Just over a decade into her career, Rachel Lees is making waves in the field of veterinary behavior. At work, she jumped feet first into her new position as a veterinary behavior technician at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. “I love educating, teaching and molding the new minds in veterinary medicine,” she said. “Behavior deserves its place in veterinary medicine and is important for every service.”
Lees, LVMT, KPA-CTP, VTS (Behavior), has taken on a big mission: to help incorporate Fear Free skills into all veterinary schools. It’s a lofty goal, but she’s well on her way to making it a reality, dedicating a lot of time to teaching, volunteering and speaking. She teaches a course on puppy and kitten socialization for Tennessee’s veterinary medicine team, and she is an instructor in the animal behavior and restraint section of the veterinary assistant program.
EDITOR’S NOTE
This article is the second in a series on veterinary nurse empowerment and the people accomplishing great things in the field.
“Veterinary cooperative care is one of the most important aspects of behavior medicine,” Lees said. “If patients will not allow us to treat them medically, it affects the quality of their lives. My goal in pursuing my new position is to educate more often and work toward making Fear Free certification and low-stress handling techniques a part of all veterinary schools.”
Even More Duties
Outside of work, Lees is the secretary of the Academy of Veterinary Behavior Technicians and was the past speaker committee chair for the Clinical Animal Behavior Conference. She served on the Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians board and as a committee member for the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America’s Wellbeing Task Force.
Shortly after becoming credentialed, Lees started at an Ohio multidoctor general practice and loved the work. At first, she considered pursuing a specialty in veterinary dentistry, but what happened at home sent her on a new path. Her parents purchased an 8-week-old Landseer Newfoundland from a breeder, and the puppy displayed abnormal behavior from Day One.
“Yogi ran away from us and shook the entire way home,” she said. “He grew to become comfortable with us, but he was always concerned about unfamiliar people, children, fireworks and thunderstorms.”
Lees later attended the Midwest Veterinary Conference, where she heard Meghan Herron, DVM, DACVB, talk about puppy socialization classes and how veterinary technicians could run them.
“Yogi was 2 years old by this point, so his socialization period was closed, but I wanted to know everything I could to make him have the best quality of life possible and to help puppies who may be more genetically abnormal,” Lees said.
She started logging continuing education hours in behavior medicine. The general practice where she worked supported her desire to pursue a specialty in behavior and allowed her to host puppy classes and see behavior appointments.
Major Mentors
In 2013, Lees moved to The Behavior Clinic in Olmsted Falls, Ohio, where she worked with Elizabeth Feltes, DVM, DACVB. Lees spent eight years at The Behavior Clinic, which grew to have two board-certified veterinary behaviorists, two veterinary technician specialists in behavior, two credentialed technicians and three support staff seeking training certification with the Karen Pryor Training Academy.
Lees worked at The Behavior Clinic with her mentor, Amanda Eick, RVT, KPA-CTP, VTS (Behavior), while pursuing her specialty and obtained her Karen Pryor Certified Training Partner status in April 2014 with her other mentor, Debbie Martin, LVT, KPA-CTP, VTS (Behavior) as her instructor.
“Fear Free launched right as I passed my VTS board examination,” Lees said. “My mentors Amanda and Debbie encouraged me to reach out to Fear Free. After meeting with Dr. Marty Becker at Western Veterinary Conference, I was asked to be a part of the speakers bureau and am now an active member of the advisory panel.”
Southern Move
Though she enjoyed her time at The Behavior Clinic, Lees was ready for a new challenge. So, in 2021, she joined the veterinary team at the University of Tennessee, where she teaches and encourages students to keep behavior and veterinary cooperative care at the forefront of everything they do.
“I would love for every student to leave UT and think, ‘OK, I can see that this dog is beyond stressed, and maybe we need to approach this differently,’” Lees said. “I want to be that person in the background who is just like, ‘Hey, maybe try a towel wrap.’ [That approach can be] so much better than just scruffing, which creates more stress.”
Lees sees behavior issues everywhere in a veterinary hospital. Simply recognizing how a patient feels about being restrained or worked on can reveal a new point of view.
“You can never unsee behavior once you see it,” Lees said. “I want to be able to teach veterinary students to see behavior. Instead of trying to take three people to hold down a 20-pound min pin mix for a nail trim, we need to stop and reassess what we’re doing.”
Her best tip for managing difficult behavior situations in the clinic is to pause. “The moment you start to feel yourself getting frustrated, take a deep breath,” she said. “Try to understand the patient and where it is at at the moment. Ask yourself, ‘Is this a want or a need? Am I making a dog go into a panic attack over a heartworm test?’
“Maybe talk to the DVM and try to get some pre-visit pharmaceuticals on board for next time.”
Lees believes she knows the key to retaining the brightest and best veterinary technicians.
“The best way to improve the vet tech profession is for employers and the industry to pay technicians [competitively],” she said. “It’s important to recognize the technicians who are here for the job versus the career. The majority of technicians who are 29 years old and below will one day leave the industry. Leaving the industry has nothing to do with them not enjoying their jobs; it has to do with the salary.”
MEET RACHEL LEES
- Age: 35
- Home: Knoxville, Tennessee
- Employer: University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine
- Pets: Miniature pinscher mix Connor (9) and orange tabby Ernie (10)
- Credentials: Licensed veterinary medical technician (LVMT), veterinary technician specialist (behavior), Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner (KPA-CTP), Elite Fear Free Certified Professional
- Years active: 12
TREATING THE UNTOUCHABLE
One of Rachel Lees’ most memorable cases involved a golden retriever named Taylor, who had severe conflict-related aggression to his owners and extreme veterinary-related aggression.
“Taylor pushed me out of my comfort zone and created my passion for cooperative care behaviors,” Lees said. “He was unable to be successfully sedated unless it was a very specific protocol that his owner and I trained up. The protocol was trained year-round, and Taylor was usually only sedated once a year.”
In the beginning, accommodating Taylor was easy, mainly because the veterinary clinic was small. But as the practice grew, sedating Taylor to allow complete veterinary care became much more challenging. “Even with our protocol, this was beyond stressful on his owner and our team,” Lees said.
Taylor died in his backyard at about age 10 due to unknown causes.
“Because he was so challenging to handle, we were limited in the amount of care we could provide him,” Lees said. “From that day forward, I swore that I would work as hard as possible to never let another pet find itself in that position.”