Dissection dog shortage???

[cario12342]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hey everyone!!!

My CVM is going through a dog shortage and for our first year we have to share a small (~20-25lb) with 7 other students. I am having a hard time learning anything in anatomy! Any other schools having similar problems??? It bums me out because I was really excited for this part of my education.

 

[JaynaAli]

That ratio of students to dog was about what I had at my school when I took anatomy (at a different school) eight years ago. Granted I think the dog was a little bigger like 40-50 lbs, but still. We had to take turns dissecting, teaching the others, reviewing previous stuff, and spend time with the cat instead. Does Michigan State let students go in outside of class hours to review? Do other groups have a larger dog you can look at outside of class? Are you using other online resources?

 

[JustPaws]

It's pretty disappointing to hear as we had 40-50# dogs per 4 students last year. I used flash cards and the prosections even more than my own dog to study though. Come in on the weekend with 2-4 other students and run through the prosections till everyone has learned it and can recite everything by heart. Stay positive, you will get through it. At about this point in class I felt pretty overwhelmed too, but in a week you'll be surprised by how much you have learned.

 

[DVMDream]

We didn't get full dissections where I went. Ours were already pre-dissected and we just got to review over the specimens, learning the different parts. Never did a full dog, cat, or large animal dissection through the entirety of vet school.

 

[battie]

Our school has a group of 7-9 students fully dissect out two dogs (male and female), and either a ruminant or a pony. In order to make the workload and sharing work, most groups either had a dedicated set of 2-3 people dissect out a specimen and teach the rest, or switch every few lab periods. We would come in on weekends to study when we couldn't get to one specimen.

 

[mmmdreamerz]

Interesting how different schools do it. First semester we had 4 students to a large dog and second semester we had 6 students to a pony.

 

[awesomenessity]

At our school we are split into groups of 4 and we each get a large breed dog to use for the year, then the anatomy techs dissect out a horse and a cow to the same level we are currently at with our dogs so we can compare across species. Pretty handy 🙂

 

[DaDappette]

For us, we have groups of 4 (and occasionally 3), for one large breed dog that we have for a semester. The next semester we stay in those groups and half of them each get their own goats, while the others get ponies and split them (one group to each side). We are rotated back and forth from the goats and horses by system.