Doctorate: Who’s the Best Patient?

Nowadays people tend to be reactive instead of proactive. They wait for problems to develop in order to do something about it instead of taking action to prevent it in the first place. It’s for this reason that we’re frequently asked “how can I get her to stop doing this?” instead of “how can I make sure this very common problem doesn’t develop in the future?”.

When it comes to our pets’ future needs, people don’t consider it relevant to prepare in advance and when the time comes, they prefer to use force while traumatizing their pets thinking it’s ok or that “that’s the way everyone does it”, just because our pets are small enough to be forcefully restrained and exposed to horrible situations. This is why most dogs develop behavior problems, phobias, anxiety and aggression, which can result fatal in case of emergency when the veterinarian won’t be able to provide the full needed care due to the animal’s lack of cooperation. Not to mention how unhappy that animal will be throughout their life having to go through those frequent procedures along with the human that’s supposed to protect them.

For many years our President Caro Sacco has been confused and frustrated with this vision of pet care because people evidently love their dogs and other pets but, with the best intentions, they end up hurting them due to lack of education and understanding of their needs. True love means adapting ourselves to them and, as a different species unable to understand human communication, we must teach them according to the way they perceive the world.

“As a dog and marine mammal trainer, I’ve seen dolphins, sea lions and other wild animals voluntarily and happily offer parts of their bodies for blood sampling, sonograms and other invasive medical procedures in which everyone involved is relaxed. If this is possible as seen in videos in this page, why do pawrents have to unleash WW3 to perform procedures as simple as a nail trim? The solution is training and commitment.” – Caro Sacco.

If we’re lucky, our furry kiddos will brighten up our lives for around 15 years in which they’ll need tons of veterinary and grooming care. We are responsible to make them happy and this includes stress-free lives when it can be avoided.

Our pawfessors learned to be the best patients since they were puppies through the positive reinforcement of husbandry behaviors that no animal would naturally perform and that help tremendously when it’s vet or grooming time, which keeps them happy and healthy. They cooperate so much – which sadly is quite unusual- that we tend to have to ask vets to please relax their handling because they’re already predisposed to the epic battle coming their way instead of dogs that will happily offer their paws, lie on their side, stay still, etc. if only we take a moment to nicely asking them to. People seem shocked and fascinated when we show them our pups’ husbandry behaviors as if they were seeing aliens, when in fact everyone’s pets could do the same. These are the reasons why we created the Doctorate “Who’s the Best Patient?”. We want a world filled with happy dogs that not only are not afraid of vet and grooming procedures but that they also ENJOY them as the best patient!

Will your pup be The Best Patient?