Academics
Pre-Vet Intern Tests Farm Life
Most college students don't look forward to spending the summer waking up at 3 a.m. to perform manual labor but for Tonie Domino '08 it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Tonie, a biology major who plans to become a large-animal veterinarian, participated in a 12-week internship at the Heart's Delight dairy farm at the William H. Miner Agricultural Institute in upstate New York.
"We basically did everything that needed to happen for the farm to run," she said. "We helped milk the cows, helped deliver calves, and administered vaccinations and other treatments if cows were sick. We drove tractors and helped when they were getting the hay in, and we fed the calves each morning."
In addition to their farm duties, the interns were paired with calves that they trained and showed at the county fair.
"I named my calf Cricket because when we pulled her out of the group pen and put her in her individual pen for the first time, she jumped right out," Tonie recalled. "She became really friendly and really fun to work with by the time the fair rolled around."
Cricket won a 6th place ribbon, and Tonie, who maintained a blog during the internship, came away with unique experiences that will help her fulfill her dream of becoming a veterinarian.
"Veterinary school admissions want you to have a breadth of experience with animals," she said. Though she'd shadowed veterinarians before, Tonie's intensive work on the dairy farm—especially learning to drive a tractor—took her outside her comfort zone.
"It definitely changed my perspective," said Tonie, a life-long equestrian who always expected to work with horses. After spending the summer with cows, however, she's focusing her senior capstone on mastitis, a common udder infection, and when she becomes a practicing vet, she hopes to work with both cows and horses.
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