Jessica Christol RVT, LSHC-S, LSHC-F, FFCP, CFVP
Animals are sentient beings that have emotions and feel pain just like humans. It is important to see things through their eyes. We all come with our own origin story and seek the world to understand us; they need the same. We must have empathy and respect for an animal’s ability to feel things such as fear, anxiety, stress, pleasure, and safety. Each animal comes with its own history we must take into consideration, as this shapes their behaviors, their reactions, and their experiences.
In a veterinary setting we take an oath to DO NO HARM to all living beings. We break this oath when we ignore the signs of fear, anxiety, and stress our animals present in clinic. We break this oath when we scruff, mishandle, and mislabel our patients just to “get the job done”. The time of doing things “to get the job done” on a living creature is over. We are in a new age of medicine, and it is vitally important for the safety of owners, staff, and animals that we utilize proper terminology and recognize the behavioral signs given to us.
Failing to recognize the communication the animals are giving us, they are forced to resort to panic behaviors. This can include biting, vocalizing, scratching, fleeing, freezing. They then are mislabeled as “fractious”, “caution”, “spiteful”, “difficult”, or “mean”. These terms remove empathy and understanding and we continue to use improper restraint methods like forced lateral holds and scuffing which creates intense fear for this animal in our care. We need to recognize that when an animal resorts to behaviors we see as scary or mean, they are beyond frightened and are in a state of fight or flight, where they feel they need to defend themselves. They are fighting for survival and do not know that we are trying to help them.
Behavioral States Change Like the Seasons
We must continuously monitor our patients throughout the entire visit for changing behavioral signs as they are constantly changing. Animals have their own language they express through facial expressions, body position, vocalizations, posture, and smells, It is our job and responsibility to become experts at reading each species we work with and remember everyone is just that… An individual. A unique individual that needs its own mode of handling and understanding. A happy dog entering clinic can turn into an anxious dog that wants to flee or scream when held and poked. A cat that enters extremely fearful and hisses, can relax into a more friendly cat once given time to acclimate to an unfamiliar environment. Behavior is a constantly changing state, and it is also integral to patient care.
Red Light… Yellow Light…. Green Light, GO
RED: STOP! High emotional arousal (hiss, lunge, swat) DO NOT proceed, reevaluate plan. High arousal due to Fear, Anxiety, Stress. Consider sedation or try again another day
YELLOW: PAUSE! Escalating fear (Hypervigilant, freeze, escape or avoidant) Do not proceed, reconsider plan of action (restraint, environment, giving breaks, etc)
GREEN: GO! Normal, relaxed behaviors. Proceed kindly with plans, while monitoring changes in behaviors for signs of Fear, Anxiety, Stress.
AVOID LABELS: Speak with Empathy and Intelligence
- There is no “bad” or “evil” animal.
- AVOID these terms: fractious, spicy, caution, sassy, spiteful, etc. Remove anthropomorphic* terminology and speak from the objective facts we know and can measure.
- These animals in our care ARE: Anxious, Stressed, Fearful, Painful
- Notate what DOES work, or WHY we are crossing an animal’s threshold; An animal could be misrlabled due to mishandling, bad car ride, loud sounds, etc.
- Reevaluate and give the animal opportunity to handled appropriately.
- Don’t jump to muzzles, gloves, forceful handling
DON’T SAY: Caution, Catsby is fractious
DO SAY: Baja experiences less anxiety when the owner gently talks to her and can be seen while being fed churu
DON’T SAY: Baja needs a muzzle and is spiteful towards staff
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