Why Cooperative Care?

Cooperative care involves training an animal to not only tolerate handling and husbandry procedures, but to be an active, willing participant in these experiences. If you have ever struggled to restrain your cat for nail trims, cooperative care is for you. If your cat runs and hides whenever he sees the carrier come out, cooperative care is for you. And if you’ve given up on medicating your cat because you’re being bitten and scratched, cooperative care is for you. The following list contains care behaviors we are able to help with:

• Basic handling (tolerating petting and grooming)
• Nail trimming
• Ear and eye drops
• Injections
• Oral medication (liquid and pills)
• Equipment desensitization (harnesses etc.)
• Carrier training

If you don’t see your care behavior on this list, please ask and I can likely accommodate you. The first step to getting help with cooperative care is the evaluation. I do try to keep cooperative care pricing lower than my traditional behavior consultations because I think it is VERY IMPORTANT and I want it to be affordable and accessible. Some in person services are only available within a certain travel radius from 1716 Merritt Blvd (North Point Library). Please calculate your distance in miles from that landmark before moving forward.

Cooperative Care Evaluation

Want your cat to learn how to accept nail trims? Willingly take medication? Let you brush him? Go into a carrier? We can do that! This appointment is the first step before moving forward with a package. During this appointment, we will assess your cat’s baseline behavior and record video. We will create a training plan and decide on training goals to help your cat become more comfortable with basic husbandry and care. This evaluation is also a chance for me to sit down with you and explain my techniques and reasoning.

Evaluations tend to run anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes depending on the number of cats, the severity of the reaction to the husbandry procedure, and the number of care behaviors you would like help with.

In Person Clients: $105 (including travel fee)

Virtual Clients: $75. This includes video review of your current best attempt at completing the desired procedure. We’ll then work together to create a plan of action.

Cooperative Care Packages

After completing the evaluation, you are eligible to move forward with a cooperative care package. The cooperative care package contains four one-hour sessions, typically completed over the course of one month. During your evaluation, we will decide if we need to spend the entire time working on one single behavior, or if we want to work on two or three. Unlike my other behavior modification packages, if you choose in person, all of your sessions will be in person rather than a hybrid. Please note that I will not be able to address any other behavior concerns outside of the scope of cooperative care training during these appointments.

In Person: $400 flat (no travel fees)

Virtual: $300