I don't want the vet to "win over" my dog

For her, poking-and-prodding betrayal is worse coming from a potential friend

Well-intentioned veterinary staff want to befriend my dog. Of course they do. They entered the field because they love animals! (And Scout is, if I may say, ludicrously cute.) Building trust at the start of an exam—offering gentle affection or throwing a toy or sharing snacks—works for plenty of pets.

It does not work for mine.

Scout is wary of strangers. We bred cattle dogs to be this way, and she’s a particularly fear-prone individual. She’s also excellent at holding a grudge. My heeler can pattern map any negative experience, projecting the Bad Thing That Happened Once into dozens of future situations.

This means it’s worse if someone first tries to make themselves trustworthy and then betrays her with unsolicited poking and prodding. There is no universe where Scout enjoys having her blood drawn (especially after the chaotic vet visits we suffered in the midst of her epilepsy diagnosis). There is no world where a cold stethoscope doesn’t make her flinch. Even if she adores you, she will still not adore you doing those things.

Take me and Sean, her favorite people. We can handle Scout in myriad ways without fuss: filing nails, pulling burs from paws, cleaning ears, brushing knotted fur, the whole nine yards. We’ve put a lot of work into counterconditioning and desensitizing these necessary parts of life, but it’s really our relationship—a constant pursuit of mutual trust—that carries us through.

The friendship a vet tech can form with my dog in five or ten minutes doesn’t come close to the connection we’ve built over nearly six years. To start with, they won’t make much progress in a clinical setting that smells like chemicals and other pets. And even if Scout does begin to trust them—let’s say she becomes 30 percent comfortable with this new person—it’s a bigger blow to go from “possible friend” to “woah, you hurt me” than to start as strangers, do what needs to be done, and get the heck out of dodge.

Bad befriending experiences follow us outside the vet office, too. Now Scout has a backlog of episodic memories (and looser associative learning) where someone who at first seemed perfectly nice and respectful (in her eyes) turned mean later on (again, in her eyes). She considers that in future interactions. The kind woman we meet on a walk? The sweet clerk at a pet store? She trusts their advances less because in the past her tentative curiosity has been met with betrayal.

I feel for the vets who just want my dog to like them. They’re incredible people doing an important job—I wish I could add some simple joy in their days. I wish I could say yes, my dog will love you instantly. Yes, be her friend. Yes, shower her with baby talk.

But I can’t.

When we moved Scout’s vet care to Wisconsin last year, I instead asked our new house call team “are you okay not being my dog’s friend?” Our best case scenario is an abbreviated appointment with nothing but the necessary handling. No warm up, minimal cool down. Scout will stay still for an exam, vaccines, and blood draw because Sean and I hold her. She will allow the inevitable to happen with our support. Then she will flee to the door—away from the vets who are only doing what’s best for her—and I will not hold her back under some misguided belief that a few minutes of peace (or handfuls of treats) will erase the discomfort of what just happened.

Scout’s veterinarian is one of my favorite people. (I make sure she knows that!) But she will never be one of my dog’s—and that’s okay.