my doggy's vet clinic got roasted on yelp because they use anal thermometers instead of auricular. it seemed silly to me bc my dog gets way more freaked about ear stuff. what's the tea on this issue?
gettingvetted here.
I can't say I've ever worked at or heard of a vet clinic using auricular thermometers with pets. It is not the norm, at all. Plus, if people want to complain about vet prices, and then want the staff to use a $45-90 animal-specific and likely inaccurate auricular thermometer instead of a $3 rectal thermometer, they have lost their right to complain.
vet-and-wild here.
I can add that there was a study for ferrets that you could use one of those baby forehead thermometers to get an accurate temperature between the shoulder blades. It was only one specific brand and my clinic has been trying it but it does not appear to match the rectal temperature. It’s usually 1-3 degrees off. Which isn’t a huge deal for a healthy ferret but if we’re getting a 103+ temp with a scan between the shoulder blades we are verifying it with a rectal thermometer to make sure it’s accurate. No animal is more uncooperative for a rectal temp than a ferret tbh. It would be great if we could have an alternative to rectal thermometers but they’re just not accurate for animals.