Reducing Stress for Untrained Animals when Providing Health Care

This badge signifies completion of the course Strategies to Reduce or Eliminate Stress for Untrained Animals when Providing Health Care

In an ideal world, animals are trained to cooperate in medical care in advance. This means routine procedures are easily administered. However, many patients have not been exposed to evidence-based training technology and the risk for examinations to be stress inducing are high. Fortunately, there are simple strategies to consider that can dramatically reduce or eliminate stress. These include antecedents and setting events, the use of conjugate reinforcement, systematic desensitization, using distance as a reinforcer, sensitivity to body language and more. Understanding how these procedures are applied can potentially impact veterinary medicine in several ways. Animal welfare can be improved, future medical procedures are likely to be more successful, medical conditions are less likely to be exacerbated, client relations can be preserved and more. These principles and procedures arm veterinary professionals with powerful tools when conditions are less than ideal.

Once you complete the course,  fill out the form to submit your request for admin to review and issue your badge.

This course takes approximately 1 hour to complete.