UF College of Veterinary Medicine
Public Relations Office

Bovine extension veterinarian aims to enhance
awareness of animal welfare issues

by SARAH CAREY

Jan Shearer, D.V.M., is an innovator who has been honored by institutions ranging from the USDA to the American Association of Bovine Practitioners to his alma mater, Ohio State University , for his many contributions to agriculture and animal health. Whether in the trenches teaching hoof care to dairy workers or suited up behind a podium lecturing on bovine welfare, Shearer, the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine's dairy extension veterinarian and chairman of the AABP's animal welfare committee, doesn't do anything halfway.

People notice.

Geni Wren, editor and associate publisher of Bovine Veterinarian magazine, is one of them. An admirer of Shearer's for some time, Wren approached him about a subject she felt needed to be dealt with in her magazine -- euthanasia and personal beliefs.

“She came to me and said, we need to put together and discuss some bovine welfare issues, and one pretty important topic is euthanasia,” Shearer said. “So she sent me a few questions, and I responded.”

The result was a cover story titled “The Kindest Act” in the January issue of the publication, which also contained an editorial written by Wren and stressing that euthanasia, while uncomfortable to many people, is a critical part of veterinary medicine.

“The hardest part of euthanasia is getting over the emotional aspect and coming to grips with doing it,” Shearer said. “This is about these cows we find on farms that often are down or dying and the dairyman doesn't have the emotional strength to put them down because it's his animal. We as vets need to step up to the plate and do it for them.”

Shearer said he knows owners of large dairy cattle operations in Florida and elsewhere who struggle with conducting euthanasia on their own animals.

“It's not something anyone wants to do, but it is what you have to do to relieve animal suffering,” Shearer said. “It's not always easy, but you have to be able to do it.”

As a member of the college admissions committee, Shearer said he often asks prospective students whether they are capable of conducting euthanasia if they have to.

“In reality, if you get into practice, you find that you are often in a position where it is necessary to end a life, and not always for good, sound medical reasons,” he said. “While students need to learn how to save lives, it's absolutely essential that they know how to end it when there is no medical means to relieve the suffering. Euthanasia is something we don't talk about enough here.”

So Shearer, who travels extensively as part of his extension responsibilities as well as in his AABP role, takes his message on the road.

“I speak a lot of places and talk about it a lot, because I realize it's one of those things you have to do,” Shearer said.

He also sees bovine lameness and animal welfare as interrelated.

“Part of the problem is that livestock producers don't understand that prey animals like cattle instinctively hide their pain and discomfort,” he said.

“In working with lameness problems over the years, I've come to understand how good these animals are at masking their pain. In the wild, prey animals that are injured or hurt are going to be the first ones to get eaten, so cattle have a natural instinct to hide pain and discomfort. Translating that information to dairymen and getting them to deal with lameness disorders more promptly is a very important message.”

In January, Shearer spoke at Iowa State University 's College of Veterinary Medicine , demonstrating hoof-trimming techniques to as many as 80 veterinary students and giving lectures on lameness awareness and foot care. He's lectured on animal welfare at Cornell's Dairy Institute and to its ethics class for freshman students. In February, he spoke to The Ohio State University's Food Animal Club on euthanasia and welfare of cattle. Shearer plans to address UF's food animal club about animal welfare issues later this month.

Part of what spurred Shearer to become such an advocate for better communication about euthanasia was an article he read in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2004 by Dr. Cydria Manette.

“What she pointed out, and what was so helpful, was how we deal with this issue as veterinarians,” Shearer said. “I used to go to the Humane Society many years ago to put animals down who were unadoptable. I remember thinking, this isn't what I signed up for when I became a vet. I had to make myself mechanical -- draw up the solution and find the vein and block out all of the emotional issues to get it done. It's not easy to do when you're sitting there looking at the puppy or kitten.”

Coping techniques can include projection of negative feelings onto the animal to be euthanized, and compartmentalizing to make the job “easier.”

But is euthanizing an animal ever easy? Shearer said it isn't, nor should it be.

He said he asks food animal students how many have dealt with euthanasia and if the matter bothers them.

“If they say no, they probably shouldn't be here in vet med,” Shearer said. “This profession isn't for them. All of us have had to face the paradox of our roles; we nurture and care for our animals knowing they will one day be slaughtered for food. Or, we must deal with the reality that some pets are not adoptable and must be euthanized.”

Therein lies the subject of an inner conflict that is so difficult, Shearer said.

“With respect to livestock, some of the conflict is fueled by anthropomorphism, which through TV, movies, etc. has had tremendous influence on our thinking,” he added. “It has caused many of us to develop coping strategies such as misrepresentation and compartmentalization to accomplish unpleasant things. But as Manette points out, these coping strategies rarely give us peace of mind, since they aren't authentic ways of dealing with this issue.”

If there is a solution to the conflict posed by euthanasia, it might be the concept animal welfare expert Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University describes as “sacred ritual.”

“A concept she uses is that all life has value and all life is important, and worthy of dignity and respect,” Shearer said. “She bows her head and says a little prayer when she goes to a packing plant. It's a reverence for life, not in the religious sense, but more the sense that all life is sacred.”

These words of Albert Schweitzer resonate with Shearer: “To the man who is truly ethical, all life is sacred, including that from which the human point of view seems lower. Man makes distinctions, under the presence of necessity, as for example, when it falls to him to decide which of two lives he must sacrifice in order to preserve the other. But through it all, he knows that he bears the responsibility for the life that is sacrificed.”

“We do our best to raise these animals up and make sure they are well cared for; that's our role as vets,” Shearer said. “When that day comes -- when euthanasia or slaughter is necessary -- we do our very best to make sure the process is as smooth and humane as can possibly be. We don't treat these animals disrespectfully; we treat them with dignity all the way through.

“I know that I am still going to struggle, but knowing that I am treating them humanely and with the respect they deserve authenticates my true feelings.”

These days, Shearer spends about half of his time on his Master Hoof Care Program, for which he was honored in 2003 by the USDA. The program offers training to dairy workers, including farm health technicians, private claw trimmers and veterinarians from all over the world. Its goal is to aid in the early detection and treatment of potential lameness disorders in cattle, before problems become critical.

The remainder of his time is spent on his work in the animal welfare communication arena.

“The lameness issue has brought me to a greater sensitivity and awareness of animal welfare issues,” Shearer said. “It's something I couldn't have anticipated, but the last five to ten years in particular, I've started to focus a lot more on these issues.”

He added that when he started out in the field of food animal medicine years ago, the primary objective in production veterinary medicine was to look out for the client's economic welfare.

“This was almost to the extent that this was the highest priority, while animal welfare was somewhere second,” Shearer said. “That's going to sound strange to some. But I see today that this is becoming entirely different. What I try to share with people I work with today is that those things need to be coupled.

“The vet's responsibility is to look out for the welfare of livestock; that's got to be paramount,” Shearer said. “My objective is to share that message as best I can. Improved animal welfare and improved profitability; I think they can go hand in hand.”