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Preventing Animal Cruelty

Should Vets Report Animal Abuse?

Robert Reisman, D.V.M., & Cindy A. Adams, Editor

Part of what veterinarians do is treat animal victims of violence. Should they also report abusers?

Ceci, like other victims of family violence all over America, made headlines last year. Ready to give birth any day, the dog was brutally attacked - kicked and stabbed - by her owner-s boyfriend in a drunken rage. The attack was reported to The ASPCA, and the owner relinquished the animal to us. After extensive treatment and foster care, Ceci (left) and the 8 puppies she delivered at Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital were placed into new homes.

The perpetrator in this case accepted a plea bargain for 3 years probation for endangering the welfare of a child. One of the two young children in the household had witnessed the attack. All too often, children in a violently charged environment are victims of emotional, if not physical abuse. In fact, whenever there are multiple individuals - animals, children, spouses or the elderly - in a household where violence is present, each is susceptible to harm.

Headlines scream sensational cases of animal and child abuse daily. And while many react with denial and disgust at the endless barrage of stories, a positive effect of this reporting is a much needed heightened awareness among judges, prosecutors, social workers, educators, law enforcement personnel and health professionals. These are the workers on the front lines, identifying and intervening for the victims. For that reason, they commonly are the groups mandated to report suspected or observed child abuse to the proper authorities. And because intervention in the syndrome of family violence is so important, mandated reporters are virtually always protected from civil or criminal liability as a result of their reporting.

Interestingly, Colorado veterinarians are required to report child abuse, although in all but a few states, veterinarians are excluded from the ranks of mandated health care reporters of child or animal abuse. This would seem to ignore the veterinarian's role in benefitting the welfare of animals and people. Frequently, the time a veterinarian spends educating and helping the person responsible for an animal's welfare is significantly more than the time spent providing medical care for the animal.

Frequently, veterinarians treat puppies or kittens who have been stepped on, cats who have fallen out of windows, dogs who've fallen off roofs or been hit by cars, animals attacked by other animals. Veterinarians are disturbed by all the trauma they see, and the more they learn about family violence, the more they are forced to think about trauma differently, to at least consider that an injury may have been intentionally inflicted. Having done so, they must have a course of action available to them.

Much thought is being given today to the need for veterinarians to become more involved in identifying abuse, formulate plans to address it and become mandated reporters. Though it doesn't carry the force of law, the Schaumburg, IL-based American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) recently issued a policy statement calling for veterinarians to take responsibility for reporting cases of cruelty, abuse and neglect. Further, the AVMA's Executive Board is recommending to the 1996 House of Delegates, which will meet in July, that the association's Model Veterinary Practice Act include a clause requiring veterinarians to report abuse cases within the dictates of state law. It recognizes that "Such disclosures may be necessary to protect the health and welfare of animals and people."

Seeing is Believing

The first step in identifying abuse is recognizing that it is possible. A veterinarian's primary focus is medicine. She or he agonizes over the accuracy of diagnoses, choice of treatments and the result of these decisions. But what happens when a veterinarian suspects family violence through child or animal abuse? And how is abuse defined? The basic tenets of state animal cruelty laws are a good place to start. Usually, these outline minimum standards of care regarding such factors as food, water, shelter and the absence of intentional harm.

Ironically, the need to intervene is clearest when intent is impossible to ignore. Ginger now lives a good life in a bucolic setting with other animals and the gentlest of human caretakers. But just a year ago, the cat led a life that surely was filled with agony and terror. She was owned by an affluent white collar worker in New York City, and had been brought three times to one of the city's largest veterinary practices with various injuries to her jaw, back legs and ribs. The last time, she came in with severe chemical burns to her eyes, nose and ears and a hole in one ear from a cigarette burn or hole puncher. Finally, her medical providers could no longer ignore the plight of the bafflingly sweet and trusting creature, and called the ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement division. Faced with certain prosecution due to her medical history and testimony from other household members, her abuser fled our jurisdiction.

Doctor as Teacher

Even if a traumatic injury was accidental, wasn't at least some level of irresponsibility involved? And when it comes to more subtle suffering, such as neglect in the form of poor shelter or nutrition, one has to ask if the neglect is due to ignorance or carelessness. In cases of ignorant neglect, most veterinarians opt to act as educator.

John Aldridge, D.V.M., Chief of Staff of the Hospital Department of the San Francisco SPCA (SF/SPCA), reports that at this practice, which sees between 25,000 and 30,000 cases a year, with 35 percent to 50 percent of clients needing some amount of financial assistance, education is key. "The only set policy that guides us (in abuse cases) has to do with the fighting dog law, which a California ordinance requires us to report. Other than that, what happens on a regular basis is a constant assessment on neglect and abuse issues. Certainly we recognize abuse and terribly neglectful situations, but we also recognize 'the ignorance rule'," comments the 20-year SF/SPCA veteran. "(Clients) are allowed to make one mistake. If an owner seems concerned and upset about a neglectful situation, we'll tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. In our day-to-day work we don't see that much of what I'd call delivered, versus ignorant, abuse."

Such cases warrant a stern lecture about proper care. Likewise, the Massachusetts SPCA has designed a unique way to educate neglectful owners. Two years ago, the agency's enforcement arm, set up as a special division of the state police with search and seizure powers, created a Veterinary Compliance Officer position. As MSPCA Angell Memorial's staff nutritionist, Rebecca Remillard, Ph.D., D.V.M., sees clients who walk in to the busy Boston practice. She also devotes roughly 20 percent of her time to assisting enforcement officers. While this can entail documenting findings so that a court warrant may be obtained, Remillard also is called to the scene when officers are unsure of whether a situation in a home is medically serious enough to intervene. In such cases, says Remillard, "The officers have done a very good job of clearing the way, saying to the client, 'can we bring in a vet to help you'?" Often, this kind of help allows owners to learn how to properly care for their animals and avoid prosecution.

Comments Remillard, "Some of the problem is cultural. Other societies don't view animals in the same way we do. This is why programs like Operation Outreach (an MSPCA literacy program that promotes humane lessons) are needed."

Teaching the Doctor

Comparison of violence toward animals and children is made because of both groups' vulnerability, but identification of each form of violence is quite dissimilar. There is a wealth of information about child behavioral and physical development that is helpful in verifying or disputing an adult's account of a child's injuries. For example, a fall from a bed is not possible before the child can roll over; a fall down the stairs can't happen until a child can crawl. In addition, depending on the individual, by the age of 3 or so children have a capacity to speak about their problems and communicate through drawings or other outlets in their social life at school and with other families. This kind of information is never available in the evaluation of an animal's trauma injuries.

By and large, animal health care practitioners who graduated a decade ago or more from veterinary school emphatically agree that they were not formally trained to recognize and address the issue of violence. Comments Dr. Patty Olsen, Director of Veterinary Affairs and Studies at the Englewood, CO-based American Humane Association (AHA), which operates both child and animal protection divisions, "Part of the problem is that (the subject of abuse) does need to be added to veterinary education. Veterinarians are well aware of horrific cases, but don't have the expertise to recognize more subtle ones. Forensic pathology, for example, toxicology screening, is not as far along in the veterinary arena. Poisoning is a huge cause of animal suffering, but we don't routinely have screens. We are a long way from where we need to be," Olsen says.

Fortunately, veterinary schools appear to be picking up the gauntlet. Charles Newton, D.V.M., reports that although the issue of abuse is not covered formally and distinctly at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, where he is Associate Dean, it comes up constantly as students review cases during instruction. The students, who spend their last 12 months of schooling in clinical settings on and off campus, also learn about abuse and neglect from discussions among clinicians and interns at the University's bustling hospital. The practice, which handles a caseload of 22,000 to 24,000 per year, includes a 24-hour, 7-day a week emergency room; about 10,000 of the total cases come in as emergencies annually.

Dan Mitchell, Academic Programs Manager at the University of California at Davis? Veterinary School, adds that a mandatory, two-term Ethics and Issues class was introduced there in 1991. Guest speakers from a variety of disciplines, including animal welfare and science, involve students in discussions about important issues throughout the term, including animal abuse and how to handle it.

The Latest Report Card

In regard to mandated reporting, "Veterinary medicine is probably where human medicine was 20 years ago and dentistry was 10 years ago," says Roland Olson, D.V.M., Executive Director of the Minnesota Board of Veterinary Medicine, the state's licensing board. But Olson, who worked for the Humane Society of Ramsey County for years, and regularly addresses junior classes at the University of Minnesota on ethics and statutes, agrees that change is underfoot. Since 1993, veterinarians practicing in Minnesota could be charged with non-professional conduct for "failing to report to law enforcement or humane officers inhumane treatment to animals, including staged animal fights or training for fights, of which the veterinarian has direct knowledge...."

Pennsylvania's Newton voices frustration with a system that doesn't take animal abuse as seriously as it takes child abuse. He says, "If (authorities) would look for associations, they would take animal abuse much more seriously as a way to intervene before a child becomes involved."

Even veterinarians well aware of the implications of animal abuse are discouraged from becoming more involved in intervention because the system just doesn't support them. Comments Jamie Cotel Altman, ASPCA Vice President and Legal Counsel, "Currently, only 3 states in the U.S. encourage or require veterinarians to report animal abuse cases, and only 2 of the 3 states grant vets immunity from liability. State laws should not only mandate that veterinarians report animal cruelty, but should also insulate them from civil liability and criminal prosecution so that they may carry out their ethical and legal responsibilities without the fear of being dragged into court."

West Virginia law reads, "It is the duty of any licensed veterinarian and the right of any other person to report to a humane officer any animal found, reasonably known or believed to be abandoned, neglected or cruelly treated as set forth in this article, and such veterinarians or other persons may not be subject to any civil or criminal liability as a result of such reporting."

This past March 14, Idaho's Governor approved a bill mandating that, "Any Idaho licensed veterinarian shall be held harmless from either criminal or civil liability... for his part in an investigation of cruelty to animals, provided, however, that a veterinarian who participates or reports in bad faith or with malice shall not be protected under the provisions of this section." SF/SPCA's Aldridge points out that mandated reporting would simplify the decision-making process a veterinarian naturally goes through when confronting abuse. "Having mandated rules and regulations sometimes offers a very handy technique that allows vets to be able to report because they're forced to.... It allows you to tell the client that it's the law. It's an easier and cleaner decision."

Other concerns are time away from a practice for court appearances and retribution from a violent individual. This points to the need for more support from "the system" - via meaningful prosecution of and rehabilitation programs for animal abusers.

Meanwhile, veterinarians can take steps toward formalizing a plan to handle the issue of family violence when it presents itself in their clinical practice. For example, they can seek training in family violence from a variety of sources, including humane societies and local and state veterinary associations. They can create or become part of a network within the community that can help combat abuse (see p. 16). Clearly, they should know the cruelty laws in their state, i.e. what constitutes abuse and neglect. They also can try to create an atmosphere in their practice that allows clients to feel safe in discussing abuse.

There is no question that the veterinary profession is adopting a broader perspective about family violence. The profession's contribution will be one more step toward making this phenomenon less prevalent in America today.

Robert Reisman, D.V.M., has been a clinician at The ASPCA's Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital for 8 years, and is a contributing editor to ASPCA Animal Watch.

Courtesy of
ASPCA
424 East 92nd St.
New York, NY 10128-6804
(212) 876-7700
www.aspca.org

Next in How You Can Help Pets: Preventing Animal Cruelty:
Domestic Violence and Animal Abuse