This week's blog topic is: what is your "puppy breath"? Sounds a little strange, but a visiting professor once told us to always remember puppy breath, or what it is that keeps us going through the gauntlet that is vet school.

I remember sitting on my bed in my apartment as a fifth year senior in undergrad one summer afternoon, cranking out organic chemistry problems. Because I'd bombed organic chemistry the first go round, I ended up having to take it over the summer semester to be on track to graduate and, you know, apply to vet school. I was feeling discouraged after copying the same problem for the upteenth time, trying desperately to get the material through my head enough to do well in the class. Over the past few months, I was pouring myself into my schoolwork, knowing that if I didn't turn myself around academically I probably never would. I was looking for motivation that was more tangible than just wanting to be a vet.

So I looked my little mutt dog Ella in the eye and I promised her that she was going to go to vet school with me.

It's a childish thing, making a promise to an animal like that but I'd bet my hat that many of us animal people have done it without batting an eye. Suddenly you are no longer only accountable to yourself and your own brain that will let you slack off if you sweet talk it. Just knowing that I had made that promise was enough to keep my nose to the grindstone to get in to vet school.

And I thought that was the hard part! Cue long hours in the classroom, breathing formaldehyde all week, late nights cramming and memorizing to the point of (what I had thought was) maximum capacity. Cue loneliness and stress and depression and missing home so badly that it hurt. I had promised Ella to get her there but I hadn't promised to make it through. But I'm a stubborn thing in the end. I thought of all the people who had encouraged me and supported me and loved me and I couldn't cave in. I gritted my teeth and ground it out and finally I'm at the sunset of my classroom days.

Sometimes I think I don't have a "puppy breath". Sometimes I wonder why the hell I'm even doing this and the answer is not (has never been) to treat diseases and save lives or any of that stuff. I get a thrill when I get to do lab animal stuff; I really, really love it and everytime I do lab animal stuff I know without a doubt that it's what I was "meant to do" as a veterinarian. I will be so happy as a lab animal veterinarian. But is it the reason I put myself through the ringer for all this time? I don't know. I just know that I told my dog I would get her here and when I got here, I was too stubborn, proud and grateful to let anyone down, including myself.