Dr. Shawn Kinser- Veterinarian. Parasitology, Pet Care, and CrossFit (#27)

Andrew: [00:00:20] Hello, everybody. Welcome back to dead by tomorrow. We have yet another special guest. We're really getting the guests in this year. So 20, 21 COVID this is how we're keeping up with all of our friends. So we have Dr. Sean Kinzer with us. He is a veterinarian here in Amarillo and kind of a, newer friend of mine at least post-college.

So I'm excited to get into this with Sean. So, Sean, thank you for coming on. We're really excited to have you on. You want to give us a little bit about what you do, how you became a vet, where you live, all that kind of stuff and where you have lived and anything you're feeling, man.

Shawn: [00:00:54] Yeah. Sure. Thanks guys.

Well, yeah, I've been a vet since 2015, graduated from Oklahoma state university. I was born in the DFW area, but moved to Oklahoma when I was young. And went to Oklahoma state for undergrad and vet school.

And that's where I met my wife, Rachel. She was also an OSU, a vet school grad graduated in after I finished school, we both moved back to Amarillo. That's where I met Andrew through a series of Rachel's friends. And uh, yeah, it's been history ever since.

Daniel: [00:01:26] no, that's that's awesome, Sean. So DFW. Then Oklahoma then Amarillo, that's almost, if we don't count Oklahoma, that's almost like the reverse of kind of what I did. So I'm curious, somebody who I guess has grown up and spent a lot of time in Oklahoma.

Can you give me just a little bit of a rundown on that state? Because I feel like Texas people generally don't like Oklahoma that much think it's kind of like trashy. And so is that true?

Shawn: [00:01:56] I think to some degree that might be a little bit true. You know, I was thinking about this the past couple of days, why there's so much animosity between the two States. And I really think it comes down to the football with the OU and Texas rivalry. That's the only thing I could think of that.

Well, I guess one of the few things that people really passionately. Care about, and, probably a hundred years, you've had the red river rivalry and you know, sometimes Texas is good. Sometimes Oklahoma is good. And I think that really is, it gets down to the heart of it. I went to Oklahoma state, so I despise OU with every fiber of my being.

So I actually do cheer for Texas when they play. Ooh. So. I kind of fall into I claim that I have dual citizenship of Texas and Oklahoma, cause I was born in Texas, but there's still a, definitely a soft spot in my heart for Oklahoma.

Daniel: [00:02:46] Soft spot, just because of going to school there or are there like, are there redeeming qualities to Oklahoma? Like what what's going on with that state?

Shawn: [00:02:57] I feel like there is, I spent so many summers when I was a kid there and I have lots of family in this. Tiny little town that we would visit. And it was 700 people and I was related to half of them. But Oklahoma has a whole, besides Tulsa and Oklahoma city and maybe Lawton, it's just rural, besides that it's still waters, you know, fun college town, Norman, where Oklahoma is it's, it's kind of like a suburb of Oklahoma city.

So you're still very urban, I guess. But besides that, the rest of the state is super rural Eastern Oklahoma, which is where I spend a lot of time is, I mean, there's a small mountain range there. The Wichita mountains, there's beautiful trees and rivers and stuff you can do there. It's, it's very green and nothing like him or hello.

Daniel: [00:03:40] I was, I was hoping you would touch on that a little bit because that's. That's been my experience with Oklahoma is yeah, like there's a part of it. That's basically Amarillo, which is. Not, I mean, I can say it cause I'm from there not great. And then Oklahoma, you know, everybody, at least from Texas definitely thinks of the football rivalry.

I feel like the other thing people think about as tornadoes, right? Like being tornado alley, but there's also a lot of really pretty stuff in Oklahoma. There's some great fishing and hiking and things like that. I just feel like a lot of times that gets overlooked. whenever we think about that state.

Andrew: [00:04:16] Well, let me jump in real quick on the Oklahoma thing, because it has almost been exactly a year since tiger King came out and we can't discount that we have a vet here from Oklahoma and we're at the year anniversary of whatever Oklahoma did there. So I just want to throw that out there too, that, that brought a lot of joy to a lot of people and.

Maybe that tells us a little bit about Sean's backstory.

Shawn: [00:04:39] Believe it or not. I, I never saw tiger King. I didn't jump on that train for some reason. I have been to one of those roadside tiger Safari zoos, I guess you'd say. And it's pretty cool. However, I did see this new show Called trafficked. It was a documentary series, I think, on Nat geo.

And they went into the tiger trade and how pretty shady that businesses and that kind of changed kind of opened my eyes to what really goes on in that industry, which is kind of scary and kind of, kind of shady. But  yeah, I missed out on the tiger King thing. I saw the means though, and it, it looks pretty hilarious.

It, it does, I was not surprised that was an Oklahoma that looks very Oklahoma from what I could see.

Daniel: [00:05:17] Yeah, no kidding.

So you're a vet. Now, have you ever treated a tiger?

Shawn: [00:05:29] I have not. I saw one in school. When I was on a, different rotation, it was there for, I wasn't even sure why it was there. It was kind of across the hospital that I saw it. Well, what I do is just dogs and small cats, no big cats or exotics.

Daniel: [00:05:46] Fair enough. with being a vet, what are some of the. Like, I, I feel like in any profession, you've got crazy story, crazy situation sort of stuff. And so as a vet, like what have been some of the more interesting, crazy cases you've seen.

Shawn: [00:06:02] Oh, wait. Yeah, we see the whole spectrum of emergencies and trauma. You know, porcupine encounters were always fun. Cause you come in with a dog's head looking like a pin cushion. You see people walk in the front door with no shoes on just looking for help because their dog is sick. I mean you see limbs almost removed from being hit by cars.

These giant tumors that people said popped up overnight, but we know really that didn't happen. And then we've to clean up the mess. Yeah, it's, it's something new every single day. And that's one of the cool parts about the job is you go come in the front door and within about 30 seconds, you could be hit with something you've never seen before.

Andrew: [00:06:39] That actually sounds kind of depressing. But I mean, it's really cool work. But to me, like I like animals and that sounds hard for me to be able to kind of deal with like, Oh, here's a dog that's dying. I just got hit by a car. Here's this mutilated cat or all the different animals you guys see, or, you know, Oh, I've got to put your horse down that kind of stuff.

So let me jump into your career side of it. With you becoming a vet was to say, Hey, I love animals and I should become a vet. Is that a good enough reason? Or did you have to kind of reach deeper and have a different reason for becoming a vet? And with that said, is it a good idea for someone who loves animals too, pursue that kind of career path?

Shawn: [00:07:19] A question we get all the time, especially from like undergrad students that come shadow with us. We tell them when they're. Writing applications and essays and all that. Don't say you want to come become a veterinarian because you love animals. This is very cliche and you do have to love animals to do this career.

But the reason I got into it is I really love medicine in the broad sense. I really wanted to go to medical school for a long time. Plastic surgery was kind of what I had my mind on. And then once I got a little bit older into high school and kind of got exposed to what medicine looks like, and honestly, people kind of grossed me out.

About the same time I started working for the local vet in my town. Who's a mixed animal practitioner. His son and daughter are both veterinarians and his son is married to a veterinarian and they were just the nicest, coolest people. And I got to work out there for a few summers in high school and just fell in love with the profession.

It kind of, scratch that itch of doing medicine and doing stuff outside. You don't have as much bureaucracy when you're dealing, you know, as far as human medicine and dealing with hospitals and insurance and all that stuff. it's definitely a career that provides a lot of freedom, but if you're a person who really likes medicine and a problem solving.

It's that that's really what drew me to it. And just I've discovered a lot of different things that I love about it. A lot of people go into it thinking, Oh, I don't like people I'll just deal with animals all day long, but something I quickly learned is that behind almost every animal, there's an owner that you need to.

Deal with, and problem solve with and convince to do certain treatments or so you really have to figure out how to communicate with people. Well, yeah, that's, that's really what drew me into vet med

Daniel: [00:08:53] Yeah, that that totally makes sense. And I think that's a great point to bring up is yeah, you're, you're treating animals, but you are. It's still 100% working with the owners and it does take that same kind of communication method that almost like bedside manner aspect. And so I think that's a great aspect.

And you mentioned earlier that plastic surgery was something you were kind of thinking you were interested in. Is there such a thing as a plastic surgeon for animals?

Shawn: [00:09:25] you can do post-grad training to be a board certified surgeon, which they'll do the gambit of surgeries for For veterinary medicine. There's a lot of surgeries that we do that you could consider plastic surgery like Bulldogs or moving some extra skin around their face, help them breathe better or see better.

You know, a lot of the mass removals, you can consider plastic surgery, we'll remove eye lid, tumors. That's really kind of the stuff that a plastic surgeon would do. So I still kind of get to do some of that stuff that I, I liked initially from a long time ago. And that's the cool thing about being a veterinarian is if you want to do it as a general practitioner, you don't have to be boarded in something.

If you're fine with the challenge of trying to learn the surgery and going through the training to do it, you can do it. As much as you would like.

Daniel: [00:10:10] Gotcha. And so it sounds like with veterinarians, there, there is a lot more of kind of that freedom on what you're practicing and those types of things. And so I know there are benefits to that for sure. But then, maybe a disadvantage would be as a, pet owner. Like how do I know. That my vet is going to be, you know, a really great vet and, you know, if my dog needs a surgery, they're going to be somebody that has done that a lot of times.

And like, it's going to be a success. Like how do I find some of that sort of stuff out as a pet owner?

Shawn: [00:10:43] Yeah, it can be difficult. Whenever I see something that is outside of my wheelhouse or experience level, I'm more than happy to refer them to somebody who's. A boarded surgeon. And I do that almost every day. Probably. There are some practitioners I've run, ever run into who try and do things outside of their expertise and wheelhouse, and it can have some bad outcomes.

But stuff is more complicated. Like some orthopedic surgeries, bone fractures ligament repairs. Those sorts of things. If you have access to a higher level of care, like at a referral center, I always try and push that option and give people the option of gold standard. Something we run into a lot is here in Amarillo.

We have zero boarded that Neri is in anything, dermatology, surgery, oncology, internal medicine, nothing like it. But so there's, there's some pros and cons of that that allows us to do some things that. You know, if people can't travel or don't want to travel, don't want to take on the edit costs of going to a boarded that Nerian and they just want to give us a shot to do something sometimes we're like, okay, we can give this a shot and do our best and see how it turns out.

That's not for everybody, but some people want to do that because they don't want to travel to Dallas or Oklahoma city or Albuquerque for more specialized facility. we do see a lot of cases that allow us to do some things that, a small animal general practitioner in Dallas.

They've got a surgeon down the road every few blocks and they can send them to send one of their clients there, but they never, they might never get to do those more difficult, challenging surgeries in Iowa. For example,

Andrew: [00:12:15] that is a. It's a contrast to allow medicine works on humans, I guess. So it's kind of cool that you guys get to, sharpen your skills in an environment that you might not get to in traditional medicine, because. Taking those kinds of risks with a human would be probably more frowned upon than with somebody's pet, which some people obviously love their pets.

Okay. Most people obviously love their pets. I don't really know anyone who has a pet that they're taking to the vet that they're not like, Hey, I really do to help this animal that I absolutely hate, but the risks are. Might've gained without that, you know, human level sentience. So it's kind of cool that you get all these different experiences and I don't have a better way to say it.

So we'll just leave it at experience because I don't want to less than what you guys do. So that's pretty exciting.

Now I'm going to change topics on you real quick. Cause I like abrupt topic changes

this is a kind of stressful career because even if somebody maybe loves their pet a little bit less than they love their husband losing a pet or something going poorly, obviously will still take a mental toll on you. So I know you just got into CrossFit, is that part of the work-life balance, trying to, de-load from that.

Has it had any effects on your like work-life balance or do you just like working out and tell me a little bit about CrossFit what's been going on there.

Shawn: [00:13:34] Excellent segue there, Andrew. This is something that I was hoping would kind of come up in the course of our conversation. So mental health in the veterinary field is something that's really been a priority in the whole industry for the past, probably 10 years. You may not know this, but veterinarians have one of the highest rates of suicide among professionals.

I think we've been taught three for a long, long time dentists are way up there too. And there's a lot of theories as to why that is. I think it's. Usually dealing with life or death situations with, with, you know, beans, they can't really understand what's going on. That's tough to, to carry that load, you run into a lot of situations where people don't have the finances to treat their animal the way that you would love to.

Or they don't want to, you know, they don't want to go through the hassle of caring for animals, the way that they should. I know that can take a toll on a lot of people. Most veterinarians have a really poor work-life balance. They're usually type a people who in a perfectionist and a lot of veterinary medicine is doing less than perfect.

Not, not less than perfect work, but less than what you would ideally like to do. A lot of another, I think another big factor in it is a lot of veterinarians come out with a exorbitant amount of student loans, but they come into a career field that does not pay the same as say, a medical doctor or a dentist or an orthodontist.

Chiropractor. Most of us come out with at least six figures in student loans. And the last time I looked, the average income was about 70 to 80,000 nationwide. So that can, that can be a heavy toll on a lot of it and Ariens. Yeah, Andrew mentioned, I got into CrossFit recently. I did drink the Kool-Aid and doing this for about six weeks and it was really I needed to kind of throw some gasoline on that fire and try something different.

Cause it was kind of getting stagnant as far as training goes. After like Andrew originally for getting me into really being passionate about fitness hammer Sunday was like a big catalyst for that. And I was a lot of good times spent swinging hammers a tractor tire. So. Thank you very much for that, Andrew.

Absolutely. Uh, Yeah. Krause has been a lot of fun. It's the barbell high intensity stuff has just been a lot of fun and I'm kind of addicted to it now. So yeah, looking forward to keep training and get better at that.

Andrew: [00:15:45] it's kind of funny, you know, we had Austin on recently. We've got Sean on Daniels, you know, co-host here. All of my friends are a lot bigger than I am. So I think what I'm actually trying to do is I'm trying to get all of you guys to look like these giant meat shields and, you know, secretly one day, maybe I'll get to become like a super villain or something. I'll have this army of Jack six foot plus dudes running around and you guys will home in your life cause you got six packs or something.

So, so that's the goal there, but You've been hitting the CrossFit. You've been doing the fitness on and off. Does that help with all of that stress that you've been having? Or is it just kind of a part of being a human? Yeah. You've got your work life and then separately, you're like, Hey, I also need to be physical.

Shawn: [00:16:24] Yeah. It, it really does help me decompress. I've been going to the 5:00 AM class, which was hell at first, but I've found that if the hardest part of my day is over and done with by 6:00 AM. The rest of the day, can't be that bad if I'm on the verge of puking. And by the time it's five 30 in the morning, nothing else can really shake me the rest of the day.

Daniel: [00:16:45] Yeah, that's, a. Good. Theoretically, I don't think I'll ever be able to, to follow through with something like that. I definitely admire the people that are willing to get up in the morning and do their workouts. That's just, it just makes me angry. Unfortunately, Andrew, I feel like, you found out the same about yourself, right?

Andrew: [00:17:02] yeah, man. I will try. And I'm probably about to start trying again, because Colton who we're going to have on. I think the summer, which is a ways out, but he got a gym membership down here and he wants to work out in the morning. So I'm gonna give it another try, but we're uh, what, 10 years on this road?

Probably more than that. And I have yet to be able to stay consistent on morning cause they just. They steal my soul. If I'm going to take a Goggins quote out of here, you know, you're supposed to be out there stealing other people's souls, but just waking up. I'm like, well, there goes my soul the morning.

Got it. I have no, I have nothing to steal from anybody else because I already lost. So yeah. I am not a morning person. I don't know how Sean does it. He was doing it forever too. Like, this is not his first rodeo with the mornings. I remember we were both at the town club. He was hitting these like freaking 5:00 AM classes and I'll set my alarm at five and.

you know, death or dishonor. I choose death. I, I choose the death over getting out of bed at five in the morning. I will die first.

Daniel: [00:17:55] Yeah. So kudos to you, Sean. Is it okay with. With CrossFit. I'm curious, what are some of your, your current goals? Cause I I've never done CrossFit, so I don't know if it's like, yeah, I'm trying to hit this certain one rep max or I'm trying to, you know, be able to do a certain number of reps that wait. So like, what are some of the goals that you have right now?

Shawn: [00:18:12] right now, it's just survival and trying to be trying to get there. I have zero athletic background whatsoever. I've done a little bit of like powerlifting just in my own time, some mild high intensity stuff. On my own. Yeah. Right now I'm just trying to get to a level of cardio where I can.

Do do the prescribed weights and times I have been introduced to Olympic lifting through this CrossFit class, which is very satisfying and a lot of fun. I love the, the technical details of your form and the mechanics of doing the list. Right. I'm really rather frustrated with the uh, like snatch lift right now.

Well, I'm snatching like probably 90 pounds, which is horrible, but that's one that I tend to be drawn towards things that I'm really bad at. And just having the attitude I'm going to get better at this. So that's one that kind of in the back of my mind, I like to get better at snatching. But yeah, really I'm nowhere near fit right now, but it has seen small improvements in the six weeks I've been doing this.

Daniel: [00:19:12] So if you're drawn towards things that you're bad at Is that where you're just trying to get to a point where you're kind of good at things across the board. And like once you've achieved a certain goal, then you're, going towards something else that you're bad at. I guess I'm just curious, because I'm a little bit of the opposite in that I hate doing things that I'm bad at.

It drives me crazy. And so I tend to more just stick with a thing that I'm good at, and I don't try as many new things. So do you feel like that means that you try a lot of new things because of that?

Shawn: [00:19:42] I think so. Yeah. I'm always looking for a new challenge. And right now it's CrossFit. I don't think my personality has bent towards being the best or being a true master of something. Right now, CrossFit I'm terrible at. So that's kind of what my, one of my goals are, is getting better at that.

I don't think I'll be, competing but really, I just want to be competent right now, nowhere near that it may be, a year, it'd be five years before I become competent at the different workouts and lifts. But you know, if, if at some point I get comfortable with where I'm at in CrossFit, you know, maybe it's.

Spartan races or marathons or something after that,

Daniel: [00:20:18] yeah. Come do a Spartan race with us. I mean, assuming those happen again.

Andrew: [00:20:21] you'll leave me out of that. I don't know for me. We'll see if I, if I fall for one of those again,

Daniel: [00:20:26] Andrew.

Andrew: [00:20:27] you're right. I have to, and you'll just will have to put me down if my knee blows again and somebody runs by and there's this big, Sean, what are you like? Six, four, six, four. You got this big six, four. Guy. And then there's Daniel and there's me on the ground.

They're choking me out and they're like, don't worry about it. Yes. For this.  

So it's funny that you mentioned the snatches because I have absolutely loved them. They are the worst thing that has been created in the fitness industry. And I just texted Daniel a couple days ago because I just started hybrid performances.

Little program they've got, and I was like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to give this a shot. And I opened up the first week, very first exercise of the first day snatches. And I was like, Oh, a gun texted Danielle. I was like, I just started a new program there, snatches pray for me. And there's the snatches every day, every dang day, this program on seven days in, I had to do a snatch every time I've worked out.

So I'm with you. Those are super hard. Ugh. Anyways enough, ranting on the snatches. You wanted to go medical and again, abrupt changes. I like them. So you wanted to go medical you kind of plugged in with a person that you looked at as a inspiring figure. So you looked at this person that you were like, Hey, this is a, a person that I aspire to be, and they're a vet.

Therefore I'd like to go veterinary. So it wasn't a, you know, animals are great. I want to go help. Animals is more, I want to do medical. And this is a Avenue that I want to do medical. So with that said, do you think that is traditional for a lot of people that become veterinarians? Or was that a special case for you?

Like your wife was, you know, the other way Rachel was like, yo, I love cats or dogs. Rachel's definitely a dog person. I know her. And she, she wanted to go help animals. And you're an exception there, or what are people who are looking for that? What are they usually going for? And then also, because I like to ask a lot of questions at once and really confuse people Do you think there's an age limit?

Could somebody, you know, 25, want to change careers and go become a vet? Even though apparently you guys don't get paid as well as probably the rest of us. Thank you.

Shawn: [00:22:36] Yeah. I think from my experience, I'm kind of outside the norm, as far as people who want to become veterinarians, most people from the time they're five years old to graduate high school.

They're like, I want to be a veterinarian. I didn't really make that decision until junior or senior year of high school. Most people lock in on that train and they're in on veterans medicine from the time they were little kids. As far as, you know, jumping into the veterinary field later in life we had a couple of people that were in my class.

One was 45. He was a mechanic for 20 years, I think. And then there's decided he wanted me to become a veterinarian. And he's the one, he was one of the top people in our class. I mean, if you have the I guess work ethic to some degree, the intelligence to, get into veterinary school, it's definitely something that you could jump into later on in life.

it's tough taking on that amount of student loans, which most, probably 80% of people have to do. But yeah, it's, it's something that I saw happened plenty of times during my four years of vet school. Older people changing careers and get into the field and be very successful at it.

Daniel: [00:23:42] Okay, Sean, we're in the middle of March madness, which I think is one of the most fun sports times of the year. And partially because I love basketball, but also I just think it's exciting. And so I know you went to Oklahoma state, you're a big fan of sports over there. I want to hear a little bit about Cade Cunningham because I haven't watched them all year.

He's supposed to be like the number one draft picks. So tell me about Cade. Tell me why you think the the Cowboys are going to win at all.

Shawn: [00:24:11] I Daniel, I agree with you. A hundred percent. March madness is probably my second favorite, I guess, postseason sporting event behind bowl games for college football. I have to be honest, I don't watch a lot of college basketball. I've never been a big basketball guy. But when March madness rolls around, I'm filling out a bracket and me and my wife are we're talking a lot of trash right now cause we've got our own, you know, in our household has a league.

And uh, I think she's beating me right now, which is pretty much what happens every single year.

Daniel: [00:24:42] You don't have to admit that out loud.

Shawn: [00:24:44] There you go. World. My wife, six games better than I do a hundred percent. She beats me in bowl games every year, too. I don't know why. Yeah. Kay. I didn't hear about Kate Cunningham until this past season.

Probably about the halfway through the basketball season. I don't know a lot about evaluating college players. It always blows my mind. They can say, Oh, this guy is going. Number one, overall in NBA, NBA draft, I've been watching him in the tournament and. I guess, I don't know what I'm looking at as far as evaluating basketball players, but they keep saying that he is so clutch and he's a good distributor of the ball.

It makes everybody around him better. So if he's number one, pit good for him. I, I hope we go deep in the tournament, but I keep low expectations because there's always the classic poke joke is what we call it. It happens a bowl games every year happens with our football team. So I think I had them going out.

I think I had them winning this round and then going out the next round,

Daniel: [00:25:36] I gotta ask, like where does Rachel have them? Cause that's probably the more likely scenario, right?

Shawn: [00:25:42] even more pessimistic, even about OSU, any, any OSU team she's like, Oh no, they're not making it. I think she had them going out this round. But I'm kind of a Homer. I always pick the Dallas Cowboys. I always pick OSU to win. But I, I try and be a little bit realistic when it comes to a tournament like this.

Daniel: [00:25:58] that's why I feel like it's actually pretty rare that the team with the number one draft pick or whatever the projected number one draft pick actually wins the tournament. So

Shawn: [00:26:07] Yeah. Who was wasn't Xi'an wasn't he did. He played for Kansas and they didn't go very deep.

Daniel: [00:26:13] It was it was Duke. I think they may have

made it to like the sweet 16 or something like that.

But

Yeah. It never quite seemed to work out and Zaylon was a freak watching him. So I that's where I was kind of curious if Cade was one of these people were UCM and you're just like, Oh, that's a, that's a freak of nature type

track02: [00:26:30] of

Daniel: [00:26:30] player.

Shawn: [00:26:30] I've never thought that about them. He looks pretty, run of the mill, but it sounds like he's a pretty good facilitator and ball distributor.

Daniel: [00:26:38] Gotcha. Fair enough, Andrew didn't even actually complete his bracket, so you're doing better than him.

Shawn: [00:26:43] Okay.

Andrew: [00:26:43] You know what? Yahoo is very confusing and there were no instructions. And

Daniel: [00:26:48] kids capital one.

Andrew: [00:26:49] well, now we know what the problem was is don't wait, I didn't know what was happening. It all said the bracket closes at like two hours. I was like, Oh, I forgot about that. Opened it up. It didn't tell me what to do. I was like, I must be doing this right.

Because. Yeah, I played fantasy football for the record. I won fantasy football this year. I was the champion and I was like, Oh, I'm good at this now. And this doesn't look like anything's going on. So yeah, I missed the bracket apparently. I screwed the pooch on that one guys.

All right. Before we go too deep down this uh, basketball hole, because I can't keep up with these conversations outside of, uh, being a scapegoat. Before we wrap up, we usually offer the stories and that kind of stuff. Do you have anything that you, like, I got to tell you guys about this, the world needs to know Sean's story here, or, cause I don't remember you and Daniel actually meeting, even though y'all both said that y'all had met multiple times, I just don't remember it.

Was that really like a terrible experience and I'm blacking out or do you have anything for us?

Shawn: [00:27:48] I think I've met Daniel or run into him a couple of times. One at roaster's over in Georgia. And playing volleyball. I forget what park that is. Southwest. Maybe a couple of times Daniel's reputation proceeded him as the the Frisbee guy and freak athletes. That's, that's kinda, that's kinda one sentence overview of what I knew about Daniel pretty much.

Daniel: [00:28:07] Hey, I'll take it.

Shawn: [00:28:08] But yeah, that was as far as stories go. How I met Andrew was friends that my wife knew from high school and Andrew got together hammer Sunday, and we got invited to go do that, which is kind of a uh, I guess, high intensity intervals with different stations that included monkey bars and sledgehammers dips.

And this is all at the Amarillo high school, I don't know what you'd call it area. They had a bunch of equipment out there, which we just. I don't know if anybody asked permission, but we just used it

Andrew: [00:28:36] forgiveness, not

Shawn: [00:28:37] permission. But yeah, that was, gosh, we did that every Sunday for a few months.

Back before we had kids and didn't have as much obligation as we do now. But we met so many people once I moved back to Amarillo through that, and it was just a really cool time. Suffering together, which I really think is one of the best ways to build relationship is suffering together.

Daniel: [00:28:56] So thinking back on humorous Sunday, I went to a couple of them and I know that generally. There was kind of the normal circuit, but I think Andrew would try to every now and then throw like a fun activity at the end, which I don't know that we ever actually did any of those at the time I came. So thanks for that.

But what were some of the like more fun things that stood out? I feel like I saw pictures of y'all doing like relays and like Frisbee and stuff like that.

Shawn: [00:29:24] Yeah, no, we played ultimate Frisbee a couple of times. The one that came to my mind immediately was fireman carrying one of your, your partner down the practice field. There. And throwing your sledgehammer, like battleax style as far as you can. That that's, that was pretty awesome.

Andrew: [00:29:41] I remember one of the ones that I think Sean might be suppressing or too humble to talk about is I think he dominated we had a, battle Royale, I guess you could call it where. We essentially had two teams and there, I think we were using tires as like the flags it's like capture the flag, battle Royale with tires.

I like these big tires and there was only one flag. So you could like fight over the tire and as long as you maintain possession of it, you're okay. And I think, I think Sean might have killed a couple people.

Shawn: [00:30:10] I think I might've thrown the tire over an arm, like a belt of ammunition at one point, and just ran down the field and in pure chaos and passion,

Daniel: [00:30:19] see, I never got to come do any of these. I'm upset. Maybe Andrew, maybe he need to play in like a hammer Sunday reunion or something like that.

Shawn: [00:30:26] that's what you get for living in a place like Dallas. I mean, really Amarillo is honestly better than

Andrew: [00:30:31] Dallas.

Daniel: [00:30:32] What I mean, I know you live there, so like, there's this whole thing of, you know, you gotta keep yourself happy and everything like that, but,

Let's not get carried away.

Andrew: [00:30:42] I don't know we got that Canyon, maybe. Sean's right. You know, it's nice to have somebody on my side for once. Do you have any from vet school or, you know, college or anything that you're like, Oh yeah, this is a wild time. That definitely should show that I was going to become a vet or probably should have signaled that I should not actually be allowed to be around sharp objects, but she still made it through,

Shawn: [00:31:03] a couple of came to mind immediately one day during fourth year, which is when we do all our clinical rotations we were doing.

I was watching a certain kind of Lama actually with a broken leg. And the, the resident who was playing this llamas broken leg was, was drilling one of the holes that would eventually hold the screw in the, in the plate to the, the llamas leg drilling through one side of the bone. You kind of pop through and hit the other side of the bone.

And then there's another pop when he goes to that side on the second pop. The, the resonant drops the drill and pulls his hand into his chest. And he's like, I just drove through my finger. He went from one side of the bone to the other, through his finger which was shocking, but hilarious at the same time.

And there's a lot of good stories from vet school. We did go. Price check a bunch of cows at a prison. One time in Oklahoma. Town in Eastern Oklahoma called McAlester, there is a state penitentiary there and they also run a dairy. So they, the, the, even the inmates actually run the dairy. And one of the rotations I was on was large animal ambulance ambulatory practice.

So, going out to farms and doing stuff for large animals, we get to pre-check a few hundred head of cows in a prison. With a bunch of inmates helping us out. That was a weird experience.

Daniel: [00:32:14] Did anybody try to try to run away and try to escape with you?

Shawn: [00:32:18] Not, not that I can tell, but they, they probably had the opportunity if they wanted to.

Daniel: [00:32:22] Okay. You're saying, What are you checking?

Shawn: [00:32:25] Oh, prank checking. Sorry.

Daniel: [00:32:27] Preg check. So wait, is that like checking that they're pregnant? Is that,

Shawn: [00:32:30] Yeah, sorry. It's yeah, so probably the easiest and the most efficient way to see if a cow is pregnant is basically sticking your arm up to about mid bicep and feeling for their uterus and based upon how big the uterus is, or if you actually feel the calf insider, you can make a pretty good estimate about how far along they are.

And that's just Pretty much how it's been done for a long time. It's if you're experienced at it, you can make a lot of money doing it. Actually. A lot of dairy practitioners, that's where they do most of their day is doing pregnancy checks like that.

Daniel: [00:33:03] That is wild. And so, why, why do you want to check? Cause I imagine eventually, like, you know, you can probably look and see that a cow is pregnant. So is there a reason that it's important to know earlier on.

Shawn: [00:33:15] Yeah. So ideally you'd only turn your bull out for a certain amount of time so that you can kind of congregate all your pregnant cows into a certain time window. You just don't want them reproducing all year round because then it's very inefficient. You have calves born all year round.

You, you kind of want them all clustered together at a certain point based upon kind of your timetable and schedule. You want to check to see who's pregnant and who's not. And if a cow comes out pregnant you might want to call that care from your herd. If they're, you know, pretty far along, you might want to, you know, be ready for that cow to be calving pretty soon.

The, the big thing is seeing if, if that cow is still producing and if not, maybe she's older. Maybe she has some other condition going on. You might want to call that cow from your herd.

Andrew: [00:33:57] Okay.

Daniel: [00:33:57] Definitely have no knowledge around it is, is definitely fascinating.

Shawn: [00:34:03] Yeah. That for the longest time, that was my goal was to go into large animal medicine, doing cattle and horses. During the course of vet school, I learned that a lot of that work is done in the middle of the night. When it's zero degrees outside and someone calls you and they're like, Hey, my cow is having a dystocia or having a problem, giving birth to a calf.

Can you come pull it or do a C-section middle of the night? And as I got further along, I just thought that is not the lifestyle that I want to live. So I eventually morphed into just doing cats and dogs, which provides a lot better lifestyle. I mean, it's pretty much set hours. Get to go home to your family at night.

When you're not freezing your tail off, trying to pull a calf in the middle of nowhere,

Daniel: [00:34:42] Yeah. All right. One last thing I do want to ask before before we wrap up. So as a vet, are there any just crazy little known animal facts that, kind of blew your mind that you think maybe the general person wouldn't know about, you know, a cat or a dog or, or some other pet, anything like that?

Shawn: [00:35:02] Man, I'm glad you asked this. So one of my favorite things, and this is kind of, one of my quirks is I love parasites. Oklahoma state is kind of known for his Paris etology department, mainly ticks. We have a tick farm in the basement of our

Daniel: [00:35:15] sounds terrifying.

Shawn: [00:35:17] there's a lot of, there's a lot of research on ticks and the different pathogens I can carry.

That goes on at Oklahoma state, but I loved Paris ontology in that class, and I wish people would understand and know all the parasites they can get from their animals.

Daniel: [00:35:30] I'm scared.

Shawn: [00:35:31] honestly it creeps me out that people let their dogs sleep in the same bed with them, because I just know, and I think about all the parasites that are zoonotic, meaning they can transfer between humans and animals like hookworms, roundworms, fleas ticks.

Fungus's like ringworm it's, it's it's mind blowing. If you really know all the things you can get from your animals.

Daniel: [00:35:53] Note to to self continue to. Just never let Jake sleep nearby me or like, can I get that stuff if he's licking my face? Cause I let him do that. Sometimes he's a cute dog.

Shawn: [00:36:05] Yeah. There was a story a few years ago about this lady who had all of her limbs amputated because of an infection she got from her dog licking her I'm fairly certain. She was, she had some sort of compromised immune system and she got some sort of bacteria from the dogs, allegedly the dog licking her licking, a wound or something that led to blood poisoning.

And she had to have all her limbs amputated. that's rare but possible. The big thing is keep your dog on parasite control, like flea and tick prevention and heartworm prevention, especially, you know, you live in Dallas, Daniel, there's a lot of heartworms in that area. Make sure you keep Jake on heartworm prevention and parasite control.

Daniel: [00:36:43] man. That's all right. Yeah. That's that's more than I was bargaining for. That's definitely mindblowing. Yeah, thank you for the nightmare fuel tick basements and, dogs. Uh, Not being my favorite thing anymore. I've got to go rethink my life.

Andrew: [00:36:58] Well, Sean, thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate you dropping some wisdom on us and these nightmares that I'm going to be having. We really appreciate you taking time out to come hang out with Daniel and I interest some of your wisdom.

If anybody listening is. Looking at the veterinary career field. Sean is a great guy. I highly recommend reaching out to him. See what he has to think. He's a busy guy. He's got two pretty young kids. but he would probably be more than happy to help walk you through some decisions you might be making.

So thank you again for coming on Sean. We really appreciate it. And everybody out there thank you for listening. And we look forward to connecting with you soon.

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