Preparing to Present
I’ve been busy this past week trying to put together a presentation I’ll be making Monday morning. I’ve had to reconstruct this in my head since the source material is no longer available to me. Part of the presentation is on the principles of HACCP, and the rest on animal welfare. The presentation will be given in a course on food safety for veterinarians. The HACCP part of the presentation fits in nicely to the course objectives. The animal welfare part is a bit off base, but I still feel it is important to present this to these kids, since they won’t be getting the information from anywhere else. I’ve found a handful of scientific papers indicating loose ties between good handling practices and reduced bacteriological shedding, and I’ll dump those into the beginning of the presentation as a sort of justification before skimming the surface of the subject. I thought this would take me an afternoon to pull together, but it’s taken me close to twenty hours so far. If I ever seriously think of going into teaching, somebody remind me that so far preparation to presenation ratio is running at about 10 hours to 1 hour. There aren’t enough hours in the week to teach full time.
My foster cats are feeling far more comfortable around me. I was worried when they first arrived that they’d never calm down enough to make good pets, but I think now in the right home they should do fine. I’m more concerned about Nick than Puma, since he is still very head shy and does not let me reach for him. He’s fairly jealous of his brother getting attention though, and I’ve been able to use that to my advantage. If I spend enough time brushing Puma, Nick finally gets to the point where he can’t stand it and will let me brush him as well. The two cats continue to spend time walking together side by side, pushing against each other to navigate the room. I’ve tried to get some pictures so I can ask some of my vet friends what this behavior indicates, but it just doesn’t translate well as a snapshot.
That’s Puma in front, with Nick behind him. They are in full body contact, circling around me. It’s the weirdest thing to watch, as if they were strapped together around the middle.
This is all the break I get – I need to return to preparing my presentation.
I agree with the teaching ratio. I have even gone as far as to draw diagrams out on my dry erase so that when I do it in front of students I can concentrate on delivering the message and not my artwork.
That is the oddest thing with the cats. They are obviously very bonded. If only they could talk…
I need to do an entry…Shah’s dam, Krystal foundered, thank goodness I listened to my inner voice and had her xrayed quickly. The vet graded her l front a 3/5 and there is definite rotation. The r front has mild but it could be from last years. She has heart bars on both fronts and is stalled. She’s getting bute sid and isoxsuprine bid. She looks good, nothing like Shah. Haven’t even caught her laying down. Still, I am feeling discouraged as I am sure this is Cushings related and therefore chronic. She will be 20 in May but you would never know it. I will not put her thru the dorsal hoofwall resections.
Hope your snow is melting…or has melted. I haven’t had time to see the news in days.
Good luck with your presentation!
I’ve not seen that in cats but I’ve seen my pond fish do that. When one is in some kind of distress the others group around it, sort of forcing it upright, and swim it around the perimeter of the pond.
Oh, the poor sweet things! I had to laugh about jealous Nick, though. You’re doing great with them.
What is HACCP?
Good luck with your presentation. You sure have put in the hard work on it!
Teaching *is* very difficult, especially the first few years of any particular course. I think of it almost like a script, and like a script, once it is set it is easier to teach that day’s class again. Perhaps that is one of the benefits of most college instructors only teaching one or two courses at first?
Poor guys – but I’m glad they seem to be doing a little better. Of course, as soon as I saw the photo, "Me and My Shadow" started running through my head. Must be that Evil Cat again…
An online friend of mine in the UK recently mentioned that he can annoy both his cats (brothers, but not fond of each other) at once by stroking them both at the same time 🙂 They’re so jealous of each other.
That synchronised walk is quite striking.