{"id":5912,"date":"2011-10-24T14:30:45","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T22:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/?p=5912"},"modified":"2011-10-25T10:26:08","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T18:26:08","slug":"really-big-horses-inspire-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/2011\/10\/24\/really-big-horses-inspire-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Really Big Horses Inspire Student"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Student Laura Meadows with her draft horse Tiny Tim<\/p><\/div>\n

For most people, the closest they will ever come to a draft horse is through a television screen.\u00a0Most of us are familiar with the perfectly matched and perfectly groomed Clydesdales in a Budweiser commercial but\u00a0draft horses were originally bred for ploughing and other hard labor. There are still a few farmers and loggers who use them to pull heavy loads but their huge size makes them expensive to feed and expensive to shoe so even horse lovers rarely own them for fun.<\/p>\n

Veterinary medical student Laura Meadows has a passion for draft horses. Growing up on a ranch in Wyoming, she spent her childhood pursuing horse-related activities of all kinds: trail riding, dressage, light horse driving . . . you name it. But draft horses have a special place in her heart because they allowed her to spend time with her rancher dad. \u201cWe drove using horses my whole life,\u201d says Meadows. \u201cWe have always done it as a way to feed our cows and horses in the winter. Imagine a farmer in the 1900s out there feeding his livestock with a sleigh full of hay; that\u2019s how we feed our cows.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that Meadows has always dreamt of becoming a veterinarian. Now in her second year at the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), she chose OSU because of small class size and the opportunity to experience a new environment. \u201cNew rivers, new trails, new everything,\u201d she says. She didn\u2019t know at the time that OSU also has a draft horse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was down in the barn doing a palpation lab, I saw a draft horse,\u201d says Meadows, \u201cand I asked Lionel if we could teach her to pull.\u201d The horse in question is a new addition to the CVM herd and her name is Taffy. Farm manager Lionel Snyder encouraged Meadows to pursue the goal of training Taffy by starting a student draft horse club.<\/p>\n

There once was a very active draft horse club at CVM. They worked with a draft horse named Andy and even used him to give buggy rides at the yearly Pet Day event. But when Andy died, and all the DHC members graduated and moved on, the club disappeared.\u00a0 Meadows hopes to resurrect it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLionel told me they have this amazing wagon but don\u2019t know how to teach Taffy to pull,\u201d says Meadows. \u201cI have a lot of experience teaching horses to pull but I\u2019m also interested in giving students who haven\u2019t had a lot of horse experience an opportunity to work with large horses.\u201c<\/p>\n

The three objectives of the newly formed club are learning to handle large horses, learning to drive, and promoting the college.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be great to eventually teach Taffy to pull the OSU wagon,\u201d says Meadows. \u201cIt\u2019s a really beautiful wagon but whether or not it is feasible for us to take it out in public remains to be seen. There are insurance issues and Taffy will need years of training.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Meadows hopes club members can get hands-on time with Taffy; handling a one-ton horse is the ultimate in safety training. \u201cYou build really good safety practices around a draft horse. You know you have to stay out from under any horse\u2019s feet but with a light horse you aren\u2019t as conscious about it. If you build good safety practices with a draft horse, you will be safer with any horse,\u201d says Meadows. \u201cIt\u2019s all about making us better equine vets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most people, the closest they will ever come to a draft horse is through a television screen.\u00a0Most of us are familiar with the perfectly matched and perfectly groomed Clydesdales in a Budweiser commercial but\u00a0draft horses were originally bred for ploughing and other hard labor. There are still a few farmers and loggers who use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":911,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1734,3052],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-clubs","category-students"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DBMX-1xm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/911"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5912"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5971,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912\/revisions\/5971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}