Bridging the gap between animal behavior and veterinary science is the key to providing truly holistic care. While medicine addresses the body, behavior often signals what the body can't say.
Final statement: To ignore behavior is to treat only half the patient. Bridging the gap between animal behavior and veterinary
Historically, animal behavior belonged to two separate camps: the animal trainer (who cared about obedience) and the ethologist (who cared about wild instincts). Veterinary schools focused heavily on anatomy, pharmacology, and pathology—the "hard" sciences. The result
Desensitization: Gradually exposing an animal to a scary stimulus (like nail clippers) at a low intensity. The result? Safer veterinary teams
The result? Safer veterinary teams, less distressed animals, and more accurate diagnostic data (a fearful cat’s heart rate and blood pressure are clinically useless).
Animal shelters are the ultimate laboratories for the interplay of behavior and medicine. A dog in a shelter has a suppressed immune system due to high cortisol (stress hormone). This leads to "shelter cough" (kennel cough).