De-escalating upset clients

On July 2, 2026, a former client of the Pet Care Veterinary Hospital in Virgina Beach forced his way into the clinic, damaged the hospital’s property, and assaulted 2 of its team members. According to the staff at the hospital, the man was previously a client who brought his cat to the clinic for rabies shots, showed up at the clinic demanding to see one of the doctors that saw his cats. SaraJane Harrington, VMD, Pet Care Veterinary Hospital’s medical director, told WAVY News 10 that the staff attempted to de-escalate the man, but things then became physical.

Two of the employees at the clinic had to go to the hospital due to receiving moderate injuries, both are doing okay, and the clinic suffered damages including smashed windows and computer equipment destroyed. The man in question fled before the police were able to stop him, but Harrington stated this is not the first encounter with this man, recalling a previous time when he made threats to the hospital staff. Since the incident, the hospital has brought in crisis counselors to check in on the hospital staff and they are continuing to cooperate with police in order to keep staff, patients, and clients safe.

Although what happened at Pet Care Veterinary Hospital is an extreme case, there are difficult clients in every clinic, which may not seem like anything other than an annoying or mean pet parent, but things can always escalate when it is least expected. So what can teams do?

During her lecture "Taming Tempers and Turning Tails: A guide to de-escalating clients," at Fetch Nashville, Susie Crockett, BS, CVPM, walked attendees through the root causes of client conflict, how to manage client needs before frustration boils over, and the tools teams can use when facing an angry pet owner.

"The reality is that we are in a people business. Surprise, we have to navigate people, and people are weird," Crockett said. "People have emotions, people have feelings, people have thoughts... but it also makes it difficult to navigate."

Where conflict really starts

For Crockett, prevention beats reaction. "For me, best offense is a good defense. Don't let the problem happen in the first place," she said. "The number one reason for client upset is drops in internal communication. The front didn't tell the back something, back didn't tell the front something."

She noted that the most common complaint filed with state boards of health, regardless of state, is cost; clients didn't know the cost, and that communication underlies nearly all client friction: "Most things when we're dealing with frustrated, difficult clients comes down to communication." Her fixes include processes for frequent updates, consistent team-wide messaging, canned estimates, next-day callbacks after anesthetic procedures, and cross-training. "I encourage you to let your doctors spend 2 hours at the front desk. They need to know what you do," she said.

Misaligned expectations, medical jargon, and emotional intensity round out the root causes. Clients anchor expectations to drive-through pharmacies and their own physician visits, and clinical vocabulary can leave them silently lost. "If I don't have anybody in my family who has blood pressure issues, do I know what hypertension is? I don't, and we say it all day long," Crockett said, recommending teams speak at an eighth-grade vocabulary. Meanwhile, pets are family, clients arrive scared and short on time, and money adds pressure—she cited a finding that unexpected costs over $200 create financial anxiety for most Americans.

Above all, she warned, "One of the biggest misconceptions is that communication is actually taking place... Just because I verbalized it does not mean you heard it and understood it, so therefore communication did not take place."

Listening with more than your ears

Crockett urged teams to read clients the way they read patients: crossed arms, hair twirling, and self-soothing touches signal rising anxiety, and a doctor asking, “Any more questions?" with a hand on the door is answering with body language. She championed genuine active listening which means no phones, typing, a pause after dropping a diagnosis or estimate, and reflecting concerns back. "Seek to understand before you seek to be understood. Don't be thinking about what you're going to say while they're still talking to you, because you're going to miss something really, really important," she said, adding that repeating back "communicates attentiveness, not agreement."

Tools for the boiling point

When tempers flare, Crockett's playbook includes naming your own stress response up front, reviewing the record thoroughly beforehand, finding the grain of truth, sticking to facts because facts are persuading, not insulting. Also lowering your voice when clients raise theirs, clearing the lobby to remove the audience, and complimenting the pet. Asking an angry client to "tell me more" often stops them cold: "They don't have anything else to say. They did not come prepared."

She also endorsed the phrase "Here's what I'm going to do," calling it "a very powerful statement," and stressed follow-through: "It doesn't always have to end with a decision, but it does have to end with a commitment. Who's doing what, by when, and how."

Boundaries remain nonnegotiable—verbally abusive clients get warned, then sent on their way, records in hand. And for the team's own wellbeing, Crockett offered a final acronym, QTIP: quit taking it personally. "If I make a mistake," she said, "it doesn't mean I'm a mistake."

References

1. Krauss E, Rizzo R. VB veterinary hospital on high security after former client assaults staff members. WAVY.com. Published July 6, 2026. Accessed July 7, 2026. https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/vb-veterinary-hospital-on-high-security-after-former-client-assaults-staff-members/
2. Crockett S. Taming Tempers and Turning Tails: A guide to de-escalating clients. Presented at: Fetch dvm360 Conference.