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Hi, I'm Doctor Amanda Moore. I wanted to talk today about some of the things that we try to do for our pet patients to help reduce stress that's associated with coming to the vet clinic.
One of the first things that we'll do for dogs especially is the walk-in through the lobby, put them on the scale. The scale can be a scary thing because it's a little bit wobbly, so we use treats as a distraction, or some other type of positive reinforcement, to get them on and off as quickly as possible.
You know, an exam can actually be kind of a stressful thing, and so we'll vary it up a little bit. Maybe do an exam in a different location, not necessarily in the exam room. If there's a dog that's really, really nervous about being on a hardwood floor surface or even just coming into the clinic, I've done exams outside to help distract them and certainly during a normal exam. Most exams don't happen outside, but during the normal exam in the clinic, we'll use lots of treats and positive reinforcement to distract them along the way.
Another thing that we'll use for our dogs is a pheromone spray called Adaptil. It's something that we'll spray maybe on the bandana and tie around their neck. It's not something that you or I necessarily will smell, but it is a calming spray that really does help us; it’s stress relief for dogs in a variety of situations.
Similarly, when we have cats come to visit us, we will utilize a spray called Feliway.
So when you bring your cat in to come see us, we do like to make it as stress free as possible so we use special pheromones that help calm your cat down and what you do when you come in is, we'll spray a towel with the pheromones and then we'll place that towel over your cat's carrier so they can calm down and not have to see what all is going on in the clinic and they can distress that way.
If they need to, we can let them sit in there and just relax for a little bit when we take them out for their exam, but this just helps relieve some of that stress of being in the clinic.
Most importantly, we just take our time and we really don't rush it at all.