Fear

FREE

During a typical veterinary visit, pets often experience a lot of stress. That comes with being in a strange place, seeing unfamiliar animals, smelling unfamiliar scents, and being handled by total strangers. Pet owners can often sense how much a trip to the vet heightens a pet's anxiety. Many pet owners don't know that it also actually makes good health care difficult. That's because increased stress levels release hormones that change a pet's body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate. These are signals that are also used in routine diagnostics. This means stress can make veterinary practices chase a problem that doesn't really exist, or worse, fail to see a health issue because the pet is also exhibiting a stress response.

We are proud to have a fear free certified employee. Fear Free is a growing movement within the veterinary community to put much more thought into how to design a pet's visit around minimizing any stressors they experience. The accrediting body has rigorous standards of what it takes to qualify as a Fear Free certified practice, and the standards are around a wide array of techniques, such as handling, room design, masking of scents, limiting exposure to other animals, and more. We do it because we believe your pet deserves the best health care there is. We do it because we care.