The Fear Free Approach
Hey there! It is Melanie Canatella with Fluff and Feathers. Over the past five days, I have been busy with work and crunching in getting other certification. Last night at 9:40pm, I officially became a Fear Free Certified Trainer. This was important to me to get because it is a belief I always have followed, and I wanted the fancy piece of paper to further bring reassurance to clients that I practice what I preach on my website. Because I have been a fear free trainer for my entire training career, it was easy for me to breeze through the course because of my prior knowledge and experience. I wanted to get this certification sooner, but you must have specific certifications before you are allowed to get your Fear Free Certification. I found this a little limiting, as I think more people should have this knowledge and chance to review the course. But I also understand from a trainer’s perspective why they set it up this way.
Since training is an unregulated field, and this course did not go over any basics or in-depth training plans, having prior assessed knowledge would aid in being sure you are able to uphold the Fear Free methods. They also recommend professionals certified through them, so they also need to be sure they are recommended qualified and educated professionals. The good thing is that there are others like me out there that educate and promote this way of working with animals, allowing the education to become more mainstream.
Fear free is a simple topic to talk about. Generally, its working with the animal to decrease fear, anxiety, and stress, most specifically in veterinary care where FAS is high. It promotes training cooperative care with animals for medical procedures. The ideal goal is to have the animal be an active participant in their care, but also teaching staff how to work with passive participants to not raise fear, stress, and anxiety. Active participants are animals that have the most choice in their care by presenting behaviors and positions willingly to aid in staff care. This would be like a dog presenting its paw for a nail trim, a parrot opening its wings on cue and allowing for examination, a cat choosing to walk onto the scale, etc. Passive participants are those who do not take an active role. This is like the dog standing and the techs pulling up and holding their paw for the trim, light restraint on a dog for a blood pull instead of the dog sitting and using a head target, etc.
The course goes over different methods of decreasing fear, anxiety, and stress by different handling techniques. This course only discusses dogs and cats, but the overall ideas talked about can be transformed and molding to work with other species like parrots. One thing that I found interesting is about pheromones that animals leave behind when stressed. This had something really click with me to try with Ramona. Ramona had to go to the emergency vet a few months ago, and it was her first time ever there. A few days after she was discharged, she had to go to my vet for a follow up. Ramona has always loved the vet because the whole staff knows me and loves her. She quickly becomes the center of attention for all the staff, and even other clients in the waiting room. But, the last time, she was petrified, even of her friendly techs coming up and saying hi! She was able to settle and be less nervous through some training, but still people approaching her she was not a fan of. In other environments, like on a walk or in Home Depot, she is fine!
I always considered because she is a scent hound with tracking bloodlines that she just smelt maybe cleaner or something to correlate the emergency vet to her vet. But I use the same cleaners my vet does for my birds, as well as religiously use hand sanitizer in my house, so it did not really add up. Pheromones may just be the link I was missing out on. Technicians handle stressed animals, as well as stressed animals will leave their pheromones behind on the floor or furniture. Ramona was likely already feeling a bit uneasy, and smelling the pheromones could have just signaled to her “we need to panic.” Though it was disheartening to see how 24 hours could ruin the year plus work I did with her to love the vets (and I do not blame the emergency hospital at all they are lovely), but it also inspired me to continue to work with her through this.
One thing that was promoted in the Fear Free Certification course is Victory Visits and structured training sessions at the vets. First, you determine what aspects your animal struggle with when it comes to their care. This could be touching paws or ears, towel restraint for birds, or scales for cats. Next, you start at home training cooperative care strategies to aid in these behaviors you are struggling with. This would be like training your dog to give their paw than counterconditioning them to allow for the clippers to clip, restraint train your bird by desensitizing the towel, training a station, training the towel to restrain, then increasing duration in the towel, and for cats teaching a station with a mat and putting the mat over the scale.
Once training has started and some progress is made, schedule a Victory Visit at your vets. These are sessions where you can come in and work with a technician on the training your trainer recommended. This could be just coming in and out of the office, stepping up on a scale, even having the technician ask for the dog’s paw but not clip. These visits are positive and quick, like 20 minutes tops. It is to show the animal that not every time you come here it will be stressful. It helps generalize the cooperative care behaviors you started training in the comfort of your home to a new environment, especially where it will be utilized the most. It also gives you a chance to monitor behavioral progression and train through other environmental aspects of the visit to make future appointments more successful and less stressful.
After your visits, you learn a lot about where you need to continue your training. It can determine if you need to continue working on a skill longer, asking for the skill in other neutral environments before working up to be successful in a place with previous negative experiences, or any modifications needed to the current training plan or behavior.
This certification has allowed me to review online classes I have made earlier this year on different cooperative care behaviors and enhance them with added knowledge, terminology, and examples. I also got through the certification educational forms for clients that I can include when I do private training sessions to help continue my client’s knowledge and awareness. Since the course was mainly for dogs and cats, it has made me want to push forward some projects I had in the works for March 2024 to bring them out sooner. Parrots, as I am sure most of you know, can be very challenging at the vet’s office. The stress of the ordeal usually discourages people to bring their pets in for routine care, or even if they are not feeling well. In the zoo world, I have worked with a wide range of species, and the only thing I have trained are cooperative care behaviors with them. For exotics, it is super important, yet because exotic parrots are in our home, we do not put the same emphasis on those behaviors.
I have a lot of BIG plans for 2024. I have a lot of classes coming out, working with colleges on programs, working with a few vet offices in my area, and even a sneaky little workshop I am getting together for around March 2024 (date to be determined). Of course, the newsletter is the first to know about these things and get to sign up first as well using exclusive links and pages. You may also see me at a few conferences attending and presenting!
You will learn more about the Fear Free approach though my content online. I have already been promoting it for years and years, but now it is official. If you are interested in working with your animal on fear free handling and behaviors, feel free to contact me! I would be happy to work with you, and your veterinarian if needed, to devise the perfect plan of action for you to start. Do not wait till after the vet becomes a scary place; training should start as soon as possible, even before negative experiences and associations happen! I work with all species of animals on all behaviors.
If you have any suggestions on topics you would like to learn more about, or class topic suggestions, always feel free to email, message, call, or text me those suggestions! I want to cater content for you guys because you will be the ones benefiting from it! I hope you have a successful week of training!