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10 years of Cat Friendly Clinic

The ISFM Cat Friendly Clinic programme celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2022!

The Cat Friendly Clinic programme was established in 2012 to help veterinary clinics create an environment that was more sympathetic to cats’ needs. Research has confirmed that caregivers recognise veterinary visits are stressful for their cats and this in turn causes stress to themselves, which cat friendly staff and facilities can help to reduce.

At the heart of the programme is the opportunity for clinics to implement easy changes to create a better experience for each cat. This includes reducing stress during the visit as well as understanding and assessing the environment from the cat’s point of view. Providing a cat friendly environment, care, and experience is something we believe all feline patients should benefit from.

Competition

As Cat Friendly Clinic began life with a competition, we wanted to celebrate its 10 year anniversary with another competition to showcase the amazing accomplishments accredited clinics have achieved in making their clinics more cat friendly. We asked clinics to submit a short video of an innovative change they have made to their clinic to make it a better place for cats to visit. The change could be procedural (a change in the way they work with cats) or a physical change to the clinic.  

We had a large number of fantastic entries and as one of our team members Vicky Halls said ‘It is interesting how times have changed, it is no longer innovative to put high perches for cats in waiting rooms and hides in cages! That has to be a sign of progress’.

These videos have really showed the evolution of Cat Friendly Clinic as a programme, ideas that were innovative 10 years ago have now become mainstream, this didn’t make the job of judging them any easier, but we narrowed it down to three finalists in each category.

Click on the name of each clinic to see their video entry!

 

Finalists for a physical change to their clinic:

Orchid Veterinary Surgery for their cat only floor 

Lumbry Park for their bespoke beds 

Amigato Clinica Felina for the redevelopment of their whole clinic 

 

Finalists for a procedural change to how they work with cats:

DAP De Witte Raaf for use of a lick matt 

Ferndown Family Vets for their kitten visits 

Tierarzpraxis Jana Wendt for use of olfactory distraction techniques  

 

The winners were announced at our awards ceremony on Friday 29th April 2022. We are very pleased to give prizes to:

 

Physical change winner:

Orchid Veterinary Surgery for their cat only floor 

 

 

Procedural change winner:

DAP De Witte Raaf for use of a lick matt 

 

 

Each clinic wins a pair of tickets to the 2022 ISFM European Congress in Rhodes.

Thank you to Ceva for sponsoring the competition.