The FAS Scale Deconstructed: The Importance of Addressing Stress Early On
In this recorded webinar, Fear Free’s Education Manager Lori Chamberland takes a closer look at each level of the FAS scale to empower you to score pets with greater confidence. You’ll see video examples of pets at each level of the scale and understand why it’s important to address stress early, rather than waiting until FAS 3 or higher to intervene.
You must be a Fear Free member and logged in to view this webinar.
Unleash Your Inner Muttgyver: Tips and Tactics to Deal With Dog and Cat Pet First Aid Situations
In this recorded webinar, join health and safety coach Arden Moore as she demonstrates first aid on Pet Safety Dog Kona and Pet Safety Cat Casey, unleashing new ways to safely render aid without a pet first aid kit handy and safely transport injured pets. Learn how to incorporate Fear Free techniques to combat fear, anxiety, and stress in injured pets and build a confident, can-do attitude in you.
Each of us has preferences about what we find appealing and when! Ice cream or steak? Chocolate or strawberry? Sweet or salty? Join Monique Feyrecilde, BA, LVT, VTS Behavior, who will explore preferences, options, feeding methods, and how best to use the Fear Free Treat Ladder during veterinary visits.
Attendees will learn :
1) Explore a variety of options for each patient interaction and observe patient preference.
2) Construct a ranking system for a hierarchy of available rewards based on the observed preference of the patient.
3) Use at least three different types of food effectively depending on the procedure being performed.
Brought to you by our friends at Blue Buffalo.
Mikkel Becker, CBCC-KA, KPA CTP, CDBC, CPDT-KA, CTC and Debbie Martin RVT, CPDT-KA, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior) explain how Fear Free principles can be used to create a comfortable and safe nail trim experience for you and your pet.
Behavior Solutions for Declawed Cats with Dr. Lisa Radosta
An important part of setting a declawed cat up for successful life at home is understanding and molding their behavior. Join Lisa Radosta, DVM, DACVB, a leader in behavior and a member of the Fear Free Advisory Team, as she discusses behavioral solutions for declawed cats to help reduce their fear, anxiety, and stress both at the clinic and at home.
About the Presenter
Lisa Radosta, DVM, DACVB, graduated from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in 2000. After completing an internship in small animal medicine and surgery at Coral Springs Animal Hospital, she worked as a primary care veterinarian for two and a half years. She completed a three-year residency in behavioral medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 and passed the board examination later that year. During her residency, she received the Resident Research Award from the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB) two years in a row.
Dr. Radosta lectures nationally and internationally for veterinary professionals and pet owners and is the author of a number of textbook chapters and scientific research articles, She also co-authored “From Fearful to Fear Free: A Positive Program to Free Your Dog from Anxiety, Fears, and Phobias” with Dr. Marty Becker, Mikkel Becker, and Wailani Sung.
She is the section editor for Advances in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery and served on the 2015 AAHA Canine and Feline Behavior Management Guidelines Task Force.
The chin rest is a valuable cooperative care behavior that allows for a hands-off, consensual way to keep an animal still for veterinary exams, husbandry care, grooming, and other procedures. A chin rest serves as an indication from the animal that he is ready to engage in a handling or care procedure. By giving him a choice to “opt out,” even for a few seconds, chin rest empowers the animal to have a voice and greatly reduces his FAS.
In this course, you will learn the steps for training a solid chin rest behavior to an advanced level and discover its many practical, on-the-job applications.
This course includes three lessons:
This course was written by Mikkel Becker, CTC, KPA CTP, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, CDBC.
“It lit a spark in me and that passion has never subsided,” says Kincaid.
Going on to live 13 years, Lydia was never a social butterfly but, with Kincaid’s love and encouragement, she enjoyed seeing people and trying new adventures.
“Near the end of her life, we took a beach trip and she settled down on the patio for dinner with us,” Kincaid says, “It was truly one of the best moments of my life.”
Kincaid has now been a professional dog trainer for 15 years and, for the past nine years, has worked at Train My Dogs Austin and Onion Creek Kennels. Train My Dogs Austin is a positive training, boarding, and daycare facility in Austin, Texas, while Onion Creek Kennels in south Austin focuses on daycare, cat and dog boarding, and cat and dog grooming – all using positive reinforcement for the pet clients.
As head trainer at both facilities, Kincaid is currently enrolled in Animal Behavior College’s Grooming Instruction program, so she will soon become a professional groomer as well.
Fear Free certified in both training and grooming, Kincaid decided to take the courses when she began having an influx of training clients whose pets had been let go from their groomers for behavior reasons and needed a new facility for their dogs to be groomed.
Since Kincaid also groomed dogs, she began working with her training clients. “The Fear Free program has been very helpful in teaching me how to work with dogs in a manner that can help them grow to like grooming as well as a good foundation of knowing when to continue grooming and when to stop.”
Her training approach was already similar with the Fear Free program’s principles and techniques, says Kincaid, but what she lacked was concrete ways to illustrate and explain to clients and colleagues why she would continue working with a dog in some circumstances, and when she would stop and step back. The Fear Free certification program gave her great handouts with clear illustrations to help clients learn how to identify FAS (fear, anxiety, and stress). It has clear illustrations laying out various levels of stress such as when to push forward and when to stop and reduce stress.
The handouts have had a huge effect on client follow-through and understanding. She loves the continuing education available. “The Fear Free program has the best webinar on how to do a nail trim that I have seen,” says Kincaid. “Becoming Fear Free certified as a trainer and a groomer has really opened up a whole new subset of clients. It is also extremely rewarding to work dogs into grooming that were not able to be groomed previously. The clients are always so grateful.”
Kincaid says one case where her Fear Free certification was crucial was in working with a 6-month-old Schnauzer other groomers wouldn’t handle. He would start biting even while being brushed. Kincaid decided to take him on as a client because he was young and would need to be groomed for the rest of his life.
“We set up a training program where he came once a week and I worked on counterconditioning him to various tools and holds needed for grooming. We only ever pressed on if he stayed in the green level on the FAS ladder. We adjusted if his FAS started rising.
“We really leaned into the idea of need versus want,” she says, “meaning we stopped frequently, and he went home only partially done. But over a few months, we were able to complete an entire full groom and he went home looking great. This dog was labeled as a dog that couldn’t be groomed and now is able to be groomed and,” Kincaid says, “he loves his groomer.”
This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.
Resource Guarding in Dogs: A Fear Free Approach
Resource guarding is a common problem in dogs with a wide variety of behavioral presentations. The condition is sometimes referred to as possessive aggression, and it poses a serious risk of injury when aggression is directed toward humans or other animals. Resource guarding can negatively affect the human-animal bond and the dog’s social relationship with other animals. In this webinar, Kenneth Martin, DVM, DACVB, will discuss prevention, establishing a diagnosis, and treatment recommendations.
Brought to you by our friends at Blue Buffalo.
Scientists have long been fascinated by the notion of chemical communication between members of the same species. The first pheromone, a female silk moth secretion, was chemically identified in 1959 by German chemist Adolf Butenandt and his team.
Pheromones are odorless, colorless chemical signals used as a form of intraspecies scent communication. When detected they cause physiological and behavioral changes.
Pheromones have a broad range of purposes that include alarm signaling, mating, social interactions, territory marking, and maternal bonding. Cats of all species send and receive messages via the pheromone message board.
Pheromones are secreted by specialized sebaceous or mucous glands on the body. For cats, these include facial glands (on chin, cheeks, and forehead), anal glands, paw pads, and mammary area.
When cats rub their heads against people, furniture, or objects, comforting pheromones are released from the cheek glands, marking this place as a comforting one for future feline reference.
Anal glands release pheromones in urine and feces that deliver messages regarding mating viability, expression of fear or stress, or territorial response (think urine marking or spraying). Scratching, a natural cat behavior, releases pheromones from the paw pads. Scratching delivers scent and visual cues about territorial ownership to other cats.
Mammary pheromones are activated in nursing mothers when kittens suckle. Kittens detect the pheromones, which produce a calming response. It also helps kitten and mother cat recognize each other if they become separated.
Pheromones are detected through the complex olfactory system and received via the nasal cavity, lined with millions of olfactory receptor cells. Once detected, cats tongue-flick the molecules to the vomeronasal, or Jacobson’s, organ, located on the roof of the mouth. This stimulates the flehmen response, which causes the mouth to gape open. It may look like a sneer, but this active process enhances pheromone perception. The pathway continues to the brain, which produces a behavioral or physiological response.
Natural pheromones perform a variety of important functions, but what about synthetic pheromones?
Synthetic pheromones are lab recreations that mimic natural pheromones to help promote a sense of calm and security in stressful situations. The idea is to build a sense of confidence and prevent or alleviate fear, anxiety, and stress (FAS) and related behaviors such as spraying, scratching, and intercat aggression. They are not sedatives, essential oils, or medication.
The first companion animal pheromone product, Feliway Classic by Ceva, debuted on the pet market in 1996. This product, available in spray and diffuser, is a copycat of the feline F3 facial-marking pheromone deposited when cats rub their cheeks on objects, marking the area as safe. Feliway MultiCat, based on the cat appeasing pheromone (CAP), premiered in 2016. CAP originates in the mammary region of nursing mothers and provides a sense of safety, security, and harmony. It helps to reduce conflict and social tension in multi-cat households. Feliway Optimum is the latest diffuser product. FELIWAY Optimum may help to reduce scratching, urine spraying, tension and conflicts between cats, fears, and reactions to changes.
Synthetic pheromone products can be layered and used together in the clinic, shelter, or home. For example, Feliway Classic and Feliway MultiCat diffusers can be used together in exam rooms, shelter cat rooms, and in homes. The diffusers can also be used in combination with the spray Feliway Classic on towels or mats in an exam room, shelter cat living area, or on a cat’s favorite blanket or carrier. In the home, Feliway Optimum can be used in preferred scratching areas.
Other companies have launched similar products, and there are dog versions too. Dog and cat products can be used together to promote peaceful compatibility in multi-pet homes. Because pheromones are species-specific, cat pheromones don’t work on dogs and vice versa.
Does this mean clients or adopters can plug in a diffuser, snap on a collar, or spritz a blanket and expect immediate and magical behavior changes? No. Some cats may be more receptive to pheromones and alter their behavior, but pheromone products aren’t magic elixirs. The underlying cause of the stress must also be identified and resolved.
Synthetic pheromones are an aid in a behavioral plan, not a one-size-fits-all cure. “Synthetic pheromones can be successful when a client follows the written-out behavior plan,” says Rachel Geller, Ed.D., Certified Cat Behaviorist. “Sometimes the addition of synthetic pheromones allows the cat to better access the behavior program. Alone, the products usually aren’t enough to resolve the problem but when used with behavior modification they can resolve some of the emotional part of the problem for the cat. I never put a timeline on resolving cat behavior problems. In these matters, it’s best to go at the cat’s pace!”
Whether used in veterinary clinics, shelters, or homes pheromone products are designed to bolster a sense of calm, comfort, and positive feelings in stressful environments. It’s important to assess the environment from the cat’s perspective.
“Synthetic pheromones are especially helpful for those times where everything is completely new. Examples are moving to a new home, buying new furniture, or putting in new carpet. These products can be used on unfamiliar objects in the home to help a cat feel more safe and secure with them,” says Geller. Suggest that clients use the products in their home before bringing home a newly adopted cat to provide a sense of comfort and security upon arrival.
When a cat’s sense of wellbeing is disrupted, they can become stressed. Stressors can be environmental, physiologic, or social. Stress can be mild, moderate, or severe, temporary, or chronic.
Stress has a profound effect on emotional and physical health and behavior. Stressed cats may refuse to eat, become ill, or develop serious behavior problems. Minimizing stress is crucial to the health and wellbeing of cats. Synthetic pheromones can help to make cats feel safe and secure in their environment.
“Many times, cat behavior is 100-percent fixable and solvable through consistent behavioral interventions that are developed by looking at what is happening from the cat’s point of view. There is always a reason! If there is more going on, such as an emotional issue, stress, or anxiety, pheromones and even a pharmacological approach can be considered,” Geller says.
Pheromone products are versatile and easy to use, and they can be used in combination with a behavioral plan and medical treatments. While not magic, they may be the essential element your feline patients or shelter cats need to ensure a healthy, happy life.
Sources
Rachel Geller, Ed.D., Certified Cat Behaviorist
Gary Landsberg, DVM, DACVB, DECAWBM (CA). Fear Free webinar. The Science for Pheromone Therapy: Show Me the Evidence.
American Scientist. How Animals Communicate Via Pheromones. Tristam Wyatt.
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/how-animals-communicate-via-pheromones
Tristram D. Wyatt, Pheromones, Current Biology, Volume 27, Issue 15, 2017, Pages R739-R743,
ISSN 0960-9822, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.039.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982217307765
Prior, Miriam Rebecca, Mills, Daniel Simon. Cats vs. Dogs: The Efficacy of Feliway FriendsTM and AdaptilTM Products in Multispecies Homes. Frontiers in Veterinary Science Volume 7, 2020, Pages 399. ISSN 2297-1769, DOI 10.3389/fvets.2020.00399.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2020.00399/full
This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.