Animal attraction: 5,000 visitors expected at LSU’s Vet School open house
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Baton Rouge is among only 28 communities in the country that boasts a vet school. For most of the year, the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine is only accessible to faculty, students and animal owners seeking specialty care. However, once a year, the school invites the entire city access to meet its experts and explore the latest developments in animal health care, rescue, therapy, welfare and research.
From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 7, the LSU Vet School open house offers a self-guided tour, including the gross anatomy lab, equine treadmill, canine underwater therapy, cancer treatment center, intensive care units, surgery and radiology suites. Throughout the corridors, rescue representatives, students and faculty explain the animal-related issues, services and resources available to owners.
“The event started 27 years ago as a public awareness tool,” says LSU Vet School Alumni and Public Programs Coordinator Gretchen Morgan. “We now have 80 exhibitors who range from students with projects to animal rescue and the zoo, and — of course — we have the Mike the Tiger, if he decides to get in the trailer.”
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Since the open house attracts future vet school hopefuls, biology classes, Boy and Girl Scout troops as well as young families, diversity has been the key to the event’s roaring success.
Besides being fun, educational, family-friendly and free, Morgan attributes the crowds to the opportunity to see live animals they are unlikely to see elsewhere — such as Hildy the fistulated cow, who has a portal in her side so students can observe digestion — and the tremendous variety of animal species and breeds assembled in one place.
Besides Hildy, the biggest draws have historically been the adoptable pets brought by breed rescues, the farm animal petting zoo and the endoscopy fishing station that allows visitors to manipulate a real medical instrument to retrieve a foreign body from a stuffed animal. Children may also bring their own injured stuffed animals to be “sutured” by vet students at the Teddy Bear Clinic.
This year marks the debut of the Louisiana State Animal Response Team, a post-Katrina volunteer corps that offers disaster planning, education, shelter and evacuation assistance. The demand for animal emergency and critical care after hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike prompted the American Kennel Club to donate the money for LSU’s new Emergency Response Unit, which will also be on display. The 32-foot mobile unit includes a surgical table and lights, refrigerator, gas for anesthesia, scales, generator, self-contained water supply and kennel facilities.
In addition to animal encounters with rescued rabbits, rehabilitated raptors and all creatures great and small, the open house presents the following special presentations:
Animal Endoscopy – 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m. to noon, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Baton Rouge Police K-9 Corps demonstration, 10:30 a.m. and noon
Cancer treatment unit tours, 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
Canine parade of breeds, 1 p.m.
Canine underwater treadmill, every half hour beginning at 9:45 a.m. until 2:15 p.m.
EBR 4-H Dog Club, 11 a.m.
Equine (Horse) Parade of Breeds, 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Equine treadmill, every half hour beginning at 9:30 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Lafayette Police Mounted Patrol, 9:30 a.m., noon, 12:30 and 1:30 p.m.
LSU’s Tiger Mascot Mike VI, 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Click here for details.
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