Making Exams Fear Free

Thirteen techniques to soothe and relax pets, from Fear Free founder Dr. Marty Becker.

Since 2016 when Marty Becker, DVM, launched Fear Free, his techniques (such as using treats, soft surfaces, calming music and pheromones) have been proven to lower and eliminate fear, anxiety and stress (FAS) in animals and improve veterinary outcomes. Becker suggests 13 tips for when it all comes together—in the exam room.

1. Skip the waiting room. Advise clients to park in the parking lot and wait in their vehicle with the pet until it’s their turn to be seen. You could even eliminate your waiting area, Becker says. Use the space to add extra exam rooms and send out a “pet concierge” to meet clients and pets between the car and the clinic and accompany them to the door.

2. Greet with treats. Let dogs pick out a treat when they enter. Draw a smile on the scale with Easy Cheese to entice them to step on to be weighed.

3. Give them five. Let pets acclimate to the exam room for five minutes, listening to calming music and inhaling pheromones, before anything that could trigger FAS happens.

4. Speak their language. New studies show that, just like babies, dogs like high-pitched voices, and they prefer female voices to male voices. And this preference for high-pitched voices and women holds true even for strangers.

5. Stay low. Ever since hearing from animal behaviorist Temple Grandin that most animals’ worst fear is of falling, Becker has shifted away from exam tables. If you do put pets up on a table, cover it with something soft and with good traction. Bathmats are ideal because they don’t move, he says. You can have clients bring their own bathmat from home for a familiar touchpoint and scent.

6. Provide choice. Let pets choose where they’ll be examined. “Some like to be on the floor on yoga mats, others in their carrier. Some like to walk up some stairs to a table covered in fleece; some like to be in the client’s lap on a bathmat spritzed with pheromones,” says Becker.

7. Skip routine temperature checks. Unless pets are sick, don’t take their temperature, Becker recommends, since “it causes too much FAS.” If a temperature is needed, use the HomeAgain TempScan, a pet microchip with temperature-detecting technology that allows you to take a pet’s temperature with a simple scan.

8. Start at the back. When examining cats, start at the back and move forward, as cats find this approach less threatening. “Not nose to tail,” says Becker. “And learn how to do all exams without prolonged eye contact.”

9. Use the touch zones. Dogs and cats like to be touched in certain places, says Becker. For cats, these include the corner of the lips, under the chin, the area between the ears and the base of the tail. For dogs, it’s the side of the neck, base of the ears, side of the chest and base of the tail. Don’t pat a dog down the dorsal midline, he adds. 

10. Check for pain. Becker recommends PainTrace, a wearable monitor launched in 2020. It quantifies both acute and chronic pain levels using skin-mounted sensors, helping veterinarians know when an animal is in pain and then zero in on where that pain is, even if the animal is hiding it.

11. Pay attention to needle size. Choose a needle that allows you to give the needed vaccine in three to five seconds. “Needle size matters,” says Becker. “Don’t use too fine a needle, or it takes too long to give the shot.” And hide the syringe: “Nothing good comes from the pet—or the pet parent—seeing the syringe. We cover it with little blue surgery towels spritzed with pheromones.”

12. Keep treats tiny. Always have pets come in hungry if possible, then “put the treat in treatment,” as Becker likes to say. Aim to provide 60 tiny treats in a 15-minute exam. “You can take a bacon strip and break it into 60 pieces, easy,” he says. “Or take squeezable cheese and make 60 little dots.” For pets with allergies, use a hypoallergenic diet, frozen beef broth, marshmallows or treats that clients bring from home.

13. Distract from shots. Just before giving shots, write the pet’s name in Easy Cheese, whipped cream or liver paste on a little paddle and let the pet lick it. Or provide whipped cream to lick from an ice cream cone. Or offer dogs two cones: one with Easy Cheese and one with peanut butter. Then give the shot while the pet is distracted with the treat. “Sometimes clients think we didn’t vaccinate their pet, because 90% of the time the pet has no response whatsoever,” says Becker.