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The Importance of Cooperative Care
Hi there!
Just jumping on to talk a little about cooperative care from a few different perspectives today! I love cooperative care for veterinary treatment and I’m so glad it is a topic on this forum. I am a dog trainer but I still do some occasional fill in work as a veterinary assistant/tech. Yesterday I saw a prime example of why cooperative care is so very important for our dogs. The practice where I was assisting for the day had a sweet but very anxious little Yorkie mix in for a full exam including blood work and nail trim. This pup had been so anxious at previous practices that the owner had allowed 2 years to go by since the last exam which meant several missed rounds of vaccines and appropriate blood work and medication (no judgement-these situations are very difficult for owners as we know). Because the pup had had negative experiences elsewhere and had not had any conditioning at home, her experience yesterday was sadly very fear inducing for her. She trembled, tried to bite, couldn’t accept food, and even urinated out of fear. Her next visit will likely follow suit or be worse without calming meds and some training help. The reason I’m describing this situation is to illustrate how vet visit stress affects not only (but most importantly) the animal, but the veterinary staff (it’s so sad and upsetting to see patients in this state but also, many staff could benefit from low stress handling training), and the pet parents whose hearts break at the sight of such fear. And consequently, important vet visits are missed in the future due to the owner’s anxiety or embarrassment around appointments. I like to include beginner cooperative care training in my puppy packages, and I at least mention it in all initial consults for behavior issues. Do you make this part of your routine? What are your thoughts? Any ideas for generally working more closely with our veterinary partners? Looking forward to hearing your stories and thoughts!
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2 Replies
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Lisa! This is such a great topic. I’m adding a photo and tags to boost it to our Trending page so more people see it.
I’m going to hold off sharing my ideas to let others go first. But, I do see 2 places people can contribute:
1. How to help a dog in that moment – if you are a tech or assistant, what are some suggestions?
2. How to help owners prepare for the next time. – What are you teaching?
Can’t wait to see what folks share.
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What a great topic, @LisaOMy . I would love to include more in my puppy private classes.
This is what I include so far:
-Touch & treat (handling each part of the pup’s body, both hands go away, then treat), especially for paws, ears and commonly handled pup-parts
-Collar grabs & treat
-Chill position with duration
I discuss nail trims and showing the trimmers on the floor, letting pup inspect, treat…going at pup’s pace. A trainer I mentored under used a nail file in her puppy classes (group).
Always, the sequence is Touch the pup, both hands go away, treat.
I’ll include a video of a dog I boarded who loved the nail file (I was using it myself and he was so fascinated!)
Love to hear everyone’s ideas!
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