Naughty at the vet's

[Cara L]

Hello everyone, I'm a new member with a six month old cairn named Wally who is the scrappy, plucky little love of my life. I've read many, many posts on this wonderful site and am grateful to have stumbled upon it. I feel like I know many of you and your cairns already.

My question is similar to Min D's post yesterday. We had a vet visit and another round of vaccines this morning which did not go well. This visit and the last, he snarled and attempted to bite the vet, the tech, and myself during the various pokings and proddings. I can't blame him for not liking it, and have come to understand the breed independence and instincts that give rise to this behavior. Understanding that being restrained by a vet tech while the vet gets right in his face with some sort of instrument might feel an awful lot like being wedged in a badger hole with flashing badger teeth coming at you. And yet. This vet seems not to understand terriers particularly well (my regular vet has been out of the country) and at first had me concerned that I might have a 'bad,' aggressive dog. Through you all I've come to learn this is not necessarily so -- more typical cairn behavior than not -- AND that I've still got to teach him that it's not ok. 

I should say that he tried this stuff at home for a while, and with the info contained in previous posts, I got him to stop. I am earning his respect and love, which feels pretty awesome. He loves everybody, including other dogs. I can see the fine companion that he is becoming, but until then, I'm at a loss for how to get him to be better behaved at the vet. She tried treats, distractions, restraint. She gave up today on trimming his nails, which was disheartening and, I fear, reinforcing of the bad behavior. Forgive me if there are posts already on this topic -- and I'm sure there are -- I've searched and not found many, however. Any thoughts or experience you can relay would be most appreciated. We're doing great in all other areas, just not so great on the tall table in the weird space with the white-coated aliens!

 

[hheldorfer]

Welcome!  It's great that you have already had success with Wally's behavior issues at home.  Not sure why he is misbehaving at the vet.  Could it be the vet and vet techs themselves?  Did he ever see your regular vet and, if so, did he have the same reaction?  

Obviously, it could be one of a hundred things that is causing Wally's aggression toward the vet, but I had a similar issue once with a terrier mix.  She was always a bit fearful at the vet's office but never, ever did anything remotely aggressive.  One day we had a different vet - a new, young guy who had just started working there - and my dog started emitting a low growl the minute the vet came into the room.  (Frankly, I didn't like the guy either.  He seemed quite full of himself and was bossy toward the techs.)  We got through the appointment without incident but I never went back to that particular vet again.  

We'd love to see a pic of Wally, by the way!

[sanford]

15 minutes ago, Cara L said:

...This vet seems not to understand terriers particularly well (my regular vet has been out of the country) and at first had me concerned that I might have a 'bad,' aggressive dog...She tried treats, distractions, restraint. She gave up today on trimming his nails..

Hi Cara, Welcome to this site! I see that you already understand that the problem is the vet... not Wally. It's true that a cairn's nails are hard to clip because they are black and you can't see the quick easily, if at all, but it sounds very unprofessional for the vet to send you away without being capable of performing this routine procedure. It sounds like Wally did a great job of intimidating her, and I wasn't there to see it for myself, but I'm assuming that vets are trained to deal with dogs who can be even more fiercely intimidating than a cairn. Many vets who are afraid of a bite, ask the owner if it's ok to put a harmless, soft muzzle on their dogs while they are being worked on.

I hope/expect that when he returns, your regular vet will be better able to work with Wally, otherwise you'll need to find someone more skilled.

[Hillscreek]

Vet gave up on trimming nails???? Guessing Wally knows vet is afraid. Also perhaps inexperienced - with a terrier at any rate. If Wally is fine except in this situation then it's time for trying a new vet.

One thing you might do is to practice at home checking his ears and teeth and generally messing gently with his head and round his eyes. Run your hands over his body like you were examining him. I did this with Angus since he was a small pup. I taught him "Let me see" which means 'hold still a minute' while I looked at teeth etc. I talked to him while I was doing this telling him how beautiful his teeth etc were. I wanted to be sure he would allow the vet or me or anyone else to check him if need be. It paid off. He's good at the vet and in fact loves her, gives kisses after exams and shots. Same with his groomer. But they are also good with him calm, friendly, yet businesslike.

Wally sounds like a great little cairn and pretty typical. Welcome Wally. Post us your pic please. We love pics of our furry ones and to hear about their adventures.

[pkcrossley]

my vets have always been understanding about my terriers (though the techs sometimes quietly slip on a little muzzle while we are doing introductions), but i have heard that in the vet "community" there is a general horror of cairns. we had a member here whose vet was so horrified by the antics of the cairn (leaping off the table and running around needles still in him, hiding under benches and biting people trying to drag him out, etc)  that he (the vet) recommended that the dog be euthanized. to me, this makes the vet more unpredictable and dangerous than the cairn. my expectation is that a vet treats animals, so he/she should be ready for the animals to act like animals. that said, i do think cairn owners have to work particularly hard to get their animals to make nice. i don't want any vet's job to be harder than necessary. so i would say that in addition to your normal training and socializing (make it rigorous), you need to take your own muzzle along to the vet, and have the dog in a harness that allows you maximum control (like, with a handle on it). as everybody here said, get your dog as familiar as you can as early as you can with the idea that he should allow his ears, eyes and mouth to be inspected. and --your dog is a puppy. i would hope any vet would be able to figure out that that is not a finished dog. 

[Cara L]

Thank you all for the warm welcome and your thoughts on this matter. So appreciated! To answer a few of your questions: yes, Wally was better behaved the first visit with my regular vet. But he was also several weeks younger, so I attributed today's  behavior there to -- as pk said in an earlier post -- entering the age wherein he starts his campaign to take over the world. I'll see how he does in two weeks for his last round of vaccines. Our regular vet is older, more experienced, brilliant and a bit quirky. I trust her without reservation. (As an interesting aside, she practices traditional Chinese medicine in addition to western allopathic medicine for dogs. With some easy dietary changes, she essentially saved my now elderly westie from certain death -- all conditions of what she termed 'damp heat,' resolved now for several years. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.) Today both the tech and vet were younger and definitely more timid than our regular doc. So they were likely part of the problem. His behavior today looked like fear; I swear I could see it in his eyes. I think the vet elected to not do his nails so as to not accrue any further negative associations with the visit. At the time this made sense, although I agree that they could and should have figured it out; that's their job after all.

We'll continue to work on socializing, getting used to being touched and worked on, and I also like the idea of a harness and muzzle next time. I'm surprised a muzzle wasn't suggested today; I would've been open to it. There being "a general horror of cairns" in the vet community I guess means more work on our end, but I'm up for it. Obedience classes start in a week.

Here is Wally in his crate on the ottoman next to my bed. It's an expression you all will recognize, I'm sure. 

 

 

[hheldorfer]

Wally is adorable.  I believe his expression is the one Cairns have when they are calculating how to overtake the human race.