Dog Friendly Clinic
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Visiting the vet might be a fearful or frustating experience for dogs. Dogs Trust and the British Veterinary Behaviour Association are partnering to help optimise veterinary interactions for dogs, their owners, and veterinary teams alike. The vision is to empower veterinary professionals to recognise how to reduce distress and make canine veterinary care provision as comfortable as possible for everyone involved.
The Dog Friendly Clinic scheme asks individual veterinary surgeons, nurses, support staff, and receptionists to pledge to apply canine behavioural principles within everyday veterinary practice. We are aiming to open the scheme to ‘whole clinic’ memberships in December 2022.
Applicants are asked to demonstrate how they meet designated criteria created with their individual profession in mind, therefore may join as a Dog Friendly Receptionist, Nurse, Vet or Support Staff. This recognises the unique interactions different members of the veterinary team have with dogs and their owners, and their different areas of responsibility within the practice.
Membership criteria centres around:
- the application of canine behavioural understanding within veterinary practice
- understanding body language and how to respond to help dogs feel safe
- applied low-stress handling techniques
- environmental modelling – within the scope of available resources and the individual’s role in practice
Once assessed as meeting the specified standard, successful applicants are invited to join, for an annual administration fee of £35, and issued with their ‘Dog Friendly Advocate’ certificate and badge.
Member-benefits include:
- access to regularly updated bespoke canine behavioural CPD and resources
- becoming part of a behaviour-focused veterinary community and positive cultural shift
To support the objective, we have created www.dogfriendlyclinic.org.uk a web-based resource hub for owners and veterinary teams. This houses freely available information to support veterinary professionals in completing their applications. This material is freely available so that anyone working within veterinary practice may access and learn from it, whether they subsequently join DFC or not.
VETERINARY PROFESSIONALS MAY REQUEST AN APPLICATION PACK via www.dogfriendlyclinic.org.uk
FOR MORE DETAILS please email:
dogfriendlyclinic@dogstrust.org.uk
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