It is not uncommon for pet owners to feel nervous about visits to the veterinary clinic if their pet has experienced fear during a previous visit.

It is important people remain compassionate toward fearful or fear-based aggressive animals so we can better enable them reduce their anxiety and learn that certain stimuli are not scary.

First, we must understand that fear behaviors have a stimulus, a physiological change within the pet and a behavioral change that is outwardly expressed.

Second, we need to imagine entering the veterinary clinic from the animals point of view.

While many pets enjoy car rides, not all do, so they may be feeling anxiety just from the car trip.

Once they enter the clinic there are many other sights, sounds, smells and memories that lead to fear. There may be a big dog sitting across from them, or a vocal cat or an unusual smell.

Once in the exam room, we must observe their nonverbal communication and adjust our approach accordingly.

Our ultimate goal is to reduce physiological changes to stressful stimuli so that the pets mental state is in a place where they can learn the situation is not scary.

Our pets have very subtle ways of communicating fear with us prior to cowering, growling, barking or biting. Signs of nervousness include lip licking, whale eye (when the pet looks to the side and the whites of the eye are visible), pacing, panting, scratching when there is no itch, and yawning.

These are called displacement behaviors, and are used to signal to the fear-inducing situation that the animal is nervous and wants to engage, but is not feeling confident in doing so.

Our goal in the exam room is to help your pet feel safe and secure so its brain can learn that the situation is not scary.

Ways to overcome this are with high-value treats, praise and rewarding confident behavior. We should never punish displacement behaviors growling, cowering, barking, or biting.

Punishment may teach the dog not to display these signals and could lead to bites without warning. We also need to make sure that we are not reinforcing fearful behavior. Our goals are to desensitize and counter-condition their responses to fearful stimuli.

Behavioral managements for pets with fear-based aggression will need to be further individualized because the bite risk is higher.

With patients with a known bite history, their safety as well as the safety of our staff are of utmost priority.

For animals with fear-based aggression, certain medications may be prescribed prior to visits to help the dog cope with stress.

It may take months or years to rehabilitate a fear-based aggressive dog. In some cases, it may be even be challenging to hospitalize or board these patients because of the stress it can cause them, which could in turn delay healing.

This type of stressful event may actually undo progress that has been made to help them feel less stressed in the exam room.

It is not uncommon for us to recommend delay-boarding them because of the risk of undoing progress in their rehabilitation.

There are also many ways we try to reduce stress in the exam room. One of the ways we attempt to help cats is by using a quieter, calm tone of voice; Feliway feline-appeasing hormone spray on towels; and restraint techniques that make them feel safe.

A stress response is very common for indoor-only cats because they are not exposed to new environments as frequently as outdoor or indoor/outdoor cats.

Often, just the carrier and car ride can make cats feel stressed! It is important to expose them to the carrier in nonstressful settings so they become more accustomed to it.

Even taking joy rides can help.

As most dog owners know, canines can be very sensitive to our feelings and stress levels. I recommend owners also take deep breaths and relax on the way to the clinic and in the exam room, because this helps reduce stress in their pets.

We recommend dogs come into the clinic on an empty stomach so we can feed them treats brought in by the owner or ones we keep in the exam room as counter-conditioning. We then tailor our restraint techniques based on the dogs body language, displacement behaviors and stress level. Some dogs are even scared of the white coat, so I sometimes choose not to wear one.

It is important to remember that stress and fear can be managed with compassion, diligence, counter-conditioning and, in some cases, medication. We do not want to ignore our loved ones communication with us.

Danielle Carey, DVM, is an associate veterinarian who practices mixed-animal veterinary medicine at the Animal Clinic of Walla Walla. Contact her at 509-525-6111.

Image: Priority Pet Clinic via Flickr; unedited

Read the original here:
VET VIEWS: Understanding your pets' fear in the veterinary clinic - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Comments are closed.