real, live surgery! They were spaying a dog, and they had it's girl parts out for us to see, and a camera right above the action so we got to watch through the window, and get a bird's eye view. Again, Regan was more fascinated than disgusted. It was fun for me to see how she reacted to everything.

Then we headed over to the large animal clinic and got to see all the heavy machinery they use to lift the horses and cows and all the cool things they have there. We got to see some animals too, but Regan and I were really wanting to see the fistulated cows and we didn't make it to them. So, Regan wants to go back next year and do what we didn't get a chance to do this year. It was definitely an interesting trip, and I'm glad Regan got to experience it, and now she has a very clear picture of what it's going to take if she is serious about being a vet. But, I know she can do it, and I can't wait to see her achieve her dreams!