I Don’t Want to Play With You: Identifying Chronic Pain in Dogs and Cats

Animals hide pain as part of a strong evolutionary survival response. Chronic pain can be particularly difficult to identify since it often has a slow onset and because we rely heavily on pet caregivers to be able to identify pain. But scientifically we know animals feel pain and we must be committed to actively looking for pain in our patients/pets and to educating pet caregivers on pain identification. Pain assessment and scoring systems for chronic pain identification in dogs and cats for use by veterinary professionals and pet caregivers will be described.

• At the end of this session the attendee will be able to:
• 1.Comprehend the percentage of dogs and cats that suffer from chronic pain
• 2.Understand the pathophysiology of chronic pain compared to acute pain
• 3.Utilize pain behavior and mobility changes to identify/score chronic pain
• 4.Utilize tools to increase pet caregiver ability to identify chronic pain