u/Only_Book_995

My cat has been going outside for the first time this week (3yrs old but recently adopted). He eats grass every single time he goes outside which I understand is a normal behaviour but every day within 15-60mins he vomits. I know again that it's normal for grass to cause cats to vomit. I'm having a discussion with my vet as I know eating grass can sometimes be a symptom of an underlying issue (he has been bringing up furballs recently).

The lawn isn't sprayed with anything and I am 90% sure he won't have got access to anything toxic. Other than the above he seems absolutely fine, eating; drinking; toileting; manner etc.

He seems to love being outdoors but I don't want to put him through vomiting every day if that's going to be the consequence. Obviously it would be great if he'd put two and two together but I don't think he will.

I just wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience? Is it a seasonal thing? Do they eventually learn not to eat it?

(Just to pre-empt some reponses - yes of course I'll stop giving him free-rein if it continues and I constantly assess the safety of him being outdoors)

UPDATE: I'm taking him to the vet next week just to check everything is ok 😄

I'm really curious what level of regulation/restriction on social media people would support?
Should there be any restrictions? For children or for adults too? What sort of regulation? What are the pros and cons of where you draw the line?
Serious question and I'd love to hear some serious thought out answers - thanks 😄

Does anyone know a company who will collect and deliver a large amount of bricks / block pavers? I want between 250-350 to do a garden product and can see plenty online but don’t have a way of collecting them. They would likely need paletting on collection too.

Hi everyone,

I've always had a bad memory all my life. I didn't notice it too much as a kid (probably because I didn't know what normal was) but as I grew up I realised my ability to recall was much poorer than other kids. I had an EdPsych assessment and they found a particular problem with recalling numbers (number sequences for example).

This made revision really difficult because I just couldn't commit things to memory. I could read and understand something, feel like I'd leant it and then within a relatively short time it was gone, or at least a very vague jumbled memory. This could range from a few mins to a few hours but it was gone.

I'm back at uni in my 30s retraining for a new career and I'm really struggling with what feels like a brain that totally incapable of storing any new information. I use flashcards which do sometimes help but it gets to the point where within a matter of 30 sec I've forgotten the answer to a card I've just looked at.

I have been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD recently and am now on medication for that. It has improved my mood and I'm certainly not exhausted like I used to be but it has done little or nothing for my memory or my tendancy to procrastinate.

I've always assumed it was down to my CP and being essentially brain-damaged from birth but I just wondered if anyone else has a similar experience and if you managed to find the magic solution to getting a normal memory? Thanks!!

I like to go through lectures and distill it down to the key information as I find these often a lot of padding. I know people who use AI for this, also to make questions and revision aids. In my experience everything I’ve used hasn’t been reliable enough. It either misses key information or misunderstands it.

I appreciate this is the just the nature of the beast with AI but I just wondered if anyone had found one that is reliable?

My favourite TV Holmes is definitely Jeremy Brett, but my original exposure to SH was listening to the BBC radio adaptations with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams. Some might argue that Merrison's Holmes was sometimes too "normal" but I love both of their performances and deep down he is still the Holmes I have in my head when I read the books. Is it just me?

Also, IMO the best telling of The Final Problem

Which is the best value exercise bike with a screen?

I’d love to try making an end-grain board but all the videos I’ve seen have people using a ton of expensive kit including a thickness planer. Do I need a planer?
I have a small circular saw, a small compound mitre, and an orbital sander

When trying to distill down the ridiculous info dumps we get given in lectures into something vaguely manageable - I'm always told the same thing - "use the learning objectives, provided you can answer them you won't get any surprises in the exams". Does anyone have an experience of this working for them?

My main problem with this advice is two-fold. Firstly, over the course of the year we are given something along the lines of 1500-2000 LOs so focussing on them doesn't seem overly to reduce the workload, but mostly it's that they can be interpreted multiple different ways and so "how much is enough"? Most of the LOs we are given could be answered with 2 sentences or 20 pages depending upon how you interpret them.

For example: "Describe the blood supply to the abdominal wall" or "Explain how deficits in motor function can be used to estimate the location of damage to the motor system"

If you find that using the LOs actually works - can you explain your process and how you choose to interpret them? Sorry if this seems like an obvious question - thanks guys!

Hi,

First thing to say is I'm actually a vet student but the vet student sub doesn't get much traffic and I figured my question would apply just as much to you guys.

When trying to distill down the ridiculous info dumps we get given in lectures into something vaguely manageable - I'm always told the same thing - "use the learning objectives, provided you can answer them you won't get any surprises in the exams". Does anyone have an experience of this working for them?

My main problem with this advice is two-fold. Firstly, over the course of the year we are given something along the lines of 1500-2000 LOs so focussing on them doesn't seem overly to reduce the workload, but mostly it's that they can be interpreted multiple different ways and so "how much is enough"? Most of the LOs we are given could be answered with 2 sentences or 20 pages depending upon how you interpret them.

For example: "Describe the blood supply to the abdominal wall" or "Explain how deficits in motor function can be used to estimate the location of damage to the motor system"

If you find that using the LOs actually works - can you explain your process and how you choose to interpret them? Sorry if this seems like an obvious question - thanks guys!

Hi all, despite the slightly click-baity title I am genuinely looking for advice. I apologise that this is long but I want to give you the important info. Thank you to anyone who makes it to the end. I'm not fishing for compliments or doing that thing where you say you think you'll fail just so you can get an ego boost when everyone says you wont. If I say something is a certain way, I promise it is.

I'm from the UK. My academic record is distinctly average, I was never a top of class person. As much as I love science it never came naturally to me, I always say "I have a humanities brain that I force to do science". I'm in 2nd year of vet school after doing a foundation year, I'm a mature student who's moving on from a career in human healthcare. I applied thinking "well if I don't get in at least I've tried, and if I do get in they obviously think I'm capable."

All my life I've struggled with a poor memory, it's not that I forget where I've been or who I've spoken to but I struggle to remember details and particularly numbers. I'm the person who will look at something and think "ah yes I must take that with me when I leave" then will leave 2 mins later and not bring it. This was demonstrated over multiple education psychologist assessments. It has always made revision difficult because I can revise something today, and within a few hours I'm already starting to forget or misremember details, and within 24-48hrs I will struggle to recall most of what I revised (I remember doing it, and I remember in a very basic sense, what I studied canine forelimb, or ectoparasites for eg, but I am very unsure of what was what, or any details, if that makes sense). I have found similar problems with my human healthcare job - I forget to do certain things, even if it's something I've done a 100 times before, and struggle to recall facts. My job is very clinical and autonomous and it really undermines your confidence when you never know if you've forgotten something important.

I got through exams in the past by doing past papers, the repeatition reinfored things enough that pattern recognition got me the rest of the way. Also, I generally find concepts easier to remember than plain facts.

Vet school has been a real struggle. I have still not found the sweet spot of how to work. I think the best way for me to work in a perfect world is to write my own notes based on the lecture slides to distill out the important information rephrased in a way I can easily understand. Then make a combination of flashcards, posters or "mix and match games" to reinforce it. I tried this in 1st year but the volume of content meant I simply didn't have the time and I'd get to the exam period having only just finished writing my flashcards but not having time to study any of them. I somehow passed 1st year, though a combination of getting lucky on some exams and being able to draw upon my existing knowledge from humans. 2nd year has been even worse because the content has been much more about learning facts rather than concepts (eg: individual parasites or diseases). I still work 15hrs a week which doesn't help either.

In 2nd year I decided to focus on making my revision aids (mostly flashcards) early and therefore hopefully having time to practice. I took pre-existing flashcards (from VetRevise) and studied them each day. The problem with this approach was a) there were an average of 30-40 cards per lecture which combined with the amount of content, means even now I'm only getting to studying stuff from January! b) they're written by other people so often I don't always understand what they're asking, c) you end up learning a series of isolated facts without a greater over-arching view which can help understanding, d) the volume means even ones I've seen multiple times don't stick. Basically one way I end up with revision aids that work but no time left to study them, and the other I end up studying from resources that don't work.

I'm now faced with going into the exam season in the next few weeks woefully under-prepared. We've had some revision sessions this week and everyone else is debating with each other the finer details of the content and I don't even have the first clue what they're talking about (and I don't hang out with the proper brain-boxes).

Basically, I fully expect to fail these exams, nor do I think I deserve to pass considering how little I actually know. I might be able to scrape through the resits in August with enough revision but even if I do I just feel like I'm on a downward trajectory. 1st year was tough, this year has been even harder, and if this is such a struggle is it even worth doing the rest of the course if by some miracle I get through? I just feel so behind compared to literally everyone else and the worst part is I don't know what to do about it. Do I really want to qualify into a career like veterinary if I don't have even a basic foundational knowledge that I can rely on? Do I really want to put myself in a position where I need to do surgery when I can't consistently remember basic anatomy or have confidence that I'll remember important parts of the procedure?

Sorry for such a long post but I don't know who else to get advice from. Everyone else I've asked either says "you'll be fine, you always say you'll fail and you always get through" (which isn't true incidentally) or they say "everyone feels this way, it's just what vet school is like" but that doesn't account for why everyone else is able to debate whether a certain muscle is innovated by nerve A or nerve B and yet I don't even know which muscle it is.

Does anyone have any advice? Should I carry on or is this just a sunk-cost fallacy where I'm throwing good money and time after bad? Is it time to admit that I'm just one of those people who isn't capable? If you do think I should carry on, do you have ANY advice on how to cope with the workload and still be able to have the time to revise in the kind of way I need to? Has anyone found a reliable way of revising things like parasites, diseases and other "plain facts"?

Thank you so much

ps: I have spoken to the vet school about the above, they basically say "everyone finds it hard" and "you just need to get to Year 4 and the clinical part then you'll be fine"

I'd love a big green egg but can't afford it - has anyone found a budget version that is any good? I've been burnt before (no pun) by "buy cheap, buy twice"

I've always used a charcoal WSM but I am slightly envious of other forms that seem to give more control and don't need as much "hand holding". At the same time I see that "hand holding" as part of the skill. I'm thinking of moving on from my WSM and am wondering where to go. Just wondered if you had a particular type you prefer or recommend?

Edit: to clarify, I don't have an opinion one way or the other, I'm just curious if the community considers all types to be equal

(Before I say anything else, I know the arguments against clumping cat litter)

I recently rescued a cat and he has been on clumping litter before coming (Biokitty). I like it quite a lot, it doesn’t spread too much and it’s easy to pick. The only problem is it’s relatively expensive and it’s bentonite. I’ve tried a cheaper natural product but it just doesn’t clump nearly as well.

Any recommendations for a safe, odour controlling and not stupidly expensive clumping litter?

I'm a student a Liverpool and looking ahead to 5th year. I'm a mature student who's coming to veterinary after a previous career. At the moment I work two shifts/week at my old job (Wednesday afternoon and a weekend day) in order to give me the money to live (I get a student loan too).

At Liverpool our 5th year is 100% rotations and it's basically a full-time job and I'm told we could be working any time of the day, any day of the week. That being the case I don't know how I'm going to be able to carry on working during 5th year but without working I won't be able to afford to stay on the course.

I just wondered if any other UK students had had the same issue and how you had got around it?

Thanks

ps: if there are any Liverpool grads who can give me more an idea of how full-on 5th year is that would be great

Seen some adverts on FB marketplace but they look a bit dodge. Any recommendations?