Some thoughts on being a vet tech...

Ah the rare weekend blog post, it's really happening people, try not to get too excited. I just wanted to write about a subject that seems to keep coming up lately and maybe get other people's thoughts/opinions on it. This is just my opinion on the subject and I'm totally open to other points of view so feel free to put your two cents in.

Amongst veterinary medical professionals, it's fairly common to hear people voice their frustration with pet owners who wait an excessive amount of time to seek treatment for their animals or fail to follow preventative health care guidelines or a host of other things. I am certainly guilty of this myself, but I had an experience this past week that made me reconsider how quickly I pass judgement on an owner.

Of course, there are and will continue to be cases of neglect, abuse and carelessness on the part of pet owners. Those situations frustrate and anger me just as much as they do everyone else and are not what I'm referring to.  I'm talking more about instances in which the owner is just uneducated or unaware of the appropriate course of action or signs/symptoms/effects that need to be considered with regards to their pet.  It's important to remember that we have extensive schooling and practical experience that helps us to know what is normal/abnormal, safe/dangerous, required/unnecessary when it comes to animals. All pet owners don't have that  knowledge which is why they come to us.  It's our job to educate them and help them to know what to do and what to look for in their pets, not to judge them and assume that they are negligent pet owners because they overlooked something that is obvious to us.

I try to think about what I knew and how observant I was of all things veterinary before I had any training or experience in the field. Would I have known that taking an unvaccinated puppy to a dog park could end up killing it? Would I have thought to pay attention to how much urine/feces I had to scoop out of a cat's litter box and if that amount changed or the consistency changed would I notice? If an elderly animal was progressively having more difficulty moving and doing their regular activities, would I take him to the vet at the first signs of change or would I attribute it to his age? If my animal ate something they shouldn't or ate way too much would I rush him to the vet or just wait it out?  Would I know that aside from preventing baby-making there are many other reasons to have my pet spayed/neutered? Personally, I didn't have a clue about many of these things prior to having any training/experience. I think it's important to try to think about the situation from the owner's point of view and give them the benefit of the doubt when at all possible.

As veterinary professionals, we also tend to be hyperaware of what is going on with our own animals. We do full body palpations regularly, we check ears, eyes, mouths/teeth, we know how many times they usually urinate/defecate in a day, what it normally looks like and what it should look like and when to worry if it doesn't look like what it should. We have actual "normal" conversations entirely based on poop. Perhaps we have forgotten that most people don't talk about that on a regular basis.  Owners may not look at all of these things on their pets regularly or even know what to look for. So that huge growth on the side of Fluffernutter's thorax didn't get noticed right away. Maybe 'ol Fluff doesn't like to be petted in that area or maybe the owner felt it after it had been there a while and waited to see if would change or get bigger before bringing them in.

Another point to consider is that many people don't trust authority figures (i.e. doctors and vets). There are a million reasons why people feel this way, but it's something to keep in mind especially when we are telling an owner that they need to spend x amount of money to help their animal or to prevent their animal from having issues down the road.  It's been a hard economic time and people are more wary of parting with their money especially when they don't fully understand what they are paying for.  We have to make an effort, at whatever point we first interact with owners to explain to them what their responsibilities are as a pet owner, what they need to do to keep their pet healthy and, perhaps most importantly, why they need to do these things. You can tell people a zillion times that they need to get their pets vaccinated but, until you explain to them the risks of not vaccinating and the ease with which their pet can contract a life threatening disease, they may not understand how important it is. Do I get my flu vaccine every year? Heck no! Have I died from the flu or know anyone who has? Nope (though I did have a near death experience that was flu related a few months ago, but that's beside the point!). So, again thinking like an owner, I don't get or need a flu vaccination every year so why does Spike need his vaccinations every year? And what is Distemper anyway? Spike's temper is perfectly wonderful.

Anyway, this is starting to progress into silliness. But my point is that before we get upset and frustrated with owners that didn't do what we would have done with their pets, we should take a moment to consider where they are coming from.  Instead of getting upset with them, we should do our best to educate them.