Horses

For large animal, they send us to the university's teaching facility and we spend a couple of hours every week learning how to love the smell of cows and horses. The logistics of getting there are never fun, since there's not much public transportation in the middle of the day. But it's surprisingly enjoyable to spend time leaning on dusty cow flanks listening to rumen sounds.

As is typical, the hang-ups come not from the animals but from the people in charge of them.

One of the faculty sent us a furious e-mail about how us stupid vet students were tracking mud into their pristine research facility and some very important people had noticed. One of the faculty stationed herself at the door and glared at everyone who came through the door with any footgear on. If they were wearing shoes, "You better have boots to change into!" And if they already had on boots, "You aren't supposed to wear boots in the entrance!" I was a bit irked because they never bothered to tell us before last week, aside from some mythical announcement that no one heard because we would have had to arrive early on the first day, and everyone was still scrambling to find transportation that week. The horses seemed no less annoyed with us, though I think most of them were pretty well sedated. I got to make the acquaintance of Zippo, a mare who adores the doctor in charge of the barn but tries to bite everyone else. My group decided we would skip taking her temperature. I haven't dealt with horses that are serious about biting before. I don't know how to react to an angry horse--although having three students all trying to pet it fails to impress me as a good idea. She must have been at least somewhat sedated, though, because we got out of there with our fingers intact. Oddly enough she seemed to like having her upper lip rubbed. The rest of the time she put her ears back and made startingly fast attempts to get her teeth on whoever stood too near her head.