How a simple cat vet exam reveals basic ailments that may be affecting your patient.

The benefits of accurately and calmly examining a feline client

Every veterinarian and vet professional will have your own ways of conducting a basic exam.  When I talk about adopting a Feline Friendly approach, I may be advocating basic steps that you take every day when you deal with cats.

But the fact remains that so many nurses and even vets experience great discomfort dealing with them and so if that’s you – these videos are designed to show you an approach that will change your experience of working with cats.  If you are already experienced and comfortable then you or your team are welcome to watch and even share them with your clients

So, in this series, I cover the basics of a physical exam. On other pages I cover Cystocentesis and low-stress ways of collecting blood.

Pay careful attention, in Video 3, about taking the cat’s temperature. Or, rather, not taking it.

1. Conducting A Physical Examination

A full physical examination will enable you to get to the bottom of most ailments but, if between the exam and the information that client provides you don’t have enough to go on with, I cover testing in another section.  An examination can require a little imagination at times because you are not seeing the organ you are checking.  But a little practice will take you a long way in letting the cat’s body “talk” to you!

Provide enough room on the table to give you and the cat freedom to move and check:

• Eyes and ears
• Chin acne
• Throat
• Glands
• Bladder
• Liver
• Kidneys
• Abdomen:
  – is she passing faeces normally?
• Dental Hygiene:
  – also see the case study regarding how dental health can affect the well being of the cat

2. Monitoring the heart in a cat vet exam

Monitoring the heart can be tricky.  If you don’t get the position quite right the cat is uncomfortable and that will affect the result you get.  This video demonstrates the process during an examination but the video “How To Listen To A Cat’s Heart” will give you all my Feline Friendly tricks.

Be aware that the heart rate at the vets is usually higher than it may be at home so you need to allow for that.

3. Clipping the cat’s nails

Clipping nails on a cat when you are conducting a medical checkup may seem odd.  But in my own practice it is very very rare that a feline patient isn’t calm in the consultation.  I have trained my staff and many of the owners to do nail clipping at home as well.

It actually calms them down, gives them an opportunity to get to know me (or remember me)  and also gives me a good opportunity to check their mobility and agility.