Pet Friendly Practice: Emerging Evidence Bases for Investigating and Mitigating Dog Fear during Veterinary Care

Abstract

Routine veterinary care is integral for companion dog welfare, although many dogs become fearful during their veterinary visits. This poses serious risk of injury to veterinary professionals, and severely inhibits accurate diagnoses as the physiological and behavioural signs of fear and distress can appear very similar to those of pain and illness. Guardians (owners) of dogs fearful of veterinary settings can also become stressed thinking about attending the clinic and may delay seeking help. While dog experience within the veterinary context is an emerging field, little is known about how the fear of the veterinary clinic develops, the efficacy of strategies recommended to reduce stress, or the attitudes of the veterinary industry themselves in implementing such strategies. This thesis used a combination of research methods and study designs to investigate these components of a dog’s veterinary experience. The findings of Chapter 2 indicate that fear of the veterinary clinic is widespread among the companion dog population. Up to 14% of dogs are reported to show severe or extreme fear when examined by the veterinarian from a global sample of 26,555 responses to the dog behaviour survey C-BARQ. Moreover, the demographics investigated in Chapter 2 contributed up to 7% of the variation of fear observed. That is, fear of the veterinarian likely develops from environmental and interaction-based factors. In Chapter 3, the behavioural and physiological responses of 35 healthy, privately owned dogs (of mixed sex, breed and age) undergoing a standardised physical examination in a mock veterinary setting were investigated. Dog heart rate increased significantly from baseline in the ‘consultation’ room, and also varied significantly across different steps within the physical examination. Similar results were observed for the same dogs undergoing another routine aspect of veterinary care – nail trims – in Chapter 4. Guardians reported nearly one third of dogs required nail trims two to five times per year, and the same proportion of dogs tested had also experienced a painful trim in the past. The behaviours and heart rate observed are likely to be much more extreme in a real veterinary clinic, and suggest routine aspects of care in healthy dogs may be stressful. Chapter 4 offers a novel contribution to the literature and highlights the scarcity of peer-reviewed evidence on common aspects of dog care, such as nail trims. However, focusing on the dog’s veterinary experience alone only addresses part of the issue. Chapter 5 explores the attitudes of veterinary professionals toward stress reducing veterinary care and the barriers to implementing such strategies in daily practice. Australian veterinary professional attitudes to stress reducing veterinary care are generally positive in nature, and one in five veterinary professionals who participated in the survey reported they had a stress reducing veterinary care certification. Yet many report work-related barriers to implementing stress reducing veterinary care in daily practice. Chapter 6 summarises the research findings within this thesis and provides critical considerations for future research for the continual improvement of companion dog welfare in the veterinary context.