In our 2021 CFP Survey, many of you shared tips that you use at your practice to provide a calmer and better experience for cats and their caregivers. Below are some you may want to consider using at your practice.
Clients:
- Encourage clients to bring blankets from home and remind them to cover the carrier with the blanket prior to leaving home.
- Coaching clients on how to reduce stress around cat carriers and travelling to the practice.
- Talk to clients about environmental enrichment at all wellness visits.
Environment:
- Consider a sliding door for decreased noise.
- We designed our cat ward to have a large TV screen that plays videos of birds, fish, and so on, as well as a large window to the outdoors.
- Fans to minimize noise from other parts of the hospital.
- Our dedicated cat room is kept slightly warmer than the rest of the practice.
- Will be adding classical music to exam rooms, already have for boarding.
- We have microwavable neoprene warmers that we wrap a towel around between patients.
- Cat “fun” inspired room, Feliway diffusers throughout cat areas, hide boxes for cats in kennels.
- Furniture in feline room that eliminates cats under chairs is less stressful for everyone.
Procedures:
- Offer an alternative to having cat clients having check in/out in the lobby. Consider offering check-out in the examination room or allow the client to keep their cat in the examination room while they go to the lobby to check-out.
- Make notes in chart as to tips on handling, blood draws, etc. what works and what did not.
- We added a 10-minute overlap in appointments to allow cats to decompress from their travel to the hospital.
- We embed the information on getting your cat used to a carrier into the new client sign up page on our website so they have to read through it to complete their registration process.
Staff:
- Using treats for cats that are unsure has really helped lessen the amount of feline friendly restraint they need which keeps their stress level lower and our stress level at the clinic down.
- We try to limit the number of times we go in and out of the rooms to reduce stress.
- We demonstrate to new staff how limited restraint usually results in less resistance from our patients in the exam room. Learning to read body language (posture, ear position, pupil size) can help new staff become more comfortable with limited restraint because they are more confident that they can pick up on early signs of fear aggression before a scratch or bite.
- As a staff we put notes in each exam as well as our alerts what works for each cat, which ones need premeds prior to visits etc.
- Teaching the staff to handle in a cat friendly way has meant happier staff, happier cats and better collections.