Behaviour Problems in Small Animals

Practical Advice for the Veterinary Team

Jon Bowen, Sarah Heath

• Publisher: Saunders Ltd.
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780702027673
• eBook ISBN: 9780702037207
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Veterinary Medicine

This compact, easy-access guide to behavioral problems encountered in veterinary practice offers immediate and helpful advice for today's veterinary team. Instructor resources are available; please contact your Elsevier sales representative for details.- Coverage offers immediate advice to the veterinary team who are often presented with behavioral problems in their practice.- Easy-to-read format includes introductions, medical differentials, underlying causes, diagnosis, action boxes, and summaries.- Content refers the reader to other chapters throughout the book, so that information can be found quickly and easily.- Helpful handouts, which can be photocopied, offer yet another way to further your learning experience.

Part 1

Practice tips

Outline

Chapter 1: Providing a practical behavioural service

Chapter 2: Running puppy classes and kitten information evenings

Chapter 1

Providing a practical behavioural service

CHAPTER CONTENTS

Dealing with behavioural issues

Providing a practical behavioural service

Increasing owner awareness of the behavioural service

Catering for the prospective owner

Providing a behavioural advice service for breeders

The new owner

Dealing with behaviour cases

The behavioural consultation

Getting down to the problem

Making the diagnosis

Providing informed referral

Making the link with disease

Offering options

All part of the service

DEALING WITH BEHAVIOURAL ISSUES

When considering the incorporation of behaviour into general practice, veterinary surgeons are often concerned about the level of time commitment that will be required to deal with individual cases. They are also concerned about the lack of education that they received at under-graduate level in the field of companion animal behaviour and are aware of the need to be familiar with the natural behaviour patterns of the common companion animal species, as well as with the possible link between human behaviour and inappropriate animal responses. These concerns often prevent practices from pushing behaviour to the top of their agenda, but dealing with specific behavioural cases is only one aspect of providing a behavioural service and veterinary practices can significantly improve their service to their clients by offering behavioural advice in a variety of other ways. Providing a behavioural service has numerous benefits both for the clients and the practice; in particular it can:

• improve the quality of life for animal and owner alike and so increase client appreciation of the practice

• make life easier in the consulting room and increase job satisfaction for both vets and nurses

• provide a valuable extension of the veterinary nurse’s role

• encourage a greater rapport with clients

• be financially rewarding, either directly through offering behavioural consultations or indirectly by decreasing the possibility of euthanasia of otherwise healthy young pets.

An obligation to be involved

The high incidence of behavioural problems in the domestic pet population is highlighted by research which suggests that the primary reason for euthanasia in young, physically healthy animals is concern over an aspect of their behaviour. The welfare concerns that such research raises lead to an obligation on the part of the veterinary profession to be involved in the prevention and treatment of behavioural disorders and in the education of those that breed, rear, and own domestic pets.

PROVIDING A PRACTICAL BEHAVIOURAL SERVICE

Although behavioural consultations with clients already experiencing problems with their pets is often highlighted as the main emphasis of behavioural practice, this is not necessarily the case and a more holistic view of behavioural medicine is needed within general practice. Providing a behavioural service involves a number of elements including:

• making clients aware that behavioural issues are taken seriously within the practice

• providing pet selection interviews and literature to assist prospective owners in choosing their pet

• providing a behavioural advice service for breeders

• providing behavioural advice for new owners

• organising kitten information evenings and puppy parties

• offering informed referral to a veterinary behaviourist or behaviour counsellor

• providing behaviour-based information clinics and literature for clients

• offering behavioural consultations for individual clients and their pets.

Increasing owner awareness of the behavioural service

It is necessary to take every opportunity to inform the clients of the behaviour services that the practice has to offer.

Simply by mentioning behaviour during a consultation, and by showing interest and concern about the issues that owners face, the veterinary practice can help clients to recognise where there may be a problem and encourage them to seek suitable advice. Waiting room space is often sadly underused and there are a number of ways in which this area can be utilised to demonstrate that the veterinary practice has a positive attitude to behavioural issues.

Posters can be a useful way of getting the message across, and perhaps provoking discussion between clients as they wait. They can advertise the fact that the practice acknowledges behavioural problems and can offer help with their solution, which will often be enough to encourage clients to mention their concerns to both the vet and the nursing staff, thereby opening up the possibility of taking the subject further.

Merchandise such as books on companion animal behaviour and a range of behaviour-related products (for example, headcollars, clickers, and bitter apple spray), in the reception area will often quietly increase the profile of behaviour within the practice and make clients more aware of the services the practice can offer. It can also provide an opportunity for the reception staff to mention behavioural topics as they sell the items, which can often lead to owners feeling able to discuss specific behavioural issues.

Booklets and magazines with a behavioural message can be left on the tables in the waiting room. Most owners are grateful for something interesting to read or look at while they are waiting for an appointment and the presence of literature with a behavioural slant increases awareness that the practice is interested in behavioural issues. Practice copies of the booklets that are stocked as merchandise can help to promote sales by allowing clients time to leaf through them.

Handouts and information sheets are used in many practices to convey important messages to clients on a wide variety of subjects, including dental care, worming and vaccination. It is easy to include behaviour in these handouts and, by leaving them in the waiting room for clients to help themselves, the very common problem of people being re...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part 1: Practice tips
• Part 2: Basic tools in behavioural medicine
• Part 3: Canine behavioural problems
• Part 4: Feline behavioural problems
• Further reading
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Index