Pawz Ltd, a UK company founded by Diwaker Singh, Radu Georgescu and Francesco Cardoletti has launched PawSquad, a new on-demand veterinary video consultation service for pet owners.
The service offers pet owners a 15 minute online consultation with a veterinary surgeon for £15, any time from 6:00am to midnight, seven days a week.
PawSquad points out that the service cannot offer a diagnosis - apart from the fact that it would be contrary to the CoPC, it's obviously not possible without a physical exam - so the service is designed to offer more general health advice concerning such things as behaviour, nutrition and the management of long-term, non-emergency conditions.
Andrew Francis BVSc CertVC, DipECVIM-CA MRCVS ex-Head of Cardiology at Anderson Moores Veterinary Referrals is the company's Chief Veterinary Officer, sitting alongside Andrew Ash MRCVS (the BSAVA Past Pres). Andrew #1 said: "Currently, pet owners have only two options when they need advice about their pets' health and welfare. They either take time out of busy schedules to visit the vet or, when a visit to the vet is not possible they search the Internet for non professional and frequently unreliable information."
Francesco Cardoletti said: "It’s important to understand that PawSquad is a supplementary service – it’s not replacing traditional veterinary services.There are limits to the services you can digitally provide. If an animal is seriously ill, it needs to get to a bricks and mortar veterinary clinic and be examined by a vet."
Eleanor Ferguson, Head of Professional Conduct at the RCVS said: "We have had a discussion with Pawsquad and understand that the aim of its service is to increase accessibility to veterinary advice, which can only be a good thing as a large percentage of animal owners are not registered with a veterinary surgeon.
“We understand that the veterinary surgeons involved will not be giving detailed clinical advice but will be limited to offering general advice on areas such as puppy care, nutrition, allergies and pet passports.
“We also recommended to Pawsquad that their veterinary surgeons should take care to point out the limitations of their advice, given no physical examination has taken place, and suggest that owners takes their pets to a veterinary practice where that is appropriate.
“The issue of telemedicine has come up often during the joint RCVS/BVA Vet Futures project and is a topic that the Standards Committee, which looks after the Code of Professional Conduct and its supporting guidance, is currently considering in more depth, with an evidence-gathering process due next year.”
I tried out the new service with a question about my dog's slightly worrying habit of growling at one of my children. It was a question which we had not thus far raised with our normal vet because it hadn't been enough of a concern at the last consultation. But it seems to be getting slightly worse, and my wife and I had recently talked about getting advice. It seemed like just the sort of situation where an informal chat with a vet could be helpful.
Completing the preconsultation details was a breeze, slowed only by the need to shove the dog on a set of scales (I didn't know what she weighs, and it's needed for the consultation). Thereafter, only one hiccup when it transpired that Safari, the browser I was using, is incompatible. I switched to Chrome, which is.
The consultation itself was excellent. Within a few seconds, the very charming Angie Henderson MRCVS appeared on my screen. It transpired I was her very first consultation since the service was launched yesterday! We discussed the problem. She reassured me that one of the things I was doing (getting the child to feed the dog under supervision) was a good idea, and we discussed a number of other positive reinforcement strategies to try and improve our dog's behaviour. She explained that she wasn't one for certain types of negative reinforcement, but that using a spray bottle of water when the dog behaved inappropriately could help. She explained that we would need to do these things several times a day for them to have an effect, and even then it may take some considerable time, and may need the services of a behaviourist. She also reassured me that the dog would be unlikely to do anything worse than nip, whilst stressing that even a nip is very upsetting for a child, so it does need to be dealt with.
All in all, I came away reassured, with some very useful suggestions and a clear idea of what we need to do. £15 very well spent. I gather that I should also have received a written post-consultation report by email, which didn't arrive because of some technical glitch. But that's slightly by-the-by; the icing on the cake.
I can also see the service would be very useful as a sort of out-of-hours triage, in other words offering me the ability to have a "my-dog-has-just-eaten-three-kilos-of-Green-and-Blacks-what-next-consultation?" at 11:00pm at night.
If the service proves popular amongst pet owners, the question remains whether it will reduce the number of people seeking and paying for traditional consultations. I suspect not. Perhaps the reverse will happen as pet owners use the system to corroborate their feeling that the dog might need a physical exam. As part of the service and with your permission, PawSquad forwards a copy of the consultation report to your normal vet.
Again if the service proves popular, it seems to offer the potential for a nice additional income stream for veterinary surgeons, especially locums, which can be earned in the hours you specify, from the comfort of your home. PawSquad says it pays vets between £12-£32 per hour; equivalent to £60K per annum. Whilst the company doesn't directly employ vets, it will provide liability insurance provided by the VDS.
PawSquad says it also plans to recruit veterinary nurses later in the year, to offer advice to new pet owners on nutrition, behaviour and the environment.
PS: Whilst you're here, take a moment to see our latest job opportunities for vets.
Arlo, I don't have time to comment properly now as just about to go on to work but I have only just read this. Please do not take this 'behaviour' advice. It is completely inappropriate and borders on dangerous.
Hi Anne, genuinely intrigued to hear what you're going to say, because I'm not sure how you can make such an alarmist statement about someone else's advice without being privy to any of the detail I shared during the consultation! For example, I don't specify the breed here. If I'd said I owned a Great Dane, or a Pit Bull, I could perhaps understand. And then there's the degree of growling I didn't mention. Finally, the degree of supervision which I didn't explain in the news story (the child the dog growls at is special needs, and we don't let her interact with the dog except under close supervision by one of us.
So sorry for the delayed response Arlo, I have been flat out at work so not had a chance until now to compose something.
I apologise if my post sounded alarmist, but as a referral behaviourist I unfortunately see a lot of animals whose behaviour has got worse following well-meaning but inappropriate and out of date advice. A situation was described where a dog was growling at a child, and this behaviour was described as worsening. The advice that was given, specifically the use of a spray bottle when your dog growled, is very concerning, with the potential to cause the behaviour to escalate. I'm afraid I see the potential for any breed of dog, regardless of its size, to show aggression towards a child as alarming, particularly so if this is the result of inappropriate advice from a trusted professional.
Other people have now commented on the thread outlining concerns very similar to mine. Aggression is a completely normal behavioural response for a dog to have and a way for them to communicate how they are feeling in a given situation. Aggression can range from a grumble, to a growl, to baring of teeth, to a snap, right up to a bite (which again can vary in its severity and duration). Dogs will respond constantly to what is going on around them based on how they feel about it. The options a dog has to respond to a situation can range from taking themselves away from the situation, showing appeasement behaviours (which can often be subtle to the untrained eye, or unfortunately ignored or misinterpreted by people), or showing aggression. Which option a dog will choose to use in any given situation will depend somewhat on traits individual to that dog, but also on what it has previously learnt in that, or similar, situations in the past. Any dog has the ability to show aggression given the correct set of circumstances for them.
When a dog uses aggression (at any level, even just a ‘grumble’), it is invariably because they feel themselves, or something they highly value, is being threatened. Aggression is used as a way to manage or remove that threat. Generally dogs will start showing aggression at a low level, for example a growl. If the growl works to control or remove the threat then the situation will be resolved and the dog will learn that growling ‘works’ for them as a strategy in a situation where they feel threatened. However, if we ignore the growl, or worse, if we punish the growl, the threat is still there, and in the case of using punishment the threat has now increased, and so the dog is likely to also increase the level of aggression shown. This may not happen at the same time as the punishment is applied, but the dog will learn that the next time it is in a similar situation there is no point in them showing a warning sign as it doesn’t work and in fact results in them being punished, and so they resort to aggression at a higher level, for example by going straight to biting. In my experience this has often been the history in cases of dogs who are presented to me as biting without warning.
For the vast majority of dogs using a water spray is aversive (an aversive stimulus is one that causes some form of discomfort, either physical or psychological) and is meant to decrease the chance of the dog showing the same behaviour again in the future, it is therefore positive punishment. The negative reinforcement that was described to you during the consultation will only occur when the punishment is removed or avoided, ie. when you stop spraying the dog when it stops growling, or if you get the spray bottle out and show it to the dog but don’t spray them if they don’t growl. This may sound like a small point, but calling something reinforcement makes you feel very differently about its use than if you call it punishment. Punishment is never appropriate for a growl.
In order to resolve this situation we need to work out what it is about your daughter, or the situations with your daughter, that is causing your dog to feel threatened. We then either need to prevent the dog from being in the same or similar situations again in the future, or change the dog’s perception of that situation so that they no longer feel threatened and so don’t feel the need to use aggression. This is most commonly carried out by a programme of desensitisation and counter-conditioning, of which getting your daughter to feed the dog treats may be a part of it, but by no means all of the programme, and may not be the appropriate first step.
The other concerning thing for me from the consultation was her reassurance that the worst thing the dog would do is nip. Firstly, a nip to a child is still very concerning to me and secondly no one can guarantee that, especially after only a 15 minute skype consultation with no hands on assessment of the dog’s behaviour or bite inhibition. Whilst I am very sure you are a responsible owner and so don’t leave your dog and child unsupervised, I fear that giving that kind of advice, from a professional, to some owners could result in an unfounded complacence putting both dog and child at risk.
I have also been in contact with the directors of PawSquad who informed me that they had their own concerns about the advice you were given before I contacted them and these had already been discussed at their weekly meeting. They informed me they have spoken to the vet in question, have contacted you to offer you a consultation with a qualified behaviourist and are looking at ways of improving the level of behaviour advice given out in future to ensure it is appropriate and up to date. I really applaud the fact that they not only picked up on the issue themselves but are looking for ways to address it going forward.
A comprehensive behaviour evaluation simply cannot be undertaken in a 15 minute skype consultation, but appropriate first aid advice to prevent further reinforcement of the behaviour and to prevent getting into potentially dangerous situations can be given, as can advice on when and who is best to refer to.
Anne, thank you so much for all your time and trouble and thought. I haven't actually spoken with Pawsquad since, but I'd certainly hope (and it seems from what you have written), that this has been a very useful learning exercise for them. As for myself, your advice has persuaded me that I need the services of a behaviourist, so thank you very much for that.
Arlo, as chief veterinary officer at Pawsquad I would like to thank Anne for taking the time to speak with us about this issue. I would also like to take this opportunity to re-iterate Anne’s point that a detailed specialist behavioural evaluation cannot be carried out via a video consultation. This is not our intention. Instead we are aiming to widen access to veterinary advice, allowing owners to begin a conversation with a vet about their pet’s behaviour problems, rather than search Google or post a question on a forum.
We are strongly committed to robust clinical audit, and it is this process that identified concerns with the advice given in this case. Every consultation is recorded and currently all are reviewed for clinical audit purposes. This puts us in the unique position of being able to play back each and every consultation to optimise clinical standards. In fact, as a direct result of your consult Arlo we are in the process of identifying vets within our team that have further recognised qualifications in animal behaviour so that we can ensure that all our vets have access to the most up to date advice. My colleague Scott has sent you a follow-up contact email, so please let us know if you have any more questions.
Andrew
Andrew Francis BVSc, CertVC, DipECVIM-CA (Cardiology) MRCVS.