Veterinary Parasite

It’s your worst nightmare - you’re walking your dog out in the park, and a small child approaches him and starts to prod/poke/squeeze and generally annoy.  Being a lovely young dog, he puts up with it for a while, but eventually he growls at the irritating youngster, who runs off crying.  As you’re a responsible owner, you quickly tell your dog off for growling at a child.  Over the next couple of weeks this scene plays out a few more times, until seemingly without warning, your dog bites the child.  And it’s bye bye doggy.

This is a situation that, happily, doesn’t occur too often, but it does occur.  With a bit of understanding of canine behaviour we can make sure it never happens to you.  Dogs are pretty simple creatures really - if you let them know a certain behaviour brings positive results (a stroke, a treat, etc.), then they’ll do that behaviour more often.  If you let them know the behaviour brings negative results (a telling off, a smack, etc.), then they’ll do it less often.  This is the basis of most training techniques, but we use the same methods unconsciously with our animals every day.

Let’s look at the situation from a dog’s point of view: “I was unhappy with a situation, so I expressed my natural warning behaviour, and growled.  I was then punished.”  We can see that following our rules from before, the dog’s expression of growling behaviour is likely to reduce in frequency.  The problem is that growling in this situation is entirely appropriate behaviour for a dog.  The growl is the lowest form of aggression a dog can show, so to express it means he does not want to bite, but would still like the annoying child to go away!  If we punish the growl, then he will eventually stop growling - unfortunately, the annoying stimulus of a prodding child is still there, and the dog still does not like it.  So what does the dog do?  He takes action to get rid of the annoying stimulus - as he can’t growl, he moves up the aggression ladder, and bites.  We have inadvertently trained our dog to progress straight to biting when he wants to express his unhappiness/fear at a situation.

So what should we do?  Well, firstly, reward your dog for growling.  This promotes the behaviour, making it less likely that he will progress to the next level - biting.  Secondly, remove the annoying stimulus.  I would argue this should involve giving the little kid a smack round the head, but unfortunately we may have to resort to taking our dog away.

Bottom line: Growling is natural behaviour for a dog, and expressing it makes them less likely to bite.  Don’t stop your dog from expressing its natural behaviour.

Throughout my career as a veterinary undergraduate, many of our exams have been in the Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) format, a method of assessment that, in my opinion, comes with considerable drawbacks. Generally, a question is asked, with 4 or 5 possible answers, of which one is correct. The first problem is one of testing depth of knowledge - with an MCQ, the correct answer is by definition already in front of the examinee, so simple questions of understanding are rarely asked, as they will be answered correctly by 99% of students. The questions asked are normally on very specific, and pretty detailed, pieces of knowledge. This contrasts to the challenges faced by a practicing vet - understanding a problem is absolutely vital, whereas exact facts and figures can always be looked up. As such, the MCQ is an inadequate method of assessing if the candidate has what is needed to achieve their ultimate aim, i.e. practicing as a veterinary surgeon.

The second problem is one of statistics. If candidates were to blindly guess at questions, they would, on average, answer one in four/five of these correctly, skewing the results of the exam. In order to combat this problem, many exams introduce “negative marking,” whereby 1/4 or 1/5 of a mark is deducted for every incorrect answer, with the stated aim of decreasing guessing. This is a totally ineffectual measure, as the student versed in statistics will realise that blindly guessing in the face of negative marking will yield neither a gain or loss of marks. So, if they have the slightest inkling of the answer, it is in their favour to go with it.

After having three (non-negatively-marked) MCQ exams last week, these thoughts have been buzzing round the old brain, and I’ve found a partial solution.  Tell the students that the examination is negatively marked - this achieves the aim of discouraging outright guessing, which could unfairly skew some students results upwards.  However, don’t actually apply negative marking - this allows students who were unfortunate enough to think they knew the answer, but were in fact wrong, to go unpunished, thus reducing the downward skew of results for unlucky students.  Of course, this would rely on utmost secrecy about the non-application of negative marking - something probably quite difficult to achieve within an organisation as insular as a vet school!

As a grand finale, I present to you an idea that will most likely see me beaten to a pulp by my classmates!  The best solution to the MCQ problem is, in my opinion, to use more traditional methods - short and long answer questions, with a choice of essays can test a wide range of subjects, to varying depths.  Importantly, it also tests understanding, rather than just parrot fashion learning.  It does of course require considerably greater effort to mark…which may or may not be a stumbling block to its reintroduction!

One of the seven deadly sins if you believe in all that, and I came damn close to it today!  Not once, but twice!  EMS, or extra-mural studies is the work placement component of the vet course, and there are 26 weeks of it to do, all in “holiday time.”  Now to be fair, it’s generally good fun, and there’s a lot to be learnt, so I’ve no problem with actually doing it.  What I hate, however, is the organising part…and to be specific, organising the farm practice part.  As it turns out, there don’t appear to be many farm vets within an hour’s drive of either my rented house, or my parents house.  Those that there are, are already full of students far more organised than me!  Anyway, after getting through at least 10 practices that claimed to do farm work in the Yellow Pages, but had packed it in, or were full, my patience was wearing a little thin.  Visions of having all my placements organised for me flashed before my eyes - Lo! For I was a Bristol student!  Fortunately, it was but a fleeting vision, before I quickly realised I’d rather graduate with a degree that meant something… (for those of you who aren’t aware, Bristol were recently given 2 years to improve standards, or their right to produce veterinary graduates would be suspended!)

Fortunately, a few more phone calls did the trick, and the summer’s fun was sorted.  The next task for today was the dreaded dentist.  Fortunately, all was fine, and a quick 5 minutes of running a probe over my teeth seemed to quell the man’s desire to cause pain.  Unfortunately, the receptionist was not so easily pleased - for this 5 minute visit, the princely sum of £15.90 was demanded!  Forgive me if I’m being naive, but I thought this was an NHS dentist?  Anyway, that sin came back to me all to quickly when I realised this equated to an hourly rate of £190.80.  Compare this with a certain Australian equine clinician, with more letters after his name than I’ve had hot dinners (OK, I was a packed lunch kid, but it’s still a fair few) , who declares an hour of his time to be worth in the region of £100.  Was I really jealous of a mouth-obsessed torturer?  Well I came close, I’m man enough to admit that, but after experiencing the joys of drilling teeth in dead dog’s heads, there’s no way I could do that to a live human!  No, for that I’d need at least 200 quid an hour!