Collaborative care consultations for veterinary treatments

Many animals find veterinary visits and in-home health care treatments stressful. Also, for some pets, visiting the veterinary clinic is a traumatic experience, and their caregivers often delay taking their pets for check-ups due to the stress it causes. These situations can be avoided!

When we restrain an animal and force them to allow the treatments that we know result in the animal’s improved long-term health, the animal can become fearful. Why is this? From the animal’s perspective, veterinary treatments can be scary and/or painful and often don’t seem beneficial at all, so the whole experience can be horrible. The animal starts to show behavioural signs of fear, such as hiding, struggling, fleeing, trembling and/or aggression which can result in increased restraint which can then increase the animal’s fear, and so the problem gets worse. Animals learn from scary experiences and change their future behaviours to avoid those experiences.

Have you ever wondered how zoos manage to provide health care to the animals in their care? Keepers are often well educated to ask the animals in their care to offer a “consent” behaviour.

When an animal is a willing participant in its own health care, then fear and anxiety can be significantly reduced, the animal is less likely struggle, hide or use aggression to keep veterinary staff away, and caregivers are more likely to be able to successfully provide in-home treatments.

Animal Progress now offers Collaborative Care consultations at the Myrtleford Animal Progress clinic. These consultations aim to provide you with the skills to teach your pet how to offer a consent behaviour so that a veterinarian can examine your pet and so that you may also provide any in-home care that is needed.

Watch a video of Izzy offering a “chin rest” so that her eye could be medicated

Collaborative Care consultations are suitable for young animals who do not yet exhibit fear in the veterinary clinic and for animals with mild signs of anxiety with veterinary examination. Teaching collaborative care skills sets your animal up for successful veterinary clinic visits so that they can feel confident visiting the veterinarian to receive their necessary health care.

For animals who exhibit aggression or other signs of severe fear during veterinary visits, a veterinary behaviour consultation is recommended as there may be other factors that need addressing so that the animal’s fear can be better managed.

Each Collaborative Care consultation is 30 minutes one-on-one with Bec Hogan. The cost is $77 per session. However, the first session is discounted, as it is an introductory session, providing you with some basic skills needed for you to start Collaborative Care. During the introductory session, you will also learn about your pet’s body language and some important concepts of learning theory relevant to your pet, including an explanation of the effect of fear on your pet’s learning.

To book your introductory session, use the calendar below. Following your successful booking, you will be emailed details about how to get to the Myrtleford Animal Progress clinic.

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