Roles

Check out the answers to your questions about your salary and benefits, how to handle team conflict, what clients want, who owns pets, and data on 11 other critical trends.

Are you informal about informing, easygoing about educating, casual about coaching clients about their animals? See how more structure benefits your practice, pet owners, and patients.

Yes, but it takes practice. Firstline readers who are 46 to 55 years old are most likely to work more than three hours of overtime, while those who are 56 or older report they're most likely to work no overtime.

It's probably more than you think. For example, a typical dog owner spends $219 a year on routine veterinary care, while a cat owner spends $175, according to the 2007-2008 APPMA National Pet Owners Survey (see Figure 1).

More medicine, less management

Yes. But oddly enough, few pet owners take the right steps to protect their pets, their families, and themselves from infestations (see Figure 1)

Pick the right region, check your salary. Too bad it's not that easy. While the regional wage data by title may reveal trends in your pay, it won't tell you what you should be making. Why not?

Art batch for August 2007

Working at a practice is like growing up in a big family: no matter how huge the habitat, you're never alone. With such little personal space, conflicts can heat up fast. But a little effort can take the work out of working together well.

The dogs, cats, birds, fish, gerbils, and hamsters you see today might look like the same animals that walked into your practice 10 years ago, but they're different. A sign of their status change might be the number of companies that cater to four-legged consumers, including Old Navy, Harley-Davidson, Origins, and Paul Mitchell, just to name a few. You can also look to what their human companions are spending on these and other products-an estimated $40.8 billion in 2007.

In this video, Dr. Dennis Cloud shares the advice he gives his associates to help them get clients on board with recommendations for care.

A breakdown of communications step by step at a clinic.

Week two of Dr. Ward's training plan did kick the intensity up a notch ...

Shawn McVey gives insights on changing your work culture.

Customize and print this handy checklist of what a new receptionist needs to learn and when.

Customize and print this handy checklist of what a new technician or assistant needs to learn and when.

Shawn McVey explains emotional intelligence.

Let these lessons keep you out of a business nightmare of your own.

How can we overcome communication problems when shifts change? Our team members in the front and in the back of the hospital seem to have trouble keeping up with each other when the morning shift changes to the afternoon shift.

A client handout on the benefits of microchipping

Feeling your blood start to boil? Avoid scalding yourself and others when you're faced with fiery flare-ups from clients or co-workers.

We prescribe lots of practice wellness and preventive care: team training, continuing education, budgeting, the writing of mission statements. And we do try to take our own medicine.

When two people are knowledgeable in the same field, misunderstandings arise if one assumes the other already knows something, according to a University of Chicago study.

Show those other cowpokes you're the most on-time doctor in these parts.

Doctors tend to hang on to bad habits and attitudes from their first job. Seeking out mentors-or mentoring a new grad at your practice-can help.

National Report - Money isn't everything. Especially when it comes to consumer attitudes about rising veterinary fees.

There are some topics you just don't feel comfortable talking about, not even with your closest friends. So imagine opening up and sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with 40,000 complete strangers. That takes a lot of courage, doesn't it? That's just what authors Shawn McVey and Joanne Light have done this month. They're sharing their own intensely personal experiences with the hope that they can help others.

Concerned about the threat of feline heartworm infection, team members at Valley Animal Hospital in Roanoke, Va., decided to launch a campaign to educate clients.

My idea to help abused families blossomed into a program that shelters pets while their families get the help they need to escape dangerous situations and rebuild their lives.

Clients are waiting, dogs are barking, and phones are ringing. Sometimes you've got to tune out the static to offer clients the attention they crave and send them away happy.