Veterinary Blueprints
The Veterinary Blueprint Podcast is all about taking the blueprint of industry experts and breaking it down in short, digestible episodes you can use to take your practice to the next level. Join host Bill Butler as he interviews experts on client and practice management, financial strategies, human resources, and more. Gain valuable insights and stay ahead in the veterinary field by tuning in to tips from successful experts inside and outside the veterinary industry.
Veterinary Blueprints
Transforming Veterinary Care: Fear-Free Practices with Dr. Marty Becker
Get ready to uncover the secrets of fear-free veterinary care with none other than Dr. Marty Becker, affectionately known as "America's veterinarian." Dr. Becker's incredible journey from his roots in Southern Idaho to becoming a leading advocate for the human-animal bond is nothing short of inspiring. With 23 books under his belt and a role with Good Morning America, Dr. Becker has transformed how we view our furry companions. Join us as he shares his insights on how fear-free practices are revolutionizing veterinary care, ensuring pets are not just medically healthy but emotionally thriving too.
Our conversation dives into the real-world impact of these groundbreaking practices, with Dr. Becker highlighting how they have reshaped the veterinary landscape. Imagine a world where pets walk into a clinic without fear, where injuries are minimized, and where staff and animals are at ease. We explore compelling examples, like Family Pet Health in Tennessee, showing how embracing fear-free principles can improve experiences for pets and their owners alike. Plus, insights from Temple Grandin help us understand animal perceptions, making veterinary visits smoother for everyone involved.
Looking forward, we discuss the future of veterinary care, with Dr. Becker's infectious enthusiasm for upcoming collaborations and major conferences like VMX and WVC. He shares the importance of mental health within the veterinary community, emphasizing that the well-being of both animals and professionals is crucial. As we wrap up, we encourage you to join our mission of enhancing the human-animal bond by tuning in, sharing, and spreading the wisdom shared in this enlightening episode. Don't miss out on the chance to transform your understanding of veterinary care.
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we have a tremendous reverence for life. We fight so hard as veterinarians to preserve a pet's life and we know all life is valuable, so I just want people to think about their own life. When we think about physical and emotional well-being for pets, we need to keep remembering physical and emotional well-being for our team members and for ourselves as well.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast brought to you by Butler Vet Insurance. Hosted by Bill Butler, the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast is for veterinarians and practice managers who are looking to learn about working on their practice instead of in their practice. Each episode we will bring you successful, proven blueprints from others, both inside and outside the veterinary industry.
Speaker 3:Welcome to today's episode and outside the veterinary industry. Welcome to today's episode. Welcome to this episode of the Veterinary Blueprints podcast, where business and animal health meet for the veterinarian practice practitioner. My name is Bill Butler, I am your host of the Veterinary Blueprints podcast, founder of Butler Vet Insurance, and I'm very excited to bring you another episode of the podcast. We have a very special guest on. This podcast Needs no introduction, but I'm going to try and give him a really good one anyway Dr Marty Becker, founder of Fear Free. He's been a veterinarian for a long time We'll get how many years from him but he is considered America's veterinarian. He's written over 23 books, been the house practitioner for Good Morning America, traveled over 93 countries and now passionate about bringing fear-free to the world. And so we're just honored to have Dr Marty Becker join us today on the podcast. Welcome, dr Becker.
Speaker 1:Thank you, bill. Bill, it was really nice to meet you at VetPartners. It's funny and it's a pretty small fraternity, sorority in veterinary medicine, and yet you still come across people you haven't met before and I think you and I are kind of the type of personalities that made friends at the first hello.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we were at a conference that we were at Kansas City for vet partners and then Fetch Kansas City bumped up in the back end of that and you were receiving an achievement award and, holy cow, I'm sitting next to Dr Marty Becker and he's getting this award and I'd written a book. So I gave you a book and said, hey, I think we should connect. And now here we are in my podcast together. So thanks again for taking the time and I agree it is a small community in the animal health world that people are passionate about helping veterinarians.
Speaker 1:See, bill, you've got the dark hair full head of hair. I've got the legacy award, white hair comb over. So that's what happens at past 70.
Speaker 3:I will be there someday receiving a lifetime achievement award for something in insurance. Maybe we'll find out. So for any listeners out there few and far between who don't know who Dr Marty Becker is, who are you? You're out in Idaho, you're a practicing veterinarian, but you've done a whole bunch of other stuff. Who's Dr Becker?
Speaker 1:I was a farm kid. You think Idaho, you think Idaho potatoes. I grew up in Southern Idaho potato country. Small farm ranch broke the back of that to put four kids through college and wanted to be a dairy practitioner. From about age six went to veterinary school.
Speaker 1:The dean gave a talk on the human-animal bond as an introductory talk, welcomed us to school and I switched to companion animal within 30 minutes of arriving. So one of those things age six to 20, got into school early dairy, dairy, dairy, dairy dairy and then 30 minutes later I'm a companion animal. But luckily that he gave this talk. Because that interest in the human-animal bond, I also that same day volunteered for the People-Pet Partnership that matched elderly people with homeless pets. So the bond led to writing chicken soup for the soul books. That led to getting on good morning america, then the syndicated column and then one thing just kind of led to another. You know it wasn't any really intention to build a brand, but I helped popularize the human animal bond at a time when it wasn't as well known as it is today and then that led to all these other opportunities. So I guess, just like the human-animal bond is that inexhaustible, irrefutable source of energy for veterinary medicine. It also happened to be that way for my career.
Speaker 3:And when you look at the books that you've written, I think the theme across the books is that human-animal bond right, and it's so deep and penetrating and it's gone for so long. Right, it passes generations, it's thousands and thousands of years old, and so I think that's one of the through lines for you when you talk about the human-animal bond, that you're passionate about it. A lot of your books are about that, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you start out with Chicken Soup for the Soul books, those true short stories that evoke some emotion in you. And then it became things like the Healing Power of Pets, which came out exactly the week of 9-11. An award-winning book I wrote with a New York Times reporter. When you open up on the week like 9-11, it didn't do that well as far as sales, but it's still probably the definitive book on the healing power of pets. There's about 32 pages of bibliography in the back, based in science. But it's funny, bill.
Speaker 1:I grew up on this farm and ranch in southern Idaho. A dog was a dog. A dog had a utilitarian role on a ranch or a farm. They herded cattle, they retrieved ducks. I was a hunter. Then they guarded our stuff. You know the alarm barked and people came and then it changed. You know they had this migration of biblical proportion in the 60s where they moved from the barnyard to the backyard, to the back door, to the bedroom. They actually moved into the home. So we saw it change from a dog to a pet, to a family member, to a child. And now I've got two kids that are millennials and in their latest study they consider them life partners. My son has. He's 34. He has a girl. He's dated for three or four years they live with. That's his life partner. He has two cats. That's their life partners.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, my wife and I we don't have children. She's had a cat her entire life. I've grown up with dogs and because she likes cats and I like dogs, we have a cat. I'll let you draw the line there, but we've always, you know, she's always had a pet. I've always had a pet. We didn't grow up on farms, we don't have children, but we have, you know, that life partner, child and it's a pet. And we have a lot of friends in the same boat Middle-aged, childless, don't have kids, but a lot of us have pets. And so that that human amount of bond like I can't think of not having my little buddy Louie, the black and white tuxedo cat, at home waiting for me at the top of the stairs because I know he'll be there or at the door. So that's just. It's really interesting that that that's you know, kind of where your career has taken you and how has that evolved then into fear-free and developing fear-free as a practice of medicine and lifestyle for pet owners and then practicing for veterinarians?
Speaker 1:That's funny how that started. So it's 2010, in October, about 15 years ago, and I'm at a conference and I'd given the keynote the day before, and a board of veterinary behaviorists named Karen Overall was up front, nodding, smiling eyebrow flash, like I'd look at Karen every once in a while thinking, oh, this is going well, you know. And so the next day she's giving the keynote. I better go and, you know, show some support for her. I was sitting in the back of the room. I've always sat in the back of the room since I was a little kid. Anytime I could get in the back of the room, that's where I wanted to sit.
Speaker 1:And I caught her on the way in. I said, karen, I can't wait to hear your talk and in honesty I couldn't wait to leave. My wife was in town, it was in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, and I was going to sneak out and maybe get early dinner with her and it changed my life. She gave a talk about fear and how fear is the worst thing a social species can experience, how it causes permanent damage to the brain. Talked about, behavior produces a physiologic response, so behavior is medicine. And then, to kind of shorten the story, she got down to where she explained that all animals were the equivalent of a one-year-old child, taken against their will for health care. The one-year-old child or the animal has no idea why a procedure benefits them. They don't have the concept of time to know they might have the relief of fear, anxiety and stress or pain, even if it's moments away, and finally they can't flee the threat.
Speaker 1:So I thought, god, I've loved animals my whole life. I felt compassionate. I didn't realize the damage we were causing. I always thought the shivering, shaking, panting, yawning, salivating, jumping, biting, leaning away, whale-eyed, rigid, tail tucked, that's collateral damage and there's nothing you could do. And in fact it causes permanent emotional damage, and you can't have optimal physical health without optimal emotional health. And I guess I just never expected we spent five years in proof of concept, leaning on boarded veterinary behaviors to be the bedrock upon which Fear Free was built. And you know, we launched April 1st of 2016, hoping there'd be a thousand people by the end of the year. Nine months left in 2016. And there were 10,000 certified, and now today there's over 300,000 certified in 120 countries. And then we also certify practices besides individuals, and there's over 500 fear-free certified practices by the end of the year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I had the opportunity. One of the other podcast guests we've had on here was Michael Shirley from Family Pet Health in Murfreesboro, tennessee, and they I got to tell you, dr Marty, we recorded the podcast at their practice and they are all in. They built their practice around fear-free, everyone's, fear-free, certified. They do all the medicine in the room with the owner and they really have bought into that and you can feel the practice. It feels different as a practice than it does walking, you know, and I visit a lot of practices it just feels different even as a human walking in, because that's their mentality from the get go.
Speaker 1:It's definitely transformative. As anybody in the veterinary profession, you love animals and want them to love you back. And when animals feel like they're going to be harmed and pet parents feel like they're you talk about your tuxedo cat you feel like you're hurting your cat by trying to help it, as in taking it to the veterinarian. That doesn't work. If the pet now it remains calm or is even wants to go to the veterinarian because you put the treat into treatment Now, everybody wins the pet wins, the pet parent feels good about it and the practice team feels good because they're not. You know we take this oath to prevent or relieve animal pain and suffering. You don't want to be causing it by what you're doing or not doing.
Speaker 3:So you know, the interesting thing for me when I started hearing about Fear Free as an insurance agent to interject insurance into this was, you know, from a claims perspective for insurance for veterinary practices, the number one claim is you know those fractious cat bites. Or you know the dog, you know you're doing a procedure, the dog wakes up from anesthesia, doesn't know where it is, and it just bites the first thing it sees and it happens to be a vet tech's hand. And so, you know, the interesting thing for me was there's a high frequency, a lot of claims. They're just really small and you know, I thought well, fear free could be a thing for veterinary practices to help reduce claims for their, you know, reduce injuries for their team members. So a side effect, obviously fear-free for the pet being a primary thing. But you're running a safer veterinary practice, your team is less susceptible to injuries. You know, how has that come into play with fear-free and what are your thoughts on team safety as a component of fear-free?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's something we have to be put front and center is team safety as a component of fear-free. Well, I think it's something we have to be put front and center is team safety. I think you know there's career-ending bites. I can think of two or three veterans whose careers were ended because it was serious. So it's not just always a puncture, wound and some infection. But here's the thing we used to always have these red tags with white lettering that said caution, fraxious cat, caution fraxious dog. And now what I know is that pet literally thinks it's fighting for its life. I mean, it thinks it's going to be harmed or killed. So it's fighting for its life. So those tags now say caution, fearful cat or fearful dog. And that means you're looking to how do we remove or reduce the triggers that cause it If we can't like a lot of pets come in, you don't know.
Speaker 1:It's almost like when you get a pet from a shelter. It's like going into a movie that's half done. You don't know everything that's happened in their past. So we use a lot more pre-visit pharmaceuticals. But what was anecdotal? Now, banfield, the pet hospital, did a really good study for us. They saw over a 50% reduction in injuries, comparing practices that were fear-free certified in the same area, the same metro as ones that weren't fear-free certified. And there's a study coming out I don't know when the release date is but the veterinary schools of Georgia, tennessee and Illinois showing the decrease in injuries, dramatic decrease in injuries, with fear-free.
Speaker 1:So what you're doing is you're keeping the. You know, just like you have a body condition scoring, pain scoring you score fear, anxiety and stress, you keep it down at a certain level. You have the pet parent help bring a pet in that's calm and then you keep it down at a certain level. You have the pet parent help bring a pet in that's calm and then you keep it calm If it ever gets to where it's level. You're really good at looking at behavior and so you know veterinarians tend to not get as bitten nearly as often as vet techs.
Speaker 1:Because you know something's going to happen. You got, you know your spider senses there. Because you know something's going to happen. You got your spider senses there. But if a pet is like fear-free level four or five, you don't take it in the back and pile a bunch of people on top of it to get it done or stretch a cat into two zip codes. You pause, you tell people let's come back another day, let's take if it's not for urgent care. Or you give it something orally and give it some time, or you go straight to sedation, so sedate early and often think of sedation as the first option. But everybody wins. When the pet doesn't feel like it's going to be harmed, it's not going to, it's not going to act out as much, and when we know the signs, you just don't take them over that threshold.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting and, and you know, like you said, career ending and it may not be career ending for the actual injury, but I've had a couple of practices where and this was during COVID and they're you know uh, the the bringing pets in and out of the practice. You know. The one that comes to mind is a dog broke away after it had been given back to the owner and went and attacked the front desk receptionist who was bringing the animal. She was just walking back into the practice and got attacked by the dog walking back to the practice and she was scared to go back to work. She had the trauma and condition of being around animals. Then Is this dog going to attack me when I'm bringing out to the car?
Speaker 3:And so it's not just the physical injury of the bite or injury, it's also the for the human practitioner, the vet tech, the veterinarian. It's also you know, how many times do you need to get bit as a vet tech or a veterinarian before? Now? You're scared to do your job in a way that helps the animals, and so it's. It's that component for me in the insurance side of things, thinking about the practice and obviously claims drive costs on insurance premiums and all that sort of thing that falls into my category, and insurance companies look at those things and if you've got they all might be 500 bucks, but you've got four claims a year. You're pretty risky practice. You've got something going on and it just might be a bad, bad string of luck or maybe it's your practices that that need to get adjusted. So it's not just fear-free that fear-free practice. There's also some other initiatives that that fear-free has. Do you want to talk about some of those, like a fear-free research and shelter home?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I still remember when Karen Overall gave that talk. She says fear is caused by something painful or something disturbing. So again, this is October 2010. And she said she gave an example you cut nails too short. That's painful. Now the pet sees the nail tremors. That's disturbing.
Speaker 1:She talked about a syringe. She was thinking of a syringe with a needle. What's it used for? An injection antibiotic syrenia which stings. Long-acting antibiotic, a blood draw all painful. Now the pet sees the syringe. That's disturbing.
Speaker 1:So, part of what Fear Free has done a good job on the disturbing part, but we haven't leaned into pain as much. So we're working to create a pain certification that's like Fear Free, but we haven't leaned into pain as much. So we're working to create a pain certification that's like fear-free, but it's something that you can. Again, it'd be different levels. So you take pain-free level one, pain-free level two, three, because pain is underdiagnosed and undertreated.
Speaker 1:And when you think of a pet that comes in when it is sick or injured, it's always an itis, which means inflammation of pain. It's dermatitis, it's otitis, it's periodontitis, it's cystitis, it's arthritis. They're painful. So, again, the pet has no idea. When you're manipulating something that is sore, you're putting an otoscope in an ear that looks like a fire pit, or looking at gums that look like a flamethrower went across it, or looking at a wound. So there's got to be a lot more on pain management as well. So you're removing or reducing the triggers, fas, but you're also very early on. Ross Palmer, who's one of the world's top veterinary orthopedists, says tell me where it hurts without me hurting you. So how he does an orthopedic exam. So we have fear-free shelters. There's 150,000 people have completed a five-hour online course. It's free to all. Shelters and rescues. Fear-free, happy homes is complimentary to all pet parents. So it's a great place for practices, to send people for resources.
Speaker 3:I've dug into that. So we got a problem with Louie. He loves scratching stuff. So I'm like, oh, I went down a rabbit hole on a fear-free home for the pet parent that I am thinking, well, how can I make my home more fear-free for Louie? Because we got him as a stray and we didn't know that the first time that we started sweeping the kitchen, that he didn't like long sticks for some odd reason, and well, he probably got beat with a broom when he was a kitten at some point and he thought we were going to murder him obviously. And so it's like okay. So I found a lot of that information there interesting and informational for myself as a pet parent not in the animal health world, but just as somebody who owns pets like, oh, there's a ton of great information here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something that's interesting now for students. So I've been out. I graduated in 1980. So what is it? 45 years next year? Students now? About three-fourths of all the veterinary schools in the United States require fear-free certification of students before graduation and literally all 300 of the AVMA-accredited veterinary technician programs require fear-free certification. So they're just learning differently. We learned restraint, bill. Restraint is harsh and designed to protect people.
Speaker 3:It was like welding gloves and fishing nets right.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, or aquariums and gas them to things and it's just going to be so much better. The pets aren't going to have that permanent kind of emotional damage. You mentioned something earlier and I can't remember quite what triggered it, but surviving a near death experiences is the worst trauma and so for pets they literally, when you go into a lot of them, come in and they think they're going to be killed and they survived it. So it's so damaging to them and that can spill over into more generalized problems at home and like when you're talking about the cat with the broom, something in the past, really probably that cat thought it was going to die and so that what seems like we're just sweeping the floor. You know it doesn't seem like anything, but you know one of the things you and I were talking off air about Temple Grandin.
Speaker 1:Temple Grandin is Fear Free's director of animal welfare. There's 256 people on the Fear Free advisory group. There's 60 boarded veterinary behaviorists, about 30 PhD behaviorists, the head of ethology at MITrian hair, the animal head of animal cognition at duke alexander horowitz, the head of animal cognition at columbia all these. There's 12 boarded anesthesiologists. But of all the 256 people, temple grandin is the one that's just gifted, and we've been lucky enough to get her into companion animal practice too. And to just see, I still remember we spent two days in a companion animal practice and temple said all animals number one fear from birth is a fear of falling. So what have we done over the past in veterinary medicine? Hey, let's lift them up their feet and put them up on an elevated, slippery table you know, and she just sees things so differently.
Speaker 1:We see a shiny floor that's clean. They see it looks like ice, looks like it's going to slip for them. So you're seeing practices designed differently.
Speaker 3:So there's interesting because you did some tours and you actually recorded those and Temple talking about witness in the practice. I did watch a couple of those in advance of our time together and I did hear her as a keynote last year at the Minnesota Veterinary Medical Association and she said you know, animals think in pictures and so they see a picture of something one time in their life and it's freeze-framed like that. So they see, you know ice or slippery floor, and they see the thing again. They don't rationalize well, this is a linoleum floor, not ice. They just see the ice and so you know. And when you hear Temple Grandin speak about things, she is gifted and she does break it down into a non-clinical manner. You just think, well, this obviously makes sense. Why didn't I ever think of this before as somebody not you know.
Speaker 1:Bill, I'll give you a good example when you're in that clinic.
Speaker 2:We were in a a thing where the dog was on a lift table.
Speaker 1:You've seen dozens of those. This was an older one and, because I had the screw, it was wobbling. So the dog immediately went into the brace position, you know, like you would like a sawhorse, and, uh, temple goes stop, you know, stop. So we stopped the lift table going up and she goes. That dog just took a picture of this exam room and and of and. So it saw these there was two people in white over here. There was these colored cabinets. Over here was a wall with a window in it.
Speaker 1:She goes make a note in the emotional medical record you notice I didn't say medical record, the emotional medical record to not put this dog back in this exam room again. And the practice owner, the architect that was with me and I looked at each other. Every exam room was exactly the same. So now you're seeing again there's another change. You're seeing practices being built where every exam room is a unique look to it. So because, if, because that has a really bad experience in that one room, you can't just go hey, we're not going to do the same thing in here next time. Right, it's in the brainstem, it's in that amygdala, that little almond-shaped thing that holds all those negative memories, and that's why pre-visit pharmaceuticals are so important?
Speaker 1:yeah, and it's a picture of the of the environment, not necessarily the action that's happening a hundred percent and that that's why and this is some other stuff that we've done with temple. Now don't all if you have a pet that has a really bad experience and they don't always take them in the front door, take them inside or take them in the back door. I was just in the side door, take them in the back door. I was just in a practices in Spokane, washington, two new practices that have indoor, outdoor exam rooms and you can enter that outdoor. You can enter that exam room from the outside and either never go in there, but it's just funny when you change it.
Speaker 3:That was the practice in Tennessee that I visited. They had outdoor patio practices. So you can actually, you know, a little bit different in Tennessee than Minnesota where I am, where you don't necessarily want to do an outdoor visit in January. But you know you could get all of your treatment and care outside on a patio, versus you know need to bring them through the front door and getting on the scale and and you know the scale at the practice is scary or whatever that might be, because they have that picture of the reception desk.
Speaker 1:You know, bill, this I don't know why I'm 70. So sometimes I think my brain is like the kitchen junk drawer that got thrown on a trampoline. But I am and I say this not to make it be funny I'm probably. If you look at what people think of a veterinarian, as far as diagnostic skills and coming up with effective treatment plan, and a surgeon and a pharmacist and a radiologist and all those things, I'm probably below average. I'm really good with people, I love leading people, I'm good in the exam room, but you know, surgery, finding little, ferreting out stuff on geriatric pets with multimodal conditions yeah, you probably don't.
Speaker 1:You probably don't want me, but when I went to Ukraine so the war had started in February, you know what, two and a half years ago I was so upset seeing all the pets that were having problems and the people with those pets that I went over to help in May, so shortly after the war started. And was I going to do surgery on some dog that fractured its leg or help some cat that was sick and nobody else could figure out? No, but what I knew was animal handling. So I went to three veterinary schools and I also went to the head of the Romanian Veterinary Medical Association Association, the head of the Moldavian Veterinary Medical Association, head of the Polish. So I was training the trainers, training the people are going to be there long after I left, but this fits right in with what you, what you do for a living Bill.
Speaker 1:People walk up to a pet and they were coming across the border, stressed pets, stressed, stressed people and people oh my gosh, look at your dog, what's its name? And they leaned forward and they put their hand out in space and had prolonged direct eye contact and there was bites. You don't walk up to them, you don't have prolonged direct eye contact, you don't stick something in their face and you don't lean over them. So all you do is you turn sideways, you keep your distance, you can. So all you do is you turn sideways, you keep your distance, you can glance at them if you want to, but call them over to you and, even better yet, incentivize them to come over by tossing some treats, some Hansel and Gretel in them.
Speaker 1:So if every veterinary clinic in the United States just greeted pets, interacted with pets, the right way. But if we were to go into 100 practices today, that's the right way. But if we were to go into a hundred practices today. Almost everybody still walks up to them, looks at them, puts their hand out. It's not the way you do it. So we got a ways to go, bill.
Speaker 3:We fall into that trap because that's what we wind up doing. So you know, as we come up to the conclude our time here, dr Becker, why you know I think we've chatted about some reasons why and you know, from a peer insurance perspective, if you have a lot of bite claims on your employees, it's probably something you need to look at of what practices we're doing. We talk about it from a safety perspective, but you know, because it's being taught in schools. Why do you think and why are you passionate about bringing this message to veterinarians and making sure that it's? If there's a veterinarian on the fence, why would you recommend that they invest in this for their practice?
Speaker 1:So, bill, I'm good at sales Again below average veterinarian but you know I always think about whether I'm selling. You know my wife's a lot better looking than I am, so I had to sell myself to her 45 years ago. You're always selling something right. You're leading a group of people in things, you're talking to a potential sponsor, whatever, but normally in sales you have benefits over. Price equals value.
Speaker 1:And then you look at well, what are the? Let's go ahead and address the negative things or the things that are not positive. So here's a fear-free. Number one it's the right thing to do. We take an oath. That's a sacred promise to prevent and relieve animal pain and suffering. Go back to your oath. It helps that. Number two a dramatic decrease in injuries. Number three it's better medicine. The vital signs are more normal. The diagnostic tests are more normal. The exam is more normal because they're not heightened pain and sensitivity in the fight or flight response.
Speaker 1:It's easier to track, develop and retain people when all these veterinary schools and tech schools are requiring fear-free certification and they go out and have 10 to 12 job offers. They want to practice in a place that's fear-free, certified. Next, it's very profitable. We've got several years of white papers showing key practice indicators, kpis and profitability. And number six it makes practice fun again. When this sounds unbelievable, it's almost like I'm going to tell you smoking's good for your health. In a good, fear-free practice, most of the dogs will drag their moms or dads in to have their nails trimmed. Now, how is that possible? Well, number one use a lot of pre-visit pharmaceuticals. And number two you've changed the way you do it. Not only can you get fear-free certified, but there's 150 hours of race-proof CE, there's a nail trim course that tells you how to do it and you have tasty treats. We call it putting the treat into treatment, taking the pet out of petrified and put the treat into treatment. But when you're in a place where- how many?
Speaker 2:times have you said that.
Speaker 1:A lot of times when you have a dog that drags its mom or dad to have their nail trims in and they go and tell their friends, their neighbors, their coworkers, my dog drags it in there. And for cats? You're not going to have cats drag people in there. But I tell you most of them are neutral or above. And I can tell you this because in the practice I work at in North Idaho is a good example 85% of the cats that aren't sick or injured will take a treat. How is that possible? You've got to have low FAS levels and you've got to have really tasty treats.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's you know. When I look at the insurance component, it's the majority of claims are coming from. You know, nail trims, or the routine it's the routine stuff. It's not the emergency practice stuff because you're using those pharmaceuticals as you said. Or you know sedation it's the routine that all of a sudden, you know I've trimmed this cat's nails 10 times and on the 11th time it, you know, destroyed my hand because it felt something.
Speaker 1:See what they do, Bill. They don't pick up the signs of fear, anxiety and stress. That's a good thing. When we hand these modules, when you go through fear-free certification over and over and over, you're seeing images and videos to where you become a ninja at detecting the slightest change in that FAS level and you know when you've got to stop. And also, there's a lot more pre-visit pharmaceuticals like gabapentin for these cats.
Speaker 1:But you don't. The more you restrain that cat like if you're stretching that cat into two zip codes you've got a good chance of getting bit. If you do what we call gentle control and the touch gradient with a distraction technique, the cat's going to be eating something a piece of uh, of a hot deli Turkey or something, and so that's how you trim the nails.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I I really appreciate our time as we wrap up. Uh, dr Becker, what's one final thought that you would like to leave our listeners with today about, you know, fear-free or the future of veterinary medicine as it relates to your passion and fear-free, and what? They do to help run a safe practice.
Speaker 1:If you don't mind. So fearfreecom will take you anywhere, to the complimentary things All students, vet students and vet tech students. It's free to them. The shelter course is free. But I'd like to talk a little bit about mental health. So I have depression in my family. I speak very openly about it. We know there's a big issue with mental health in veterinary medicine and I've been part of a documentary that's coming out called the Cost of Caring, and they were asking me about something the other day. That what I think about and I always think about this. We have a tremendous reverence for life. We fight so hard as veterinarians to preserve a pet's life and we know all life is valuable. It hurts us when you see shelters having to euthanize pets or anything. So I just want people to think about their own life. When we think about physical and emotional well-being for pets, we need to keep remembering physical and emotional well-being for our team members and for ourselves as well.
Speaker 3:That is an awesome message to end on, dr Becker, and I'm glad that you brought that up. And so, if anyone wants to reach out, you mentioned the website Fear Free. How can somebody reach out to you or a member of your team if they're interested in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, drmjb at fearfreecom. They can contact me If they go to fearfreecom. There's several portals there. If anybody's got questions or needs anything but happy to have somebody contact me as well, whether it's about fear-free or just talking about mental health.
Speaker 3:Well, you're an awesome person to hang out with and meet. You're very entertaining down in Kansas City and I've enjoyed our time together on the podcast. If you're interested in more information about fear-free, we'll have more information in the show notes. I know that there's a lot of Dr Becker and Dr Temple Grandin have a lot of great stuff coming out in the future, so keep your eye out for that, and thanks for joining us today on the podcast, dr Becker.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Bill. Look forward to seeing you, Hopefully thinking about this time of year, maybe VMXC, WVC, the big ones.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I'm actually moderating some panels at VMX, so looking forward to that. We'll see you in Orlando.
Speaker 1:Okay, bye, bill.
Speaker 3:As always, remember to like, join and share the podcast with everyone else out there. And thank you for joining us on this episode of the Veterinary Blueprints Podcast, where we bring business acumen and animal health together.
