Dr. Kris Otteman joins us to discuss the critical topic of recognizing and reporting animal abuse within veterinary practices. On this episode of the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Dr. Otteman emphasize the importance of practical, action-oriented approaches to identifying signs of abuse and neglect. Dr. Otteman provides guidance on documentation, communication with authorities, and navigating the complexities of suspected abuse cases. Veterinarians and veterinary staff will learn valuable insights on how to be effective advocates for animal victims while maintaining their professional roles. This episode is essential for anyone in the veterinary field committed to protecting animal welfare.
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LINKS
Victim to Verdict: https://www.victim2verdict.com/
Animal Legal Defense Fund: https://www.aldf.org/
Victim to Verdict Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victim2verdict/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
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ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Kris Otteman’s journey into veterinary forensics began as a teenager in Klamath Falls, where she first reported the neglect of a donkey she discovered while riding her horse through the woods. This early experience ignited a passion that would define her illustrious career. With 34 years of veterinary and leadership experience, Dr. Otteman now serves as the President of Victim to Verdict LLC and forensic veterinary consultant to the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
A pioneer in veterinary medicine, she co-founded Banfield, The Pet Hospital, and played a crucial role in developing the nation’s first shelter teaching hospital at the Oregon Humane Society which provides care for over 12,000 shelter pets annually. Dr. Otteman’s expertise in veterinary forensics has led to significant advancements in animal cruelty investigations, and she has shared her knowledge as a courtesy faculty member at Oregon State University, University of Florida Maples Center for Forensic Medicine, and through numerous national and international presentations.
Dr. Otteman’s dedication to animal welfare extends beyond her professional achievements. She has served on multiple boards, including the Oregon Veterinary Medical Licensing Board, Banfield Charitable Trust, and is the current board president of the International Veterinary Forensic Sciences Association. Her contributions to veterinary education and animal welfare have earned her the prestigious OSU/CVM Alumni Fellow award. Residing in Washington with her family, Dr. Otteman continues to inspire and lead with her unwavering commitment to improving the lives of animals.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I have a really good episode today. This is Dr. Kris Otteman is with me, and we are talking practically about spotting animal abuse in our practice. I know that doesn’t sound super fun. I know that doesn’t sound super rosy.
Guys, first of all Dr. Otteman is a fantastic communicator around this topic. She keeps it really clinical. She keeps it super practical and and action oriented. I took so many notes from such a short podcast. It’s amazing. She gets right into it. She presents this information in a really non emotional, as unupsetting as possible way.
And just. Oh, it’s so so valuable. I’m really proud of this episode. Guys, I hope you’ll take a moment and and listen to it maybe get your team to listen to it. If not consider taking the information here digesting it presenting it to your people. Just because guys we need more awareness about what to do when we see animal abuse in our in our hospitals. And honestly, we need to know what animal abuse in our hospitals looks like. So, anyway, great episode.
Super useful. I promise it’s worth your time. I promise it is going to do the best job it can possibly do of not being heavy and not bringing you down, but really giving you good tools that are going to make you feel empowered. So anyway, that’s what we’re doing today. Let’s get into it.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter: (singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast. Dr. Kris Otteman. How are you?
Dr. Kris Otteman: I’m well, Andy. Thank you. How are you?
Dr. Andy Roark: I am, I’m great. I’m, I’m so glad to have you here. You are such an interesting person. You have had such a rich career. You’ve done so many things. You, You recently wrapped up doing some work on the master’s program at the University of Florida. Go Gators!
You are on the faculty at Oregon State University’s College of Vet Medicine. You are the author of a rather interesting book that we’re going to talk about today. You are the author of Animal Cruelty Investigations, A Collaborative Approach from Victim to Verdict, and, and it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty intense title, pretty intense title.
You came onto my radar when one of my good friends, Dr. Caitlin DeWilde, who writes for Today’s Veterinary Business, and she she has a business called the Social DVM, and she’s just very, very sharp. She just reached out to me, and she was like, You need to talk to Kris Otteman. She is, she’s fascinating.
The work she’s doing is really, really important. And people just have no idea about what animal abuse looks like when it comes into vet practices. And so I, I just want to start there and kind of open up is that? Is that true? Do you believe that most veterinarians and vet teams don’t know what they’re looking at when animal abuse cases or animal cruelty cases come into the practice?
Dr. Kris Otteman: You know, I think so, like thinking back when I first got out of vet school, I felt really armed with all these diagnostic and treatment tools and enthusiasm, but I, it was not on my radar to think about someone intentionally, especially intentionally neglecting or abusing an animal. And then, fast forward all these years, we’re really still not structured to teach a format in vet school or even post doc to clinicians to help us understand how to recognize, report, and be a voice for the animal victim.
So yeah, I do think, I look back, I know it was walking right by me in the exam room or I did large animal, even like out in the field. But I didn’t. I didn’t, it did not come onto my radar in terms of how to affect a change and help, you know, other doctors and vet teams address this for our communities.
Dr. Andy Roark: I tend to be, I don’t know, I don’t like to say naive, but I, I tend to look for the best in people and just kind of assume the best. I’m, I am confident. I just don’t have thoughts about animal abuse or neglect come into my mind, I don’t think, unless there’s something extreme that happens, you know what I mean?
It’s just, it’s not something that I have It’s, it’s not in my search image and when you’ve been talking about this and looking at your book I’m confident that I, that I have missed, I’ve missed some tricks. Can we start at sort of a high level and just as, as someone who is probably not looking for these things, help me get my head around, just to start with, what, help me, help me understand sort of the, the problem and then kind of what I should be looking for.
Dr. Kris Otteman: Right. That’s a great question. You know, I’m definitely a rose colored glasses person like you, Andy, tend to like just be looking for the bad actor or thinking, oh, you know, this is bad. I just never, operate that way. And so this has been really interesting from my perspective to put it under that lens of vet med as something just to keep on my rule out list.
So I, what I would say is, you know, veterinarians and vet staff are going to get these cases kind of three main ways. It’s going to be part of your regular job if you’re in animal control or maybe an animal shelter where I practiced for many years, because it’s just going to be part of your job to work these out.
The second way you’re going to get it is some detective, law enforcement, prosecutor, somebody’s going to call you and say, Hey, Andy, I hear you’re a vet in the community. I’ve got this case. Would you look at the records? Would you look at the animal? What, what do you think? That may catch us completely off guard.
I would say it usually does in the cases, even in the last week that I’ve worked on, those have come that way. And the veterinarians are completely wait, what you want me to look at what, and then the, the. The third way that these come up is just recognizing it, like, you know, just those times in, in your career when you, maybe you’re in an exam room, and someone’s telling you how this cat got injured, and you’re thinking, I’m not sure if I’m really being a critical thinker here.
Does that, story match that finding? So, you know, if like blunt force trauma and maybe you do x rays and you see repetitive, repetitive injury pattern, for example, you’re like, yeah, that, you know, that doesn’t really add up that, Oh, I was just trying to bathe the cat or something like. Don’t ever bathe a cat, we all know that.
But, yeah, so that’s kind of what I, I think about the three ways you get it and how it can catch us off guard, for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I, I actually had one of those cases, number two, where the detectives reach out and say, hey, you know, you’re a veterinarian and they wanted me to do a, a necropsy. And I ended up sort of being involved in this case. Of course, I, I just happened to be working that night when they came in and, and like now I’m, now I’m sort of in this, but I felt wholly unprepared and I didn’t know, you know, I, I answered their questions and, and sort of worked up the cases.
I wouldn’t work up a case, but it was It was definitely kind of, just kind of jarring it and really kind of out of the blue. Kris, when, when people are presented with these sorts of cases, so, let, let, let’s start with the, you know, with the, with the shelter or animal control, you know, work, things like that.
Or if a detective sort of comes in with an animal or something, what are the types of things that, that I should sort of be looking for? What am I trying to document here? What are the, what are the findings that are important for me to pay attention? Cause again, a lot of times this, this just isn’t on my radar.
Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, I, I think that’s great. I mean, kudos to you for stepping up and taking the case because it does, it does kind of jar you, like you said. It makes you feel a little unease. Like, what’s the difference? And the way I like to explain it is we, as veterinarians and vet teams, we have a great toolbox, right?
We know how to methodically look at things and document our findings. And an animal cruelty case or a suspected case, it’s really just including a little more detail. So we’re going to take more photos. We’re going to write down more notes, communication notes about what the person that presented the animal or the detective said.
So getting started, it’s just important to know I already have those tools as a vet. I, I know I can just work through this methodically and thoroughly. I’m just going to do an different, a little bit of different documentation. For a real practical example, if you get a live animal in and you think it may have been in a part of a case, you’re going to take what we call five view photos.
So you’re just going to go click, click, click. You’re going to get front, back, sides, and top of the dog or cat so that you can identify it. and document how it looked when you got it. That’s something we wouldn’t normally do in clinical practice. We would just click the BAR box, right? Or, or, whatever.
So, yeah, I think just, just knowing some of the tips that have that are available. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to write the book and put these protocols in the back about just those specific things that differentiate a physical exam from a forensic exam. Because I know veterinarians, we want to do the best we can and we want the tools, right?
And we’re always learning. We have to be always learning. So, yeah, I think that’s how I approach it.
Dr. Andy Roark: That, that, that’s super helpful. Again, like the five for you photos totally makes sense. Not on, not on my radar. That was just, I guess, I hadn’t, I didn’t think of it. Now you say that I’m like, Oh, yeah, obviously that make, that’s gonna be helpful or useful, but I, it was not something I had, I had considered for.
Dr. Kris Otteman: No, me neither. No, that’s totally normal. Or like the other photography thing we tell is like far, mid, and close up. So like if you see a dog with maybe an injured eye, you’re going to document, Oh, the dog’s back here. I can see it’s Lulu. Oh, now I can see I’m looking at the eye. Oh, now I’m close up so I can see the injury.
We don’t do that in practice, but that’s incredibly helpful in a forensic report because it shows yes, that was the animal and yes, this was my medical finding. So, It isn’t really any different. I think the documentation is the big difference. But I would say that the CSI effect has been difficult for our profession because everybody thinks this is all about blood spatter, projectile angle, DNA interpretation, and I just like to say, you know what, Doctors, we can do this because we’re going to use our clinical skills and just know some of the basic things that will help us through.
We don’t have to be like, you know, on Bones or something.
Dr. Andy Roark: know it probably sounds bad, but like the the far medium close photos totally make sense again I don’t think that would occur to me in practice I would be the doofus who gets pictures up close documenting the wound and then someone would say that’s not our dog and I would say of course it is you think I’m lying and like I just it completely makes sense.
It was just the idea that it would, that it would not be the pet. That just never occurred to me.
Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn’t, you know, I mean, we get those on our texts all the time at home at night, right? Hey, Andy, what is this on my dog? And it’s like this little photo on your iPhone and you’re like, where is it on the dog? I don’t know. It looks like, but yeah, so it’s just a different, it’s looking at it through a different lens, it’s slightlydifferent.
Stephanie Goss: Hey, Cone of Shame listeners. . This is Stephanie Goss. Co-host of the Uncharted podcasts with Dr. Andy work. And I’m jumping in here for a second, because one of the number one things. That people ask Andy and I, and all of our colleagues on the Uncharted team about when we go to other conferences we go to events is. Hey, how do I teach my team?
How to handle conflict? We get asked that by other leaders. All the time. And I get asked by fellow technicians, fellow CSR’s, kennel support members. Hey, how do I get better at talking through conflict with other people on my team. Because conflict is a part of life. And the reality is it is a. A big part of life in general that we don’t talk about.
And so our team decided it was time. Past time to tackle conflict head-on and so our Uncharted the team has been working hard on a new certificate for veterinary medicine and Andy and I are so excited to say that it is almost here now. Now, I’m going rogue and jumping in here with y’all, but I can’t entirely entirely spill the beans.
I can tell you that the Uncharted team has put together and awesome certificate on the foundations of how we as people handle conflict and how to get better at it. And so if you want to learn how to talk better to other people on your team. If you want to learn how to handle conflict, even in your personal life. Head over to Uncharted.com/conflict Our team has put a mailing list together.
Sign up for this mailing list, it’s different than the Dr. Andy mailing list. This one will get you all of the details as soon as they are ready to drop for the certificate. And were not going to want to miss out. It almost ready. And now,
back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark: for the third type of case that comes in, the one that we recognize walking into the exam door we’ve got, let’s, let’s take your cat, for example, and they say, oh, you know, I was bathing the cat or whatever, and I’m doing x rays, and this cat’s got multiple healing, and Orthopedic wounds things like that, and I think this is not, this is not right at all.
What, what does that reporting process look like, Kris? Like, where, where do I, where do I go with this idea? Which, of course, I would probably still question myself. I’d probably be like, ah, it doesn’t look good. It doesn’t look right. What are, what are the steps that I can take?
Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, that, that’s just, that is the most common feeling I think that we have as colleagues is like, what do I do? So the first thing is just get that basic training on knowing how to document, just photos, documenting, communication And then be prepared by knowing who in your jurisdiction you report to.
Now this can be a little tricky because it’s different based on county and state that you live in. But a really quick easy way is to go to the Animal Legal Defense Fund website, click on your state, look at your jurisdiction, ask around in your area, who do I report suspected animal abuse to? And then you can also find out, am I a required reporter?
Because in most states in the United States now, veterinarians are required to report suspected animal abuse. And so, and we’re also in many states we are not subject to civil or criminal liability when we report in good faith. So, those are important things to know. Go look and find your laws.
Understand who to report for, report to. It’s usually okay to just call local law enforcement and they will guide you. Oh, you know, they might say in some jurisdictions you need to call the local animal control. You need to call this humane society. They have sworn officers or we will take the case. So, you can always start with law enforcement.
Dr. Andy Roark: So. I’m just sort of thinking through what this actually would look like going down in the practice. So I’ve got the cat. I’ve done my documentation. I’ve called, you know, the person in my area that I’m supposed to call. Or I’ve called law enforcement and communicated this. So now I’m hanging up the phone.
I’m still in the clinic and I’ve still got the cat and the person is presumably still waiting in the exam room is so like, where do I, where do I go from this? Do you, do you go in and you say to the person, Hey, I have these suspicions or I’m going to have to hold on to your animal. Do you, do you generally go on and let them take the pet and know that law enforcement is going to follow up with them?
Like I, I don’t mean to be naive, but honestly I, I have
Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. This is a super common and excellent question. You know, I think it is a lot about judgment. How is it going in that relationship in the room? In this scenario, many times the person presenting the injured pet, it’s typically a cat or a small dog, the person that did the abuse is likely not there.
And so the veterinarian and technician can have an opportunity to say, tell me more about how you think this happened. Who, who could have had access to your kitty today or in the last few days? Have you noticed any other injuries in the last few months? So you can do a little bit more of your own basically interview in terms of getting clinical information that’s relevant to what you’re seeing.
If you really think, especially if the animal is in urgent, you know, an urgent situation and really needing to be kept, then of course, do whatever you can do to keep the animal in the hospital. Maybe the client goes home, signs a release for care while you wait for law enforcement to come on the scene.
And then really, it’s important for the veterinarian to understand we are not the investigator and we are not the judge and jury. We are the expert that can tell the story for the animal in terms of what this could have been like for the animal, how it could have hurt. or not what the injuries are.
Are they permanent? Are they fatal? And so on. But then the investigator will come to us and say, Okay, Andy, show me your report. What did you hear? What did you see? And then they need, they will take it from there.
Dr. Andy Roark: So, Kris, the way this sounds to me, and again, it is, I think, I think it sort of clicked into my mind here, basically what you’re saying is, I’m going to work this case up like another case. I’m going to go back and say, you know, let’s, let’s go back into the history. And that, that’s really kind of, kind of, at least, at least how I kind of hear it is, what else could have happened?
Is there other people who could have been there? You know, things, things like that of, of, in, in my mind, you know, I don’t know, I’m always, I’m not, I don’t see myself as an interrogator, I don’t see myself as an investigator, but I can take a pretty darn good clinical history, and I definitely am good at looking at diagnostics, going back to the owner and saying, well, what I’m seeing here is not lining up with these things, let’s, let’s talk more, let’s go more deeply into possible causes of what could be going on here, and I think that those are muscles that I already have.
That I, that I, I think I can lean into, and that also doesn’t feel out of character for me. So I go, okay, I can go back into this, I can continue to document, I can look for, you know, continue my diagnostic workup, quite honestly, is sort of how I would, how I would sort of frame it.
Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, I think that’s framed exactly right because we aren’t expected and we should not step into the role of law enforcement or investigator, right? We’re not trying to get a confession in the exam room. We’re really just trying to, exactly like you said, suss out that history a little bit more you.
Because that will lead us to maybe further diagnostics, more notes in our report, and it will help shed light on whether or not this could have been an accident or it was intentional. So, that’s a really great way to explain it.
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, I really like the fact that you pointed out the person who is doing animal abuse is probably not the person in the exam room. And I think that that helps me to go, okay, I feel more comfortable continuing, you know, the history taking and going back and talking to this person. And it helps, I think it would help me in the moment to say, well, this is probably the person who’s in this room.
Wow. My initial reaction should be that person should die. It should not, that’s not, that’s not, that’s not where we are. You know what I mean? It’s probably, probably not them. You know what I mean? Let’s not make assumptions. Let’s continue to do our workup. Get our, get our story, get our history, document, document, document.
I, I think that all, you’ve made this much more accessible to me in my mind. So this is really helpful. So at this point, we’ve done our diagnostics, we’ve communicated with the appropriate person. I’m going to go ahead and definitely link up the Animal Legal Defense Fund website in the show notes so people can check that.
I need to go check that because I don’t know who my person is. And so this has been hugely valuable. The, the idea The, the five, the five view photos, the, the far, medium, and close photos, like very, very, very useful information. I feel like at this point we’ve got law enforcement involved. I’m gathering as much information as I can.
I actually feel like I can be a good supporter of this pet and an advocate for this pet. And I’m not in over my head. I, I feel like I know, I know what I’m doing and I’m not, you know, acting. I’m not, I’m not turning into Supercop. Like that, that’s, I, I feel like I’m in a
Dr. Kris Otteman: Right. Yeah. And you can write up a summary and give it to whoever’s going to be taking it off your hands and and feel good about that contribution and then they’ll take it from there. So, that’s huge.
Dr. Andy Roark: Kris, is there anything else I should have top of mind here? Because I feel like we’ve walked through this pretty well. I’m going to put a link to your book in the show notes so people can check it out. But any, anything in the process that we haven’t talked about that, that I should, I should make sure that I keep top of mind.
Dr. Kris Otteman: I think as far as the process goes, it’s always just great to not only have a lifeline to who you’re going to report to, but is there somebody in the profession or a colleague that you would want to talk through? Just like doctor to doctor, we talk about internal medicine cases, or derm, or ortho, or whatever.
Is there somebody else in your community? You want to call Kris, call Kris, call somebody to just say, Hey, I’m seeing this. What are the other tips that I need to be thinking about to get through this and come up with a succinct report? We don’t want to leave cliffhangers in our report, but we don’t want to make accusations that are not founded.
It’s not our job. We want to be thorough. We want to be, you know, helpful, but not retaliatory or judgmental. So it is a tricky walk. I would say, you know, looking at the resources that you mentioned, one of the things that, that I did with my colleagues is take a lot of the book and create an online asynchronous course for people who are interested for vets, vet techs, law enforcement, just to get some of these basics, having, you know, who do you call?
How do you do this? Having a policy in your practice that upholds reporting. Because you would be surprised, some practices have a policy that says we won’t report because we don’t know for sure. And that’s, that’s the opposite way we want to go. But yeah, look at, look at the course, look at the book, look at Animal Legal Defense Fund, our website, Victim to Verdict
has some good resources and links that would help. And of course I’m always available to colleagues around the country. Love to help our profession and the animals that we love and help us be the voice.
Dr. Andy Roark: Kris, you are so great. Thank you for what you do for our profession. Thanks for what you do for the pets. I am going to link up Victim to Verdict website as well. The, the, the online course, things like that. Guys, take a look at this stuff. Check it out. It’s something that we should all be up on and just be, at least have in our search image.
So, Kris, thank you so much for being here. You’re just, just amazing. Guys, thanks for tuning in. Take care of yourselves, everybody!
Dr. Kris Otteman: You’re welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Andy.
Dr. Andy Roark: And that’s what we got for you guys.
Thanks for being here. Thanks to Kris for being here. Thanks for sticking with me. This is super important. It was really good to get this information out to people and it’s just I mean I was really honest in the podcast to say I didn’t know a lot of this stuff. That’s just I have some sort of rose colored glasses. I tend to think the best about people and I just don’t tend to look at people and think that they could be animal abusers or that their pets could be abused.
I don’t want to live in that world where that’s the first thing that I think. But I think it’s good to have it lurking in the back of my mind. And I think in the future, you know, pay attention and make sure if something does come through my doors, I want to catch it. And I want to say something about it and I want to put a stop to it.
And that’s inspiring to me. So anyway, guys, take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you later on.