Saturday, November 12, 2011

treats of the trade

As I walked into the exam room I was immediately greeted by a very friendly yellow Labrador. The next appointment went just as well. In fact, every room I entered, I was welcomed by extremely attentive patients. The owners noticed and a few of them brought it up to my instructor’s attention. Suffice to say, I earned high marks that day.

Why did all the patients like me? I must have been “in the zone.” Reveling in the attributes that made me so successful with my patients I slowly emptied the pockets of my lab coat: calculator, two pens, note pad, paperclip, highlighter and a handful of dog treats. Hmmm, how did the dog treats get in there? It hit me: Could it have been the dog treats in my pocket and not my infectious personality that made me well-liked?

The next day I slipped a few cookies in my pocket and enjoyed another phenomenal day. Aha!

Looking through the veterinary texts piled high in my room, I couldn’t find any reference to the “dog treat in the pocket technique.” Till today, this discovery has me walking into exam rooms with cookie-laden pockets. In fact, our clinic goes through packages of dog treats every week as we readily hand them out to our furry clientele.

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