By Mikkel Becker, CBCC-KA, KPA CTP, CDBC, CPDT-KA, CTC
While we love to preach (and eat) treats here at Fear Free there is a lot more to reducing fear, anxiety, and stress (FAS) in our patients than just easy cheese and peanut butter. For Dr. Ettinger, it all begins with the runway. Not a fashion catwalk or an airport runway—but a nonskid walkway. As the modules teach, it’s very important for pets to have secure and comfortable footing.
Slippery floors heighten fear, anxiety and stress. To counteract the scare of the slip, creating a runway with grip mats helps pets stay calm and balanced.
“A mat surface provides more confidence than just about anything you can have in the hospital,” says Dr. Ettinger, who noticed this difference in pets undergoing rehab. They were more relaxed with the grip-surface than animals in the more traditional setting with slick flooring.
Something as simple as scent can help to set the tone for the visit. The odor of lavender often has a soothing effect on both animals and humans. Place a couple of drops in the waiting room, exam area or on a toy in the room. Even if lavender affects only the humans in the room, their more relaxed attitude helps to calm pets as well.
Reducing bad odors is important, too. Avoid keeping trashcans that contain the cleanup of urine or stool from prior pets inside the exam room or other areas where pets pass through.
Sight is another sense that can affect how pets respond to veterinary visits. Some dogs or cats may associate certain visuals with prior negative experiences during veterinary care. For this reason, trading veterinary smock and scrubs for more traditional clothing or not wearing a stethoscope can have some benefit in helping nervous pets stay calm.
Dr. Ettinger says he doesn’t even have a white coat. He wears street clothes. He carries his stethoscope into the exam room and places it on the table, picking it up only when it’s needed.
Conversely, blocking a pet’s sight can also have benefits. If Dr. Ettinger uses a muzzle on a cat, he chooses a style that covers the eyes.
“When a cat doesn’t see you they often feel more secure and settle down,” he says.
When it comes to the exam table, Dr. Ettinger has thrown in the towel. These days he’s more likely to use the exam table for taking notes than he is for palpating a pet. With occasional exceptions, he gets down on the floor at pet level. In cases where an exam table is a better choice, the surface is covered with a towel, yoga mat or bathmat to prevent paws from slipping. That helps to reduce an animal’s anxiety about being up high or on a slick surface.
Worried about your knees? Dr. Ettinger eases the stress to his knees during floor exams by using a gardener’s kneeling pad cut in half or kneeling on a rolled-up towel.
Sometimes the exam should begin before the veterinarian ever enters the room. For instance, to obtain more accurate blood pressure readings, Dr. Ettinger recommends lowering the lights, playing calming music, releasing the scent of lavender and allowing the patient time to settle in. Then the veterinary nurse can go in and take a blood pressure reading with the owner nearby. Getting the blood pressure reading before the veterinarian enters the exam room increases accuracy, because stress levels can rise from seeing the veterinarian and subsequently elevate the reading.
A favorite way to lessen the stress of a physical exam is to carry on a conversation with the pet owner while conducting the exam.
“If the pet hears the owner talking, and they’re talking to me, the pet senses a relationship and is less concerned,” says Dr. Ettinger. “Continuing to talk during the exam is also more effective in many cases than talking to client and then quieting down and doing the exam. The pet is often less likely to recognize you’re going over them if you’re talking. You can check the pet’s pulse, mucus membranes, palpate and do the full exam while you talk.”
