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Triggered by Veterinarians/Barking Dogs

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RussellSue

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I had to take one of my cats to the vet today. I felt the anxiety building as I was getting us ready.

I had a very unwell cat for 12 years. In the end, he was insulin dependent and was put down just last year while having heart failure. I remember our many trips to the vet being ridiculously difficult on the panic front. The barking dogs in the back made me insane. It seemed like there were always several.

Our trip today didn't involve any barking and I was surprised that I was pretty calm the whole time but I was totally waiting for a panic attack. I know I have trauma surrounding traumatic deaths of pets but barking dogs? What is that about? We had dogs when I was a kid - they barked a lot. I have no specific known tie in.

Does anyone else have trouble with vets and/or barking dogs? Any tips on how to handle it? It feels very biological like how women react to crying babies but what the heck? Why so intense? I realized today that I was avoiding the vet because of this and I don't want to do that with cats at home.

Obviously, I have skills, tools and gadgets to help me get through stressful situations but I guess I am just wondering if this is a common thing. It seems like the vet office is scarier to me than even the gynecologist.
 
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Does anyone else have trouble with vets and/or barking dogs? Any tips on how to handle it? It feels very biological like how women react to crying babies but what the heck? Why so intense?
Any place that smells of blood, fear, pain, & death tends to kickstart my adrenaline response.

Similarly? Alert-barks, threatening-growls, painful-whimpers (regardless of species) will grab my attention about as quickly as the rattle on a snake, or shifting gravel on a rooftop. If my anxiety is NOT already running hot, I can assess & dismiss fairly easily. Just like seeing someone wearing a coat in the heat, or printing a firearm under their clothes, or kids screaming, gets assessed and (usually) dismissed.

But if my anxiety is running hot, my hypervig will usually show up; and if my hypervig is already present I tend to be a bit screwed.


Our trip today didn't involve any barking and I was surprised that I was pretty calm the whole time but I was totally waiting for a panic attack.
If your issues are anything like mine... I would expect this vet has both good sound dampening & pos flow air vents... so all the pheromones (fear, pain, distress, etc.) are staying back in the surgery center -OR- because of Covid their practice is quite slow right now. Or possibly both. No pheromones, no alerts (audio or chemical) to send your system skyrocketing.
 
Greetings,

Just a tangential relation here, but barking dogs really elevates stress levels for me to the extent that I live very much in isolation and haven't a car. How this plays out is that often I must catch a bus or walk to where it is I might go, while to be perceived by four legged ones as a threat grows so wearisome when there isn't a person or presence to talk to or to offset the vague impression made or set that I constitute an unwanted presence. It's numbing; i.e. the only reaction to me registered is that of pets seemingly losing their composure one after the other.

A companion pet or some other means to reframe the utility of a furry one doesn't seem practical at this time, while pets weren't allowed at home when I grew up. I so wish I could insulate myself from the aggressive craziness, while a world filled with cats is something I'd much prefer do know. Thanks...

Resilient - to a degree!
 
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