Blog Archives

Sounds of Panic: Tips for Reducing Sound Sensitivity in Your Practice

By Deb M. Eldredge, DVMSometime when it is fairly busy, take a few minutes and go out to sit in your clinic waiting room. Sit down, close your eyes and just listen. Listen carefully for little noises as well as the loud and obvious noises.

After a minute, the sounds may seem a bit overwhelming to you. Think of how much more cats and dogs hear than we do and how they don’t understand what many of the noises are. For our pets, the veterinary hospital may be a horror house of sound.

How can we help pets with sound issues to feel more comfortable at the clinic? Carpet is often used to mute sounds, but it doesn’t really make sense in a clinic where cleanliness is important. Barriers can help to block sounds, and soundproofing exams rooms is not a bad idea, although it can be expensive.

Playing background music may help some pets, but an individual pet may not like your music choices. That sounds silly but anyone who has done musical freestyle with a dog can tell you that dogs have definite opinions on music. Luckily, there are some research-backed CDs of soothing music composed specifically for dogs and/or cats. Through A Dog’s Ear, for instance, has pioneered soothing music for anxious pets. These CDs are excellent for waiting rooms, exam rooms, and kennel areas.

To really help your patients prepare for a veterinary visit or hospital stay, consider making a CD of the sounds at your clinic. Start by doing a walking tour of the clinic with one of your own pets. Begin with the sound of the door opening and closing and the sound of toenails on the floor. If the scale squeaks, catch that. Try to record the voices of all of your receptionists as well as the ringtone of your phones and your computer and printer beeps and squeaks.

Move on to the noises heard in a waiting room: doors opening and closing, laboratory equipment dinging off, refrigerator and cupboard doors opening and closing. Record the voices of your veterinary technicians, assistants and kennel help. Record some barking dogs, cage doors opening and closing, and cats meowing (or even screaming or hissing). Note any noises that your own pet reacts to. Washing machines, dryers, blow dryers, vacuums, furnaces, and air conditioners can all make noises that startle or panic an already anxious pet.

The goal is to create a CD of sounds that pet owners can take home to play for pets to accustom them to the sounds they will hear at your hospital. These are not CDs to play at your clinic but rather CDs to loan out to clients. Have them start by playing the sounds very quietly and try to pair the CD with positive things such as meals or belly rubs. If you have any clients who are breeders, loan them a copy of the CD to play for their litters so the puppies and kittens are familiar with the sounds right from the start.

Some pets will never smile about their veterinary visits. But if you can at least make the noises a pet will encounter seem routine, you will have helped reduce the pet’s fear of the veterinary clinic.

Fear Free…For Birds?

In a perfect world, Dr. Alicia McLaughlin would establish relationships with animals who have no experience with veterinary visits and thus no fears regarding them. But at the Center for Bird and Exotic Animal Medicine near Seattle, Washington, she is more likely to encounter animals who have already developed fear, anxiety, and stress (FAS) associated with the veterinary environment and physical care. Many of these animals are naturally frightened of new persons, places, and experiences, and limited socialization early in life makes it difficult for them to deal with changes that deviate from the narrow scope of what they’ve learned is normal and safe. Not surprisingly, many of the animals Dr. McLaughlin treats are already on edge before she walks into the exam room.When animals come in with preformed notions and established concerns, the opportunity to start with a clean slate and make the experience positive from the onset has already passed. Instead, with many of these animals McLaughlin is doing damage control, backtracking from previous negative experiences and recovering from a lack of ongoing positive experience and preparation.

“I’m often working up from a negative with my patients because they have such bad history,” says Dr. McLaughlin.

Sadly, common practice for handling birds in many pet care environments is to put the parrot on the ground and throw a towel on him. Such unsettling and scary experiences lead to increased angst for the animals.

“A lot of behavioral flooding happens with birds. It’s the status quo for most places. It’s not just vet hospitals. It happens at many pet stores when the parrot goes in for grooming, too,” says McLaughlin.

Alleviating and reducing FAS helps to bring the animal into a more neutral emotional state. Then he or she is more receptive to pleasant pairings that accompany the veterinary experience and positively affect the animal’s emotional outlook. This makes the situation less concerning for the animal and improves the ability to handle him and provide care.

A greater challenge in helping these patients is dealing with people who don’t understand the signs of FAS or the negative outcomes that can happen because of it.

“The hardest part is dealing with someone who has expectations in their head for how care should be or how it has always been. Or dealing with a person that’s driven by strict time constraints,” says Dr. McLaughlin.

The best approach McLaughlin has found to work gradually with these clients and build a rapport with them. Ultimately, this helps her to reach her goal of improving the lives of animal patients.

“I try to focus on one, two, or three things max they can do per visit to improve their bird’s quality of life. If I build enough rapport they’ll keep coming back and we can keep building,” says Dr. McLaughlin.

Putting the treat into treatment isn’t possible for all of McLaughlin’s patients, who sometimes don’t take food when they’re too upset. But just because the animal won’t take food doesn’t mean the visit can’t be Fear Free. There are numerous Fear Free-friendly tools McLaughlin uses to help.

“Some animals, like pigs, are easy to work with because they’re so food-motivated. Birds are more challenging because they are often already so far over the threshold it’s hard to reach them. Being sensitive to body language and taking things slow can help.”

Because many birds are already amped up and display signs of escalated FAS by the time they arrive for care, sedation is a tool that’s often utilized to deliver physical care in a manner that’s protective of emotional wellbeing.

“Using sedation on those birds that are already really stressed on arrival makes a big difference in how the visits go. It’s safer, the bird has a better quality of life, and it reduces negative experiences to help build for the future of that bird’s care going forward,” says Dr. McLaughlin.

“Emphasizing the need for minimal stress veterinary medicine has changed our approach to patients. Our staff tries to minimize coercion when possible, and sedation is seen as a way to help improve our patient’s veterinary experience when any potentially stressful medical procedures need to happen. There’s an increased urgency to try to quickly bring the stress levels down when they occur, along with more creative problem solving between staff members to either prevent or address stressful situations,” says McLaughlin.

Pre-Visit Client Questionnaires

Pre-Visit Questionnaire

Administrators are some of the busiest people in the hospital and can use all the help they can get. Have your clients fill out this Pre-Visit Questionnaire to learn more about their pet and his or her needs. Fillable & Print-Ready PDF – Companion Animal.

Mobile Practice Pre-Visit Questionnaire

Mobile practices present unique challenges and opportunities to provide Fear Free care to your clients. Have your clients fill out this Pre-Visit Questionnaire to learn more about their pet and his or her needs. Fillable & Print-Ready PDF – Companion Animal

Avian Pre-Visit Questionnaire

Avian patients have unique needs and concerns. Have your clients fill out this Pre-Visit Questionnaire to learn more about their bird and his or her needs. Fillable & Print-Ready PDF – Avian

Seasonal Pet Safety Handouts

Fourth of July Pet Safety Infographic

Educate your clients on Fourth of July safety with this infographic

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Canada Day Pet Safety Infographic

Educate your clients on Canada Day safety with this infographic

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Thanksgiving Pet Safety Tips

Use this infographic courtesy of Trupanion™ to educate your clients on safety during Thanksgiving.

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New Year’s Pet Safety Infographic

Use this infographic to educate your clients about the dangers of New Year’s celebrations and pets.

Help Your Pet Celebrate a Fear Free New Year

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Australia Day Pet Safety Infographic

Educate your clients on Australia Day safety with this infographic

Help Your Pet Celebrate a Fear Free Australia Day Featured

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Halloween Pet Safety Infographic

Educate your clients on Halloween safety with this infographic

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Fear Free Patient Report Cards

Fear Free Patient Report Card

When it comes to creating Fear Free veterinary visits, thinking about a patient’s individual needs is critical. Communicating those needs to the pet’s owner is also very important, as many of the pet’s preferences and behavioral tendencies carry over into other aspects of the pet’s life and future veterinary visits.
As somewhat of a client-friendly variation of a pet’s emotional record, use this digitally fillable or printable Fear Free Report Card to help connect with the client and ensure they go home with an understanding of their pet’s needs and emotional health while at the veterinarian.

Fear Free Groomer Client Report Card

Use this report card to take your grooming service to the next level. This report card lets your clients know you value their pet and strive to give them the most Fear Free grooming experience possible. You can mark what their pet enjoyed, what treats you gave them, any sensitive areas they may have, and even additional behaviors owners can work on to make their next grooming experience even better.

Fear Free Trainer Client Report Card

This report card can help you educate your training clients and help increase compliance. Mark what treats and activities their pet enjoys, what behaviors and ques they already know, and what behaviors they should work on.

Fear Free Groomer Client Report

When it comes to creating Fear Free grooming visits, thinking about an animal’s individual needs is critical. Communicating those needs to the pet’s owner is also very important, as many of the pet’s preferences and behavioral tendencies carry over into other aspects of the pet’s life and future grooming visits.

Use this digitally fillable or printable “Groomer Client Report” to help connect with the client and ensure they go home with an understanding of their pet’s needs and emotional health while at the groomer.

The Most Important Question We Aren’t Asking

By Liz Bales, VMD

If we asked a client, “what are you doing for environmental enrichment?” the likely response would be, “what?”

And that’s a problem.

In our profession, we suffer from compassion fatigue. I get it. I really do. Our clients break our hearts and wear us out. When they are at the end of their ropes because their cats are chronically urinating outside of the litter box, they might implore us to perform a convenience euthanasia. When their cat has destroyed their furniture and they just can’t deal with it anymore, they ask us to perform a declaw. When their cats keep fighting with each other we drain their abscesses, sew them up and talk about re-homing. And to top it off, if we either recommend an alternative or tell them that we don’t perform a debatably ethical service, we risk having our Yelp reviews tarnished. Some days it is just too much to bear.

But, my colleagues, we CAN get in front of this problem. After all, isn’t this why we became veterinarians? Our clients are looking to us for education and support at their first kitten visit. They are looking for more than vaccines and screening blood work at their annual visits. The time to inform and educate our clients about environmental enrichment is before the human-animal bond, and our professional spirits, are broken.

The science is there. The American Association of Feline Practitioners has beautifully laid out the 5 pillars of feline environmental enrichment, why they are important and the consequences of denying our cats the resources that they need to be physically and emotionally healthy in the indoor environment.

In case you have not had the opportunity to read this entire paper, here’s my favorite bit:

“Many behavioral and physical disorders that are seen in cats are often secondary to stress from lack of appropriate stimulation. Environmental enhancement (EE) should be part of the overall treatment plan for these disorders. As part of the wellness exam, it is the responsibility of the veterinarian to discuss the current state of the environment and to provide resources for EE to indoor cat owners.

It is well known that if an appropriate environment is not provided for indoor cats, they are at greater risk of stress induced illnesses such as the following:

Feline lower urinary tract disease

Obesity

Different forms of aggression

Over grooming and other compulsive disorders

Upper respiratory infection

In an attempt to prevent the above conditions, it should become routine for the veterinary team to inform owners of the importance of EE and to provide resources to owners. It is also important to consider EE in shelter cats for the same reasons.”

The cats are counting on us to get this information from the page to their caretakers. One way or another, this is a veterinary job—our job!

We study kidney disease, endocrine disease, ophthalmology, oncology, along with so many other specialized areas of medicine and thus we are prepared for those cases when they walk through our exam room door. But do you know what every cat in our care has in common? Every cat is our care is completely dependent upon their human to create an environment where they stand a chance of being physically and mentally well. Are we prepared with information and resources to treat or cure this?

If I haven’t convinced you yet, I would like to share with you the statistic that changed my life. Do you know the #1 cause of death for cats? My guesses were kidney disease, or hyperthyroidism. Nope. Well, we know so much about feline obesity and it’s consequences, perhaps that’s the answer? Again, no. The #1 cause of death for our feline patients is euthanasia.

So what do we do about that? Where and when do we talk about environmental enrichment? We are already squeezed with the amount of information we need to simultaneously digest and communicate back to our patients in addition to the procedures that we need to cram into a 15-20 minute appointment, it might seem impossible. Easier said than done, of course, but why not simply train our technicians (and ourselves) to carve out just a little extra time for every feline appointment to walk the client through the five pillars of environmental enrichment. At the very least, there are resources available both digitally and in print that we could simply email to our clients or hand out in our waiting rooms or at check out.

Just like with Fear Free, I promise you it’s worth it. Sometimes those seemingly small things can make all the difference for the pets we took an oath to help treat. And also like Fear Free, the benefits will actually save us time in the long run.

As a profession, we can figure out how to incorporate this into our practice. I know we can. And the time starts now, with a very simple question:

“What are you doing for environmental enrichment?”

Fear Free Checklist for the Client Service Rep

Customer Service Representative Fear Free Training Tool

This checklist is mainly used for customer service representatives. Each client can be assured a Fear Free experience because the person on duty is ensuring that each box is checked throughout each client’s experience.

Canine & Feline

Avian

Think Spaw: Fear Free Hospital Supply List

See What Changes Can Be Made in Your Hospital

This tool will guide you through recognizing stimuli that may affect the senses of clients and patients. As you take a fresh look at your own practice, you’ll begin to see what changes can be made. From there, you’ll write down what changes can be made while having access to helpful tips and resources to ensure your practice is sweet on the senses.

Fear Free Team Training Tips

Talking points and resources to facilitate a successful Fear Free visit

Share these helpful handouts with your staff to ensure a Fear Free visit for every client and pet. Get everyone on board from the moment the client and patient walk in the front door, to the exam room, and when saying goodbye. The Fear Free approach takes the whole team.

Module 8 Talking Points

Talking Points – Avian

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